Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, Amendment 37 makes provision for the assessment of fluctuating conditions over a period of time so that the capability for work of a claimant with a fluctuating condition can be properly assessed and documented. I understand that work capability assessments are generally undertaken on a single day—the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—but someone with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, for example, who happened to be having a good day on the day of their assessment might well be deemed capable of work when an assessment a week or a month later would find serious problems that would rule out any return to work for the foreseeable future. I know that the Minister understands perfectly well the particular needs of claimants with mental health disorders. We debated these issues at length in Committee and I certainly shall not repeat the arguments that I put forward then. Our concerns are exacerbated by the fact that, as I understand it, the assessments are turning away about 50 per cent of people who might have become eligible for employment and support allowance. How many of those claimants have fluctuating disorders? I do not know whether the Minister has any information on that. These people will become jobseeker’s allowance claimants and thus subject to much more rigorous jobseeking requirements. If people with mental health problems find their benefits sanctioned due to an inaccurate assessment, it could have very serious consequences. I speak as a chair of a mental health trust. It does not take much to knock many of our service users over the edge. If somebody who is struggling to cope on benefits and to pay their rent, council tax and bills suddenly finds that they have less money available, they will no longer be able to pay. They then receive an eviction order and they then find that they are being turned out of their home. This is not melodramatic; it is what goes on. Our social services staff spend a large proportion of their time dealing with precisely those crises of potential eviction, trying to prevent a person from losing their home. We have a unit of four staff in our housing department who do nothing else but try to make sure that our service users remain in their homes. It does not take much imagination to realise that, if a person loses their home, their first step is on to the streets and their second into one of our in-patient beds. For the whole of east London, we have something like 600 in-patient beds and some 30,000 potential in-patients. You need only a small percentage increase in the proportion of potential patients who become in-patients to create a massive problem. We simply would not cope. I know that the aim of the Government is to ensure that claimants who are well and can work are enabled and helped to find jobs. I know that it is not their intention to drive sick people into hospital or worse. However, I want to impress on the Minister that this is not a marginal amendment; it is incredibly important, particularly so in the context of the downturn, when we are going to have to make cuts and we are going to have to fight like anything not to cut the number of our in-patient beds, which I think we will manage. However, there will be serious consequences if people with mental health disorders are wrongly assessed and fair numbers of them therefore find themselves in the situation that I have described. I beg to move.