Clause 9
Welfare Reform Bill
5:15 pm
Mark Harper (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; Forest of Dean, Conservative)
I wish to speak about several issues relating to this aspect of the Bill. At the beginning, it is worth saying that my party supports the proposals in the Bill for a treatment allowance. That came out clearly in the evidence sessions, but I say it again for avoidance of doubt because the Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform has recently stated the opposite by rather mischievously taking a very short quotation from the former shadow Secretary of State and missing out important words that completely changed the meaning of the sentence.
I am making my remarks by way of ensuring that the proposals are properly questioned. Also, I want them to be successful, but I have some doubts, which are based on feedback about whether they will work from sensible practitioners in this area from whom we did not hear during the evidence sessions.
Claimants who are dependent on drugs are a real problem. The Minister highlighted a real issue, and I know from my own constituents, from people I have spoken to throughout the country and from the clear reaction of members on both sides of the Committee when we were listening to some of the evidence that it is an issue for all Members. For some, it is a problem in their constituencies.
The first thing that is worth discussing is treatment capacity, which came up a great deal during the evidence session. This is one of the areas that I want Ministers to clarify. When the Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform was asked about it, we were talking about the number of problem drug users who were on benefits. The number that was floating around was 240,000. A concern was expressed about whether the capacity would be available if a significant number of those people were captured by the proposals and referred to drug treatment services. I think that I am accurately paraphrasing the Minister by saying that he pointed out that, in the initial stages, the focus would be on only heroin and crack users, because that was where the biggest problem was, so the whole drug problem would not be tackled.
However, if we consider the numbers concerned, there are approximately 330,000 problem drug users in England—they are the heroin or crack addicts. Two thirds of them are on benefits, but only half of those on benefits are accessing drug treatment. It seems that even if the Department focuses on the heroin and crack addicts who the Minister states are the priority, there are 267,000 problem drug users. Even if a relatively small percentage of those were to be dealt with each year, that would represent a significant increase in the number of users accessing drug treatment. I am not convinced that there will be the capacity to provide that treatment. There would be nothing worse than using the powers in the Bill to persuade or cajole benefit claimants to access treatment only to find that that treatment was not available. That would not help anyone at all.
The Minister rubbished it somewhat, but the evidence provided to the Committee by DrugScope about a response that it received from the Department of Health suggested that an increase in drug users referred through this process could be dealt with only by accelerating them in the queue ahead of those who had come to drug treatment voluntarily. The Minister needs to clarify that because that would not be satisfactory. It would not be helpful if those who had come forward for drug treatment of their own volition were moved down the queue so that people who were there because of a threat of sanction could be dealt with. The Minister needs to tackle the question of how many problem drug users he expects this process to deal with—the Department must have made an estimate—and what impact that will have on the available treatment services in England. In a moment, I will deal with some examples from Wales, where there are specific issues about the length of time that users have to wait to access treatment services. There was some discussion at the evidence session about the extent to which the Department is engaging with the Scottish and Welsh Assembly Governments to ensure that such services are available.
Another issue is the extent to which Jobcentre Plus advisers are the right people to be involved in this process. That partly concerns their skills and the training that they will have, but it also concerns the nature of the organisations that are best placed to engage with problem drug users.
I have received feedback from Turning Point, which runs a programme in Wales that helps some of these problem drug users to get back into work. The information that they gave to the Government’s consultation was that because Jobcentre Plus is a statutory body that handles the day-to-day delivery of benefits, in the minds of claimants, the disclosure of personal information such as the use of problem drugs to a Jobcentre Plus adviser would be implicitly linked to whether or not they got those benefits.
From the experience of Turning Point, a non-statutory body would engage with those users more successfully. For users who were parents, concerns would be linked not only with getting their benefits, but with whether a disclosure of problem drug use might lead to such a thing as their children being removed by social services. It believed that the likelihood of people making a disclosure to an independent adviser would be much greater than that happening to a statutory body responsible for benefit payments. Its experience from its progress2work operations was that its workers were referring people who were not previously known to treatment providers or known to be problem drug users. When the Minister thinks about how this programme will be implemented, it will be worth bearing in mind the extent to which Jobcentre Plus advisers would be engaged in it, or whether a significant proportion of this work could be more effective if it was delivered by a third party.
There are also some concerns about data protection. The clause contains proposals for information sharing between Jobcentre Plus and law enforcement agencies. Although the Bill contains safeguards to protect individuals from criminal liability as a result of the disclosures they make, there are still concerns about how that information is secured and transferred. The Minister will be aware, both from his previous roles and in his current one, about the importance of data security. It would be helpful if he covered some of those issues in his response.
The other matter that we touched on briefly in the evidence-taking session was exactly what the Minister means by “treatment”. I think that he said during that session that he was clear that the objective of treatment was to get someone off their drug habit, as opposed to just managing it. I ask about that because there are two issues involved. In the national treatment programme, a significant number of people—about 50 per cent.—appear to be having their drug addiction managed, as opposed to their getting off drugs. That may be a success from a criminal justice perspective—if they are on a programme where they are receiving a methadone prescription, that may deal with their need to commit crimes to fund that habit—but if they remain addicted to methadone, although that is less problematic than taking heroin, it does not mean that they are in a good, stable situation allowing them to get to get work or remain in work. I should like some understanding of the objective of the treatment that the claimant would be expected to undertake; is the objective to get those people off their drug habit, albeit recognising that that may take some time, or is it simply to manage that habit in the long term?
I have already mentioned the resources issues. We will see if the Minister can outline some of those. I should particularly like to understand what the Department thinks the likely outcome of this part of the Bill will be, including estimates of how many people will be referred to a provider in first few years and how well the programme will work.
Specifically, picking up the issue I mentioned in respect of Wales, I have data from Cardiff, which is effective as of this month, showing that the next person on the waiting list for a methadone prescription from the community addiction unit in the Vale of Glamorgan, for example, has been on the list since March 2008. That person has been waiting nearly a year for drug treatment. More than 500 people are on the waiting list in Cardiff. There is a fast-track system, but at the moment that is only for pregnant women. Conversely, the drug intervention programme has no waiting list, but all prospective clients must have been involved in the criminal justice system. There is clearly a resource issue there. Those involved in the criminal justice system can get treatment immediately, as it right and proper, but those who are not involved in the criminal justice system appear to be waiting for a significant period. Clearly, even if the Minister is comfortable about how this scheme will work in England, there are issues in the devolved parts of the UK that Ministers need to take into account when rolling it out.
I have covered the issues that I wanted to raise. We are supportive of the proposals. I am not challenging the nature of the proposals but I want to ensure that the Minister has thought through the details and the implementation and that they are as successful as we all wish them to be.