Paul
Rowen: I agree. As I said this morning, concerns
have been raised about various aspects of the Bill and its overarching
scope. It is important to place safeguards in the Bill so that it is
clear to both the claimant and the personal adviser what is a just
cause. It is reasonable that we should do that.
Amendment 51
would insert a provision about reasonable adjustments into schedule 1.
We support the fact that more and more people who were previously
consigned to incapacity benefit will be supported back into employment.
However, there must be an onus on the employer to take into account
that person’s needs. There have been circumstances in which
someone has returned to work and found that the support that they were
promised did not materialise. We believe that it is reasonable for
someone not to continue an activity because of an employer’s
failure to provide the support that was promised. That might happen
because the employer did not, in all good faith, appreciate what the
support might involve. If we are considering people with a fluctuating
mental illness, it is difficult to prescribe the support that someone
will need, because that will vary over time and due to
circumstances. If an employer is not willing to accept that, it might be
a reason why a person is unable to continue an activity. We believe
that it is reasonable to accept that that can be a reason why a person
has had to withdraw from an activity, which is why I tabled
amendment
51. Amendment
52 would insert into schedule 1 the
words “including
that person’s mental health and any specific mental health needs
that that person may
have.” Again,
decisions to access sanctions against the claimant should take account
of a person’s specific mental health needs. The Bill allows
employment advisers to sanction claimants who have failed to comply
with their requirements by withdrawing benefits. There needs to be a
very specific safeguard to ensure that a person will not be penalised
if they fail to comply because of a particular illness. That comes down
to the fact that there needs to be an understanding of the fluctuating
nature of mental illness and how although, in an ideal world, we can
set up one set of circumstances, a person might need a totally
different level of support two or three months down the line. We want
to get some sort of commitment from the Government that if it is not
possible to take account of mental illnesses that may affect
someone’s ability to undertake tasks, there will not necessarily
be a sanction and a loss of a benefit. We believe that that is the
right way
forward. 4.15
pm Mr.
Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con): I shall speak in
support of amendment 78 and new clause 5. Amendment 78 largely covers
the same ground as that addressed by the hon. Member for Rochdale. It
would insert into clause 8 a provision with regard to
someone’s “mental
health and any specific mental health
needs”. Clause
8 is titled “Power to direct claimant to undertake specific
work-related activity”. It specifically relates to the
reasonableness of directions that may be given by the Secretary of
State and says that, when judging whether such a direction is
reasonable, the Secretary of State or someone acting on his behalf
should take into account the person’s mental health or their
mental health
needs. We
tabled the amendment to probe the extent to which the
Government’s regulations on work activity will adequately
cover someone’s health requirements. It was also tabled
specifically to consider the ability of Jobcentre Plus staff and to
determine whether, following the training that they will get, they will
have the skills necessary to take into account someone’s mental
health needs themselves, or whether they would refer them to a
professional who was able to do so. I should like some clarification on
that. Mind
kindly supplied a briefing note in which it suggested new clause 5,
which I thought was worth tabling. I do not propose to press it to a
Division, but I want to explore Mind’s ideas about Access to
Work. The Minister will know that Access to Work may be used by someone
once they get into work, when their employer can have an assessment
done to see what help they need. However, under the new clause, prior
to getting employment, a new ESA claimant, or an existing
incapacity benefit claimant with a mental health problem who had moved
to ESA, would be able to get an assessment through Access to Work to
determine what reasonable adjustments they might need to improve their
ability to get a job and, importantly, to retain it. That assessment
would have to be carried out before that claimant was compelled to
undertake any compulsory work-related activity. It would be possible to
fund any reasonable adjustments recommended in the assessment through
Access to Work, and that would give an employer the confidence that the
cost attached to taking on a person with adjustments to their working
routines, which might affect the way that they were going to employ
them, would be funded. That would be a change to the way in which
Access to Work works. I want to test the Government, to see whether
they think such a proposal is worthy of exploration, and to find out
the direction in which they might be
going. Access
to Work recently had its budget doubled, which we welcomed. The present
Minister for disabled people, the Under-Secretary of State for Work and
Pensions, the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford, and his
predecessors have said that Access to Work is one of the
Government’s best-kept secrets and that they do not want it to
be so. New clause 5 might be a way to improve the
situation.
Mr.
McNulty: I would not necessarily include new clause 5 in
what I am about to say, but, in essence, we are being asked to provide
for things that are already provided for. We already have provisions to
ensure that a person’s health is always considered, so there is
no need for that to be prescribed in the Bill. We say clearly that a
person’s circumstances have to be taken fully into account, and
I am at a loss to know what definition of “person’s
circumstances” would preclude a consideration of either physical
or mental
health. It
is important that the array of conditions is taken into account.
However, I caution the hon. Member for Rochdale about—I hesitate
to use the phrase “undue specificity”
again—specifying what he requests in the Bill. People might feel
good if they get those words into the Bill, but they would not do the
individuals on whom the policy is focused any favours. Allowing the
flexibility for a broad range of definitions of people’s
circumstances to be put in regulations will afford the greatest
possible breadth of definition. I am comfortable with the Bill as it
stands, because we want that flexibility in regulation, not least
because regulations can be adjusted far more easily than primary
legislation. If we went down the road of undue specificity and put too
much in the Bill, but later found that we had left something out, we
would have to wait for another legislative vehicle before we could
alter the primary
legislation.
Paul
Rowen indicated
dissent.
Mr.
McNulty: The hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but that is a
matter of fact, unless he wants a social security Bill every year,
regardless of the circumstances, with all that would mean for what we
are trying to do to reform and simplify this area. Things should be as
straightforward as possible. There is broad consensus among Committee
members about the need for flexibility, but we cannot have flexibility
while we are trying to define such things in the Bill.
I
accept the comments made by the hon. Member for Glasgow, East about
mental illness, and I accept what others have said about having due
regard to people’s experiences of domestic violence, or their
need to help members of their family, and the barriers that such
circumstances might present to work-related activities or any part of
the journey. There are, quite deliberately, a host of personal
circumstances that can and should be taken into account, but we do
future users no favours by over-defining
things. I
am glad that the hon. Member for Forest of Dean has recognised that we
have doubled the Access to Work moneys. He will know that we are
piloting flexibility around Access to Work—in London, in the
first instance. I agree with my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary that it
is one of our best-kept secrets, but going down the road of new clause
5 would be a tad impractical simply because it would be impossible to
determine what reasonable adjustments someone might need until one knew
what job they were going to do, so there is almost a circular
deficiency to the argument. Do I accept that there should be some
greater flexibility regarding Access to Work? Yes, I do, and we will
look with interest at what the London pilot comes up with. For such a
potentially vulnerable group, we should, in all practical
circumstances, do what works. New clause 5 might create extra
bureaucracy and add significant costs, so while the idea and sentiment
behind it are certainly worth exploring, I would not put it in the
Bill. I shall therefore rather tediously—I might change the
record once or twice at a later stage—ask hon. Members not to
press their amendments.
Paul
Rowen: In saying that we are trying to over-specify, the
Minister has not understood the problem. The Bill gives jobcentre staff
huge powers, but does not specify the limits of those powers. We might
get regulations that set some limits, but, if experience is anything to
go by, much will be left to discretion. The amendments do not seek to
prescribe the definition of mental health, a person’s
circumstances in relation to mental illness, or the circumstances that
might involve them having to leave employment. They say merely that
those things should be accepted as just causes under the Bill. I make
no apologies for tabling such amendments. In our view, recognising such
things in the Bill would be a vital protection for vulnerable
people. We
are not saying that the amendments would define everything—they
would not. I fully accept that regulations will specify the
circumstances under which mental illness will be accepted as a just
cause, but it is dangerous not to include such provisions in the
Bill.
Mr.
McNulty: With the greatest respect, the hon. Gentleman is
defining things. If he were to put something in the Bill that was
separate from regulations, with all that that implies, it would prevail
over all other personal circumstances. That is precisely why we need to
leave things general and flexible, which would be in the interests of
the vulnerable people whom the hon. Gentleman seeks to
help.
Paul
Rowen: I refer the Minister to amendment 47, which would
provide for having regard to a person’s mental health. I accept
that that regard will come from a health professional. The amendment
would not define mental illness in the Bill, but say that that must be
taken into account. Regulations can set out the
conditions
under which a mental health condition would be
regarded. I would have thought that reference to advice from a mental
health professional should be the way
forward.
Mr.
Harper: The hon. Gentleman and the Minister are talking at
cross purposes. This discussion has been helpful because the Minister
has been able to explain to the Committee the direction that will be
taken when his officials draft the regulations and he introduces them.
To that extent, it has been helpful that the Liberal Democrats and
Conservatives have tabled these amendments, because the Minister has
been able to explain that mental health will be one of the important
factors taken into account in the regulations. We are comfortable that
that has been
encompassed. The
Minister is right when he says that specifying in the Bill one set of
circumstances, but not all of them, would create the danger of putting
one ahead of the other, which I would not want. I would not want mental
health needs to take precedence over other circumstances that might be
equally important, and I think that that is how we square the
circle.
Paul
Rowen: I understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying, and
we have tabled amendments that deal with other areas of concern.
However, on this issue, it is worth pressing the amendment to a
Division. Question
put, That the amendment be made.
The
Committee divided: Ayes 2, Noes
9.
Division
No.
1] Question
accordingly
negatived.
4.30
pm
Meg
Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op): I beg to move
amendment 75, in clause 2, page 7, line 5, at end
insert— ‘(aa) must be
reasonable, having regard to whether the person has a learning
disability and the nature of that learning
disability; (ab) must be
reasonable, having regard to the adequacy of the support available to
be provided to the person if they have a learning
disability;’.
The
Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss
amendment 76, in clause 8, page 14, line 15, at end insert ‘;
and (d) must take into
account— (i) any
misunderstanding of the requirements to participate owing to the nature
of a participant’s learning disability,
and (ii) the adequacy of
support provided to any participant with a learning disability to
ensure they understood the requirements placed upon
them.’.
Meg
Munn: I am about to make the point that my right hon.
Friend the Minister made quite well in relation to undue specificity by
raising another area that I think is enormously important. I am doing
it because I specifically want to probe that the relevant regulations
will take into account the specific needs of people with a learning
disability. I would also like to welcome, in some respects, the
document, that the Minister has provided for us, on the use of
regulation-making powers. Some of the issues that I am raising are set
out within that, which is reassuring. I also want to note the helpful
exchange which took place at the third sitting of the Committee with
the Minister and his officials. I will not, therefore, be going over
that ground.
However, I am
seeking reassurance that the needs of people with learning disabilities
will be properly taken into account when directions are given about
work-related activity. Along with their needs, proper consideration
should be given to their need for support, whether support is in place,
and whether it is adequate to enable them to undertake that
work-related activity.
I am very
supportive of the concept of personalisation, although not the use of
that term. It needs to mean helping people in the way that is most
helpful to them. That is complex in regards to people with learning
disabilities; it means recognising their capabilities, alongside areas
where they need help. In responding to these amendments, can the
Minister for the South East, my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and
Aylesford give me the reassurance that personal adviser will indeed be
properly trained to identify those issues, to make proper assessments
and ensure that people with learning disabilities are only directed to
work-related activities that are reasonable as far as their own
particular circumstances are concerned, and that they get the
appropriate support that that individual needs to undertake those
activities.
| 
