Welfare Reform Bill

To conclude, we would all be interested to see the US evidence, but the consultant psychiatrist in the East London foundation trust agrees that a few people might be drawn in by compulsory treatment. The problem is that the down side, the negative consequences, for the very much larger number completely outweighs the possible benefit to a few. That psychiatrist—she is a very good consultant psychiatrist—said that that would be incredibly unhelpful. She works with drug users all the time, she has given her life to it, and she said, "Please, this is just not going to help us in this very difficult task of drawing these people in and keeping them engaged to a point where perhaps they can resolve their many difficulties and therefore return to work". I think that one should take the views of a practitioner like that, along with the noble Lord, Lord Rea, very seriously. Those people really understand the incredible difficulties of dealing with these issues. I am very disappointed by the Minister’s reply. I hoped that he would be willing to take the amendment away and think about redrafting Clause 9 so that it could be a positive rather than, in my view, a very negative contribution.