Welfare Reform Bill

I, too, strongly support these amendments, perhaps for a slightly indirect reason as well as a direct one. The direct reason was ably spelt out by my noble friend Lady Murphy; that is, the problems faced by those with mental health problems trying to cope with some of the demands that may be implicit in the Bill. I am thinking not just about people with mental health problems in the community but those held in institutions. This is where the slightly indirect implication arises. For the past three years I have been involved with the Independent Asylum Commission, looking at the treatment of asylum seekers and immigrants, including those suffering from extreme mental health problems. We described in our report a disturbing factor that came out of all this as a culture of disbelief. This permeated officialdom and meant that it was not geared to understand, and therefore cater for, the problems which existed. One of the reasons why I am all for spelling out as much as one possibly can of what one means by "good cause", is to help overcome that culture of disbelief, which we simply cannot afford to have spreading through a system involving people who suffer from the problems that we are discussing.