Health and Disability Reform

Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone

Wednesday 1st May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I encourage the noble Lord, with his knowledge and experience, to input into the consultation, as I suspect he probably will. He will know that the consultation is limited in scope to PIP, which is open only to claimants aged 16 and over. That is quite broad, but it is payable regardless of whether you are in work, education or, as he spoke about, training. We are keen to hear from people from all walks of life and backgrounds, and encourage everyone, including students, to respond to the consultation.

I take note of the noble Lord’s point about passporting. I know about EHC plans from my previous brief. It is important that the student diaspora and those who represent it also input to the conversation.

As I said, we believe there may be better ways of supporting people in living independent and fulfilling lives. This could mean financial support being better targeted at people, including students, who have specific extra costs, but it could involve improved support of other kinds, such as for physical as well as mental health, leading to better outcomes.

[Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone (Con)]

My Lords, I commend the Statement and the Green Paper. I regard the Secretary of State as someone with a warm and sincere heart, and a clear head. I think he is an impressive Secretary of State in a complex area. I also commend his Permanent Secretary, who is a quite excellent man.

Obviously, the understanding of disability and ill health changes all the time. This benefit has been around since 2013, and it is time for a strategic review. Earlier this week, we were talking about the late Frank Field. When I worked on benefit agencies with him, it was quite different. With these vast sums of money, we should focus and make sure that the money is spent wisely and well. There is only a certain amount of public money, as another party may discover in a few months’ time, although I can say nothing about that. Money cannot go both on doctors and nurses and on welfare payments, so we have to look strategically.

There are partners. Charities have a big part to play, and the Church is important in dealing with mental health. I remember the effect of Pentecostal choirs on West Indian boys with schizophrenia. They went to the Pentecostal choir, and said that they felt like new men, and I am not surprised.

I want to talk particularly about employers. Good employers have transformed the support that they offer to people with mental illness problems. Prevention is much better than cure, if you can reach out and help someone in the workplace to talk about their mental health problems. I agree about stigma. If you have schizophrenia then you say you have depression, and if you have depression then you say you have the flu. There are a number of employers that have impressed me, which I would point out to the Secretary of State, where there are ally groups supporting people’s mental health, and where facilities and services are provided. Yes, the Government have a part to play, but so does the wider community. Work, for most of us, is a lifesaver. I have never been more miserable than when I was stuck at home during Covid, and I do not think I am alone.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for her kind comments about the Secretary of State and the Permanent Secretary, with whom I am working closely, as she will know.

My noble friend made an important point about the variations among individuals who have conditions. As she alluded to, some claimants will have considerable extra costs related to their disability, while others will have fewer or minimal costs. This is why we have brought forward the Green Paper, looking at whether there are ways in which we can improve how we support people, where that is better suited to their needs and to the way they want to run their lives. I should also say that it is right that it is fairer to the taxpayer than the current system.

My noble friend is right that my department has been undertaking a huge amount of work with employers and that, with the rise in mental health conditions, sometimes people in work feel that they cannot stay in that job because of their condition. A lot of work has been going on to persuade or help them to stay in work, while holding their hands and giving them detailed, experienced, skilled advice on how to cope with their lives. That is working, and I could go into more detail on it, but it just shows that we are alert to the increase in mental ill health that has come about for a variety of reasons, not just because of Covid.

Comprehensive Economic Partnership (EUC Report)

Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone

Thursday 26th November 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to speak in this debate, and congratulate all those involved. Fortunately, I am in the minority as someone who was not a member of the International Agreements Sub-Committee, so your Lordships will be spared my insights on that matter—but I have certainly enjoyed the comments from members of the committee, and will quite soon regard myself as an expert as well, I am sure.

I am delighted to have been present for the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Darroch. I have always thought of him as a man of erudition, insight and wisdom. As someone who has served in Brussels, Washington and Japan as well as Whitehall, he evidently has a huge amount to offer us in our deliberations. My only disagreement is that I heard him say that he had always been treated with “matchless courtesy” and “forensic accuracy” when he appeared before committees. Any colleagues who have previously been in another place would not necessarily describe finding those things in a parliamentary Select Committee—but long may it last, and it may be a sign of things to come.

This trade agreement is a tremendous achievement that enables Britain to reassert our long-standing commitment to open, rules-based free trade as we leave the EU, stepping back on to the international stage as an independent, competitive trading nation with a global perspective.

I need to declare my interests: first, I am on an advisory council for a Japanese research-based pharmaceutical business and, secondly, I am a long-term director of the International Chamber of Commerce UK, an organisation which is unequivocally committed to free trade and has worked relentlessly over the years and in many ways to assist in this critical area of policy development, which is all too easily jeopardised in today’s world.

Japan is one of the largest, most open economies in the world, with 4% of world’s GDP. It remains our fourth-largest non-EU export partner and 12th including EU countries. Great credit should be given to the key International Trade Ministers who have invested massive energy, commitment and tenacity in this outcome. When visiting Japan recently, I was struck by how highly our Ministers are praised for their determination, energy and positivity, in particular the former Secretary of State for International Trade, the right honourable Liam Fox MP, and the present Secretary of State, the right honourable Liz Truss. A wonderful addition to the team has been my noble friend Lord Grimstone, a seasoned expert in many parts of the world and a wily, knowledgeable individual who greatly adds to our activities to secure effective, positive trade agreements.

Of course, this is only the beginning. I was influenced by the late Minister, Ernest Marples, who said, “You don’t need brains to be a Minister; the civil servants have them all”. I pay credit to the civil servants at the Department for International Trade, particularly Antonia Romeo, who from a standing start have developed a highly effective department. Thinking of the noble Lord, Lord Darroch, joining us, we are also much indebted to successive, highly-talented ambassadors, most recently Paul Madden—who my noble friend Lord Lansley referred to—Sir Tim Hitchens and Sir David Warren. When I was around, there was Sir John Whitehead, Sir John Boyd and Sir David Wright, all of whom were shrewd and wise in developing those commercial relationships and highly knowledgeable and effective.

Like others of my generation, I was influenced by the injunction of my Prime Minister at the time not overly to focus on the EU but to befriend and emulate Japan, a country where she found so many areas for common cause. Japan is the future. Over subsequent decades, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, said, we have seen investment, trading relationships and so forth develop. I led a delegation with Sir Richard Sykes, Prescribe UK, on the important pharmaceutical industry. We have heard about electronics, the motor industry and whisky—an ongoing saga even in my first visit in 1987 with, I believe, my noble friend Lord Howell. Anyone who heard yesterday’s debate in another place will have witnessed the degree to which Members of Parliament up and down the country, particularly those from the north-east and Wales, talked about their important trading relationships with and investments from Japan.

As with all agreements where trust is required to deliver sustainable results, soft power plays a central part. Our positive relations with Japan go much deeper than the commercial and economic. I have mentioned the tremendous work done by the British Council and VisitBritain over the decades. In 2019, the UK was ranked fifth for the most desired overseas travel destinations among people in Japan. Our cultures, though different in many ways, share a profound mutual fascination. When the V&A’s William Morris exhibition went on tour to Tokyo, more people visited it there than did in London. I remember Sir Geoffrey Cass, then chairman of the Royal Shakespeare Company, talking about the rapt, massive audiences who followed its performances there.

I hope that all my noble friends have purchased my noble friend Lord Howell’s delightful book, The Japan Affair, in which he details 35 years of the Japanese-British relationship based on his regular articles for the Japan Times. I for one strongly endorse his argument that we should recognise the strategic significance of this agreement and build it wider.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness. It would be wise if she could conclude her remarks.