Mental Health: Cost of Living Support

Debate between Baroness Knight of Collingtree and Lord Freud

Thursday 7th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, helping people with mental health problems and similar conditions is, clearly, not easy. The main problem is that they face a huge variety of problems. We need to help them as much as we can to negotiate their way through a complicated system. I have taken a huge interest in this issue myself, and in the most important area in this respect. We now have a study on what we are calling psychological well-being and work, to look at how we can help people negotiate their way into the workplace, with adequate health support on the way.

[Baroness Knight of Collingtree (Con)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that although people in this category are legally allowed to claim money that will help them get to work if they are able to work, the person allocated to them from the health service to try to give them all the advice they need hardly ever tells them that they can claim money for this purpose? Will he please look at that point?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I will look at that point—but we are making real efforts now to join up the provision by the DWP and by the Department of Health. I am working very closely with Norman Lamb in this area. We have put a lot of effort into signposting, and into training our teams in the DWP and the Work Programme providers, who have put in a toolkit to help. However, I will certainly look into whether I can do more.

Children: Contact with Fathers

Debate between Baroness Knight of Collingtree and Lord Freud

Thursday 13th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

We are clearly in a position where we have a huge deficit and we need to find ways of reducing it. One thing about the spare room subsidy is that if we were to make double provision for children—in other words, a room in two different places—that would cost the state another £50 million. There are lots of desirables that we would all like to see, but we have really got to go to the essentials when we are running the kind of deficit that we are.

[Baroness Knight of Collingtree]

My Lords, referring back to the question about grandparents, does not my noble friend agree that it will be no use relying on grandparents in a few years’ time? Bearing in mind that the non-mixing and matching of parents, such as we have had in the past, is now disappearing, we will not be able to rely on a grandparental relationship when that extends to that generation.

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, one thing that happens today which has not happened so much in previous generations is that we have much more complex family networks, with in-laws and step-parents around. It is a more complicated position, but I suspect that it is possible to form relationships at both the parent and grandparent level, even if that is more complicated than it has been.