Welfare Reform Bill

In that case, I will continue in the way that I started and intended. As I was saying, the first problem is identification. It is easy enough when the illness is confessed—being on drugs to ameliorate that illness, and so on—but when the illness is not self-confessed, problems can occur. An example of this might be a physical illness such as some types of ME or, following surgery, depression, which might spiral down to deep depression. We have been told that personal advisers are already trained to detect mental illness, but I understand that this training amounts to a three-day course. Here I invite the Minister to correct me if I am wrong. I thought not. My point is that only psychiatrists and psychiatric triage nurses, whose training is long and arduous, have a hope of detecting difficult cases. Therefore, it is unlikely that personal advisors will arrive at the right conclusion and that will happen, if it happens at all, even before the scheme in Clause 1 comes into operation. If—it is a big if—the participant is correctly diagnosed for the Secretary of State’s purposes for moving him closer to, or ideally into, the job market, the next thing is to choose the scheme that is right for him. This may involve him going to a doctor for the appropriate drugs, a confidence-building course, part-time voluntary work, or possibly, if a suitable employer can be found, part-time work—all the things that we have heard about as we have progressed through the early stages of the Bill. It is hoped that all that will progress him into paid work. As the Government have acknowledged, the right support and assistance is vital in helping participants to get back into work. I agree with Rethink and its fellow travellers that it is necessary to learn from the mistakes that are inevitable in the early stages of the operation of this Bill. I will have more to say about that when we come to the issue of piloting. For now, however, I support the idea behind this grouping introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Rix. The Minister will, I suspect, say that the amendments go too far, but I hope that the Secretary of State will monitor what is going on. That monitoring should start in the jobcentre and continue through the scheme’s progress. The problem with the amendments as they stand—unless I have misread them—is that there must be a report on every impairment category. Is that wise? How does the noble Lord, Lord Rix, intend to break down these categories? I doubt from what he has said that he means there to be only two categories: namely, physical and mental. How would he categorise those with a physical disability, but with a mild or serious mental consequence, which I mentioned earlier? Is being in a wheelchair a category or would he break down the categories of wheelchair users into the reasons why people are in a wheelchair? I could go on but I hope I have made my point. On the second part of the first amendment, I have a small problem regarding the issue of where monitoring is required on the contractors, who presumably will report on their subcontractors. Surely there is no point in monitoring what is going to happen. The Government need to know what has happened, so that when the piloting stage ends and the schemes are evaluated before being rolled out nationwide, the Government will have the data needed to evaluate the pilots, based on what has happened, rather than on what will, might or even could happen. In summary, while I support the principle of these amendments, I am afraid that I cannot support them as they stand. I suspect that the Minister is in the same position.