Welfare Reform Bill

I thank the Minister for his thoughtful response and the Members of the House who have taken part in this useful debate. It is frustrating for me that there is evidence about the interventions that are likely to work with people who have the most common types of mental illnesses which restrict their ability to work—mainly anxiety and depression. The use of programmes such as Beating the Blues—the cognitive behavioural therapy approach which is most widely used in mental health, and the most widely researched intervention in the world—has a measurable and predictable impact on mental health. It is possible to apply some of these approaches and improve a depression and anxiety score such as to enable someone to work. It is important that we pick up on the point, which noble Lords may not fully have understood, that we are dealing with people in a client group who are sometimes ill, but most of whom want to work. This is not me saying that—it is the expression of these individuals. They recognise that work is a powerful mental health improver. One in six people with serious mental health conditions currently work, and yet eight in 10 wish to do so. This means that there are 356,000 people with mental health conditions in the UK who wish to work but are not doing so. These people are inviting an intervention. Although I recognise the seriousness of the Minister’s remarks on this issue, there is a systems failure that we could resolve. This is not about people like me and my organisations coming up with credible solutions; we have to match those credible solutions with the policy and the practice of the DWP. That is why the amendment is so important. While I am on the subject of the work programme, my discussions with Ministers often ended with the sentence, ““It is early days””—and it is early days—but the days are running out. I underline the fact that those people in the position of working to primes do not have a great deal of confidence that there will be improvement. Only 8 per cent of third-sector subcontractors are confident that the work programme will hit its target. That is not good, in case noble Lords were wondering. Some 9 per cent of third-sector subcontractors felt that the work programme’s payment system was adequate to help those furthest from the labour market. That is not good either. Many subcontractors are moving out of the work programme. My own organisation absolutely wants to contribute and we have the capability to deliver at scale, but we are worried whether we can do that. Even primes, to quote from a prime, "““cannot buck the market, so even more reason to keep clients for themselves””." That is, for market reasons they are holding back the very clients that we need to help. The matter is urgent and will not go away. I accept the Minister’s confidence that the system will improve but I see people with mental health challenges every day who are desperate to work and who have to go through the rigmarole of jobcentre prime. They get lost and held in the system. That is unacceptable and it wastes money. I had no idea of pushing this to a vote until it was mentioned—that is not a bad idea but no. With the assurance of the Minister’s open door and a joint approach to this, perhaps with others, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 62E withdrawn. Amendment 62EA Moved by