Asked by: Margaret Greenwood (Labour - Wirral West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department has made an estimate of the average extra costs that people with less severe mental health conditions face as a result of their conditions compared to the general population.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
No such estimate has been made.
The Government understands the pressures people are facing with the cost of living. Over recent years, the government has demonstrated its commitment to supporting the most vulnerable with one of the largest support packages in Europe. The total support over 2022- 2025 to help households and individuals with higher bills amounts to £108 billion – an average of £3,800 per UK household.
We provided a Disability Cost of Living Payment of £150 in June/July 2023 to people in receipt of certain disability benefits such as Personal Independence Payment (PIP) or Disability Living Allowance (DLA). This is in addition to the £150 payment paid in September 2022.
We estimate that nearly 60 per cent of individuals who received an extra costs disability benefit would have received the means-tested benefit Cost of Living Payments, worth up to £900.
We also increased extra costs disability benefits by 10.1 per cent from April 2023 and by 6.7% from April 2024 in line with the Consumer Price Index.
Asked by: Margaret Greenwood (Labour - Wirral West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Prime Minister’s speech on welfare of 19 April 2024, what the evidential basis is for the statement that people with less severe mental health conditions should be expected to engage with the world of work.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Evidence shows that good work is generally good for health1. The Government therefore has an ambitious programme of initiatives to support people with mental health conditions, who are able, to start, stay and succeed in work. This includes:
1 Is work good for your health and well-being? An independent review - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Margaret Greenwood (Labour - Wirral West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an estimate of the number of people for whom the funds spent on Personal Independence Payments (PIP) would provide talking therapy for in place of PIP in (a) Wirral, (b) Merseyside and (c) the UK.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Such information is not available as no decisions on detailed policy design have yet been made. The consultation, Modernising Support for Independent Living: The Health and Disability Green Paper, is instead about opening up a broader conversation about how we could reshape the current welfare system to provide better targeted support to those who need it most.
Part of the Green Paper explores alternative ways of supporting people to live independent and fulfilling lives. This could mean financial support being better targeted at people who have specific extra costs, but it could also involve improved support of other kinds, such as physical or mental health treatment.
The Green Paper was published on Monday 29 April and the 12 week consultation will close on Monday 22 July.
We encourage everyone to respond to the consultation so that we are able to hear from as many people as possible on these important issues, including disabled people, people with health conditions, their representatives, and other stakeholders.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of detaining asylum seekers that have experienced torture on their mental health.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson - Minister of State (Minister for Illegal Migration)
The Home Office takes the welfare and safety of people in its care very seriously and we are committed to ensuring the proper protection and treatment of vulnerable people in detention.
The Home Office recognises that some groups of people can be at particular risk of harm in immigration detention. This is the basis of the Adults at Risk in Immigration Detention policy. In accordance with the policy, people considered to be vulnerable, including those suffering from serious mental health conditions and victims of torture, are detained only when the risk factors in their case are outweighed by the immigration considerations.
People entering detention have a medical screening undertaken by a nurse within two hours of their arrival at an Immigration Removal Centre (IRC) which seeks to identify any immediate or long-term healthcare risks. Subject to them providing consent, everyone detained in an IRC is also given an appointment with a doctor for a physical and mental examination which takes place within 24 hours of their arrival at the IRC.
Everyone in detention also has access to a complete range of medical care throughout their period in an IRC including primary care, dentistry, substance misuse treatment services, mental health care and welfare services. Depending on the outcomes of the reception screening and the doctor’s appointment, clinical pathways into other healthcare services such as mental health or welfare services may be initiated.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many incidents of ethnicity-based bullying within schools were reported to her Department in the last 12 months; and what steps her Department is taking to help tackle such incidents.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
There is no legal requirement on schools to record and report incidents of bullying and there never has been. Schools should develop their own approaches for monitoring bullying and exercise their own judgement as to what will work best for their pupils.
All schools are legally required to have a behaviour policy with measures to prevent all forms of bullying. They have the freedom to develop their own anti-bullying strategies appropriate to their environment and are held to account by Ofsted.
In July 2017, the department updated its advice for schools, which outlines schools’ responsibilities to support children who are bullied. The advice makes clear that schools should make appropriate provision for a bullied child's social, emotional and mental health needs. This advice is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/preventing-and-tackling-bullying.
The department provided over £3 million of funding, between 10 August 2021 and 31 March 2024, to five anti-bullying organisations to support schools to tackle bullying. This included projects targeting bullying of particular groups, such as those who are victims of hate related bullying.
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to close the disability employment gap.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Good work is generally good for health. This is why in the Health and Disability White Paper the Government reaffirmed its commitment to close the disability employment gap and stated its intention to set a new disability employment ambition.
The latest figures, released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) for October to December 2023, showed that he disability employment gap was 27.9 percentage points. This was a decrease of 1.9 percentage points on the year. However, the ONS have advised caution when interpreting short-term changes due to the recent volatility in the data.
Disabled people and people with health conditions are a diverse group so access to the right work and health support, in the right place, at the right time, is key. The Government therefore has an ambitious programme of initiatives to support disabled people and people with health conditions to start, stay and succeed in work. These include:
o Employment Advisors in NHS Talking Therapies, which combines psychological treatment and employment support for people with mental health conditions; and
o The Individual Placement and Support in Primary Care programme, a Supported Employment model (place, train and maintain) delivered in health settings, aimed at people with physical or common mental health disabilities to support them to access paid jobs in the open labour market;
Building on this, we announced significant additional investment during the 2023 fiscal events. Alongside the delivery of our existing initiatives, we are now focused on delivering this package which includes:
From 2025, we are reforming the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) to reflect new flexibilities in the labour market and greater employment opportunities for disabled people and people with health conditions, whilst maintaining protections for those with the most significant conditions. Alongside these changes, a new Chance to Work Guarantee will effectively remove the WCA for most existing claimants who have already been assessed without work-related requirements removing the fear of reassessment and giving this group the confidence to try work.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of cannabis use on violent crime.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
No recent assessment has been made. Cannabis is controlled as a Class B drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 as there is clear scientific and medical evidence that cannabis is a harmful drug which can damage people’s mental and physical health, and harms individuals and communities.
Cannabis continues to be the most commonly used drug and around 21% of adults starting treatment between 2021 and 2022 said they had a problem with cannabis. Cannabis poses a large number of serious health risks, including psychological disorders such as psychosis and respiratory illness, particularly given recent increases in potency.
We know from Dame Carol Black’s landmark review into drugs that there are clear links between the trade in illicit drugs and violence and exploitation.
Illicit drug use also makes our communities less safe, with links to anti-social behaviour in public spaces.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether additional funding will be provided to local Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services for ongoing support beyond initial assessment for young people who are currently on the waiting list for gender services.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
NHS England has committed £17.1 million to the two new hubs for children and young people’s gender services in 2024/25. Additional funding will be made available for children and young people’s gender services as new providers are established, from 2024/25. NHS England is also making additional investment in front line mental health services in 2024/25, to support an assessment of need for all children and young people who are on the waiting list for gender services, or who have recently been transferred to one of the new providers of these services following the closure of the Tavistock Clinic gender service in March 2024.
Mental health is a key priority for the Government and NHS England. We are committed to continuing to increase access to mental health support for children and young people, supported by an additional £70 million of Service Development Funding for children and young people’s mental health services.
Asked by: Hilary Benn (Labour - Leeds Central)
Question to the Northern Ireland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, what steps his Department is taking to ensure mental health support is available to police veterans in relation to the Omagh Bombing Inquiry.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
The Government has the deepest sympathy for all of those affected by the Omagh bomb in August 1998, including those members from the uniformed services who were present on the day.
I met with representatives of the Military and Police Support of West Tyrone and Omagh Bomb Inquiry Police Support Group when I visited Omagh last week, and they very clearly set out their concerns about the toll that participation in the Inquiry may take on former officer’s mental health and wellbeing.
While I was grateful to hear their views - and look forward to doing so again in the future - support for former police officers in respect of their mental health is a devolved issue so is a matter for the Northern Ireland Executive.
Asked by: Kate Hollern (Labour - Blackburn)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people serving an Imprisonment for Public Protection sentence have been transferred from prison to secure hospitals on mental health grounds in each year since 2020.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Under sections 47/49 of the Mental Health Act 1983, the Secretary of State may authorise by warrant the transfer of sentenced prisoners to a mental health hospital, where he is satisfied that the criteria for detention are met by the aforementioned Act. Thereby, and for the duration of the period in hospital, the transferred prisoner becomes what is known as a restricted patient.
The requested data in the tables below are taken from an electronic casework system. Snapshot data of restricted patients in hospital are available only at the end of each year. We have provided this information in Table 1 for 2019-2022. We are unable to recreate snapshot data, for the start of each of the last 20 quarters, due to limitations of the case management system.
Table 1: Population of offenders serving a sentence of imprisonment for public protection (IPP) detained in hospital as a restricted patient on 31 December in each year from 2019-2023.
Year | Population of IPP Restricted Patients |
2019 | 272 |
2020 | 276 |
2021 | 292 |
2022 | 262 |
2023 | 241 |
Table 2: The number of offenders serving an IPP sentence who have been transferred from prison to secure hospitals on mental health grounds in each year since 2020.
Year | Number of transfers |
2020 | 56 |
2021 | 41 |
2022 | 44 |
2023 | 37 |
Notes
Data Source: Public Protection Unit Database (PPUD)