UK Parliament / Open data

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Proceeding contribution from Baroness Meacher (Crossbench) in the House of Lords on Monday, 25 January 2016. It occurred during Debate on bills on Welfare Reform and Work Bill.

My Lords, I really was not expecting to speak today on this. We had asked that Amendment 43, on IAPT, be shifted and taken separately on Wednesday. The IAPT programme has now been going for 10 years: we had the first pilot in the mental health trust in east London 10 years ago. The point of that pilot, and of the whole programme, was to help the large numbers of people with mental health problems back into work. I remember talking to jobcentre staff and having great difficulty persuading them to refer people to the programme. Ten years on, we have so much evidence that if people with depression or anxiety receive good therapy quickly, they achieve remarkable results—far better results than any other that I am aware of in the psychological therapies. I stand here completely unprepared, save only to say to the Minister:

please make use of what is an excellent programme on the whole—nothing is perfect everywhere, of course not—to help the 50% or so of unemployed people who desperately need precisely such help so that they can quickly get back to work. I make that big appeal to the Minister.

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

768 c1036 

Session

2015-16

Chamber / Committee

House of Lords chamber
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