Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, like other noble Lords, I give a cautious welcome to this Bill, with its aim to achieve an 80 per cent employment rate. My caution is not because of the aim but because, as many other noble Lords have explained, aspects of the Bill suggest that full consideration has not been given to the practicalities and realities that result from the measures that are being proposed. I have to admit that, on reading the Bill, I had an awful suspicion that some of it may have been motivated by lurid stories in the media about people who have been defrauding the system. It is said that soldiers can only think in threes. To prove that that is absolutely correct, I have three points to make, two of which have already been more than adequately covered by my noble friends Lord Rix, Lady Meacher and Lady Murphy, as one would expect with their expertise. The third one has been briefly touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh. I declare an interest as an adviser to the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health. Three years ago, the centre very deliberately embarked on a complete change of tack and set out to study two things: first, the treatment and care of those with mental health problems in prison; and, secondly, the problems faced not only by prisoners but also by other people with mental health problems in obtaining employment. The centre is about to publish an interim report on what it has learnt about the problems in finding employment. One of my great disappointments as Chief Inspector of Prisons was when the then Minister of Prisons stopped me writing a report on what I called "minorities"—those from black and minority ethnic communities, children, the disabled, the elderly and the mentally disordered—on the ground that he did not want me to deal with race. I said, "If you are not going to deal with race, I cannot cover all the minorities, because they all have to be treated in the same way". It is important that, in considering this Bill, we do not forget the subset of the children, the mentally disordered, the elderly and the disabled who are in prison and who face double jeopardy, first, because of the lack of treatment while they are in prison and, secondly, because of the problems that they face on being reintegrated into society when they come out. Therefore, I very much hope that any of the provisions in this Bill are taken on board by the Ministry of Justice in determining how it should treat people in those categories who are in its care. I do not wish to say any more about people with mental health problems because that issue has been more than adequately covered by my noble friends. But I emphasise most strongly my concern about the lack of skill that is likely if we have personal advisers with inadequate training for dealing with these people. In fact, wrong or inadequate guidance can often be far more dangerous than no guidance at all. It is not something with which we can dabble. Going back to my prison experience, I was horrified to find when I started inspecting in 1995 that there were virtually no people with any form of psychiatric training to deal with a population of whom 70 per cent had some form of identified personality disorder to start with. The people doing that work were struggling and appealing for help to enable them to do the job. I suspect that that is exactly what will happen when these personal advisers are given responsibilities to work with people whom they do not understand; they will be asking for help to do the tasks that they have been given. The report by Liberty, which has already been mentioned, raises the question whether the drug provision in Clause 9 may be in breach of the Human Rights Act. It goes on to suggest that the clause is flawed in conception, intrusive, unnecessary and counterproductive. I declare an interest as chairman of the Cross-Party Group on Drug and Alcohol Treatment and Harm Reduction. I am concerned that the provisions in this Bill are all against the inclinations and realities of dealing with people with drug problems, as other noble Lords have mentioned. When I look at the people in the hands of the probation service—240,000 of them—at least two-thirds are drug dependent, 84 per cent have the literacy level of an 11 year-old or less and the vast majority are already unemployable. Before launching these measures, are the Government satisfied that all the resources to deal with these vast numbers are there? Until and unless the resources are in place, it is totally pointless to introduce these measures in the Bill. What do I mean by "resources"? Have the Government thought through and made arrangements for what is most likely to happen? A sizeable proportion will fail to turn up for their assessment, for which they will be prosecuted and their benefits taken away. How do they then survive? Has provision been made for the increased numbers of assessors and monitors required? Have the Government made plans to satisfy the inevitable demand for residential and non-residential treatment places? Unless these requirements are satisfied before the measure is introduced, the Government risk making the present situation worse rather than better because they will be forcing people into crime. That is not to say that something should not be done to tackle the problem of substance abuse, but this is not best done by an isolated clause in a Bill on welfare reform. The solution to the drug problem requires dramatic changes to the law, consideration of prevention and the whole question of prohibition and the recognition that addiction is an illness liable to relapse. I shall be thinking seriously about recommending that the clause do not stand part of the Bill until something is done that I recommend to the Minister and that I hope will happen. At the beginning, the Minister mentioned the fact, which I applaud, that the Bill had been helped by meetings that he had had with the RNID and the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, and her disability group. I hope that the same will apply to the clauses dealing with mental health and drug takers. There will be plenty of people willing to take part in such constructive discussion to make certain that the opportunity presented by this Bill is not wasted. A great deal of work needs to be done on this Bill but, as I said at the start, I join all those who have given it a cautious welcome. I look forward to contributing in any way that I can. My caution is not about the aim but about the various measures dealing with different parts of society that I believe need considerable attention.