Child Poverty Bill

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Freud, for his amendment. I am going to sound a bit like a broken record in my response. As he is aware, we have deliberately set out the main areas of policy in broad terms in Clause 8(5) to allow the strategy to respond to changing circumstances between now and 2020. Part of the task in developing the strategy will be to consider the specific measures which are needed in each area. As many noble Lords have pointed out, there is an important link between health issues, particularly mental health issues, and the causes and consequences of child poverty. Health and employment in particular are fundamentally linked; the noble Lord made that point. Health has an impact upon an individual’s ability to enter, remain in and return to work and can affect a parent’s ability to provide for their family. Equally, work, or the lack of it, can have an impact on an individual’s health. There is good evidence that living in a workless household has a measurable adverse impact on later mental health and individual resilience. The Black review of the health of Britain’s working-age population was published in March 2008. Dame Carol estimated that the annual economic cost of ill health in terms of working days lost and worklessness was, according to the spreadsheets, over £100 billion. The economic costs in terms of the waste of human potential are matched by the personal cost to the health and well-being of individuals and their families. The government response to the Black review, published in November 2008, launched a package of initiatives aimed at improving the health in work of Britain’s working-age population. The initiatives are designed to create new perspectives on health and work, improve workplaces and support people into work. In relation to mental health specifically, recently we asked three experts in the field of mental health—Rachel Perkins, Paul Farmer and Paul Litchfield—to carry out a review into the ways in which we might be able to reduce the high levels of worklessness among people with a mental health condition. The findings of the review, entitled Realising Ambitions, Better Employment Support for People with a Mental Health Condition, was published in December 2009. We will consider those recommendations and respond in due course. The amendment asks for the inclusion of health in subsection (5)(c) to be broken down into physical or mental health. It is our view that the amendment is unnecessary, because as has been recognised in a powerful way by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, "health" is already wide enough to cover physical and mental health. As I have already said, the building blocks are broad areas for consideration when preparing the strategy, and we should avoid being too prescriptive in the wording. Again, we are not apart on the need to address mental health as part of these strategies. The noble Lord suggested that not enough had been done in relation to mental health. I will not take the time of the Committee to run through a great deal of work that has been done in recent times and the investment that has been made, but I do not think that we are apart on the need to see this as part of the strategy, only the need to include it in specific terms in the Bill. On that basis, I hope that the noble Lord will not press the matter.