Welfare Reform Bill

If we are talking about people who would be in the support group, there is no requirement to engage in work-focused interviews or work-related activity. If people are not in the support group, conditionality is attached to that but there is no requirement for individuals to carry out any specific type of activity or treatment. That cannot be sanctioned. Before discussing the treatment of a failure to meet conditionality requirements, I shall touch on how we will notify customers of requirements to undertake interviews and activity. The draft work-focused interview regulations specify that the notification of a work-focused interview can be in writing or by telephone. Furthermore, they provide that the interview may take place in a customer’s home if necessary. The safeguards set out in the supporting material also specifically provide for making contact with customers before each work-focused interview to remind them that it is due, letting them know to get in touch if there is any difficulty with the planned date, time or place and encouraging advocacy support if needed. These measures combine to ensure that we take multiple steps to ensure that our customers are aware and understand the requirement. When work-related activity is introduced, work-focused interviews will also be utilised to provide the customer with information and advice about the requirement to undertake activity and the ways in which they can meet it. That will be in addition to a written notification required by the regulations. Additionally, as the Minister of State for Employment and Welfare Reform explained in another place, the Department for Work and Pensions is currently conducting reviews of the forms of the material, including letters, to ensure that they convey necessary information to customers as sensitively as possible. That has been done in close consultation with support groups and organisations and with individuals with mental health conditions. For all customers subject to conditionality, a sanction can be imposed only if they fail to meet the requirement without good cause. Our intention in providing for good cause when there is a failure to meet a requirement is to give protection to customers who are unable to participate for reasons outside their control. As I have touched on previously, we have made draft regulations available to noble Lords for Clauses 10 and 11, dealing with work-focused health-related assessments and work-focused interviews. They set out some of the matters that can be considered when determining whether a customer has shown good cause for a failure to attend or participate in an assessment or interview. We have deliberately made sure that these lists are not exhaustive to ensure that we can look at each individual circumstance that will help to ensure fair treatment, especially for the most vulnerable. The list includes, for example, taking into account the nature of a customer’s disability and the state of his health at the time of the assessment. We believe that that approach will allow all relevant factors to be taken into account in determining the good cause. We are also putting a comprehensive package of safeguards in place, based on those in Pathways to Work areas. Safeguards include contacting customers to remind them of interviews or assessments, encouraging advocacy advice when necessary and identifying any issues from medical evidence that may impact on attendance. Additionally, when a customer has a mental condition or learning disability, a visit is made to a customer, with his representative if appropriate, if a sanction is to be imposed. As we roll out Pathways and introduce the employment and support allowance, we shall of course keep those under review to provide a good service to our customers. I shall reiterate some clear commitments on our intentions relating to good cause for failure to meet a requirement to do work-related activity. We intend that when a person’s physical or mental condition makes it impossible for him to have met the requirement, that will be a relevant factor listed in the regulations relating to good cause. We also intend to bring forward safeguards based on those that we have set out for work-focused interviews. All those processes will ensure that the substantial protections that we offer customers in Pathways to Work will be brought forward as the employment and support allowance is introduced. On the five-day period, customers must show good cause, but we recognise that a balance is to be struck in allowing customers reasonable time to show that they have good cause for not taking part in a work-focused, health-related assessment. The provision in the draft regulations is for people to have five working days in which to show that they have good cause, in line with the provision in Pathways for work-focused interviews. It would not be reasonable to let people postpone an assessment indefinitely by giving them unlimited time to show good cause for non-attendance. In addition, the certainty of knowing the date by which an explanation must be received and the point at which we can be certain that we can safely make a determination without good cause will help the timely and efficient delivery of the new benefit. Some specific questions were raised that I should like to cover. We touched on the issue of the evidence on what has and has not worked, and I know that we shall have a substantial debate on CBT and all that surrounds it. There has been a suggestion that forcing people with mental health conditions to do conditionality will damage their health; we shall approach such cases sensitively, applying the full range of safeguards, such as home visits, encouraging a support worker to be present, and ensuring that there is a pre-interview contact with a customer when personal advisers can explain their purpose. However, we believe fundamentally that engagement with society in some form of work-related activity is a force for good. Engaging with us in this way may help to ensure that people get their full entitlement to benefits. The question was raised whether a work-focused interview at eight weeks could lead to a sanction for people who end up in a support group. The answer is no. Any failure to come to a week eight work-focused interview, if it is determined after that period that the person should be in the support group, would not give rise to any sanction. I have tried to touch on the issues of good cause raised by a number of members of the Committee. This has been a good run-through a very important issue. We all want this to work and we need to address the issues sensitively. That is our determination. I am sorry to hear about the particular case that the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, cited, but there is a danger in extrapolating from a particular example to saying that it is the generality. A lot of effort has gone into serving all our customers. There is one fact that many have dwelt on during the passage of the Bill—that customers who are on incapacity benefits after two years are more likely to die or retire than to return to work. That is the failure of the voluntary approach. Abandoning customers on that basis is, I hope, a failure of the past. Engaging customers to help them to achieve their ambitions through assessments, interviews and activity is the right thing to do. I hope that noble Lords will be reassured by the safeguards and processes that we have put in place, which will be brought forward into the new benefit. They provide real and substantial protection for customers, especially those with mental health conditions or learning disabilities. Accordingly, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.