toxic mixture of caps cuts council tax chaotic housing market send renters to foodbanks & GPs debate by Peers Monday
Peers proposing TAP health amendment sign letter to the Guardian -
To the fully justified concerns that the work capability assessment process is severely damaging mental health, provided by the peer review study from the University of Liverpool (Letters, 24 November), can be added the profound concerns about the link between debt and mental illness highlighted by the Royal College of Psychiatrists, along with the poor maternal nutrition, low birth weight and developmental brain disorders in children highlighted by the Institute of Brain Chemistry and Human Nutrition. It is also important to provide minimum incomes needed for healthy living, in both work and unemployment, and to address the 17-year gap in expectation of life between the most deprived areas of the UK and the richest (Opinion, 30 November).
Ministers at the Department for Work and Pensions will have an opportunity to answer all these concerns when responding on Monday to Lord Ramsbotham’s amendments to the welfare reform and work bill, which require the secretary of state to report to parliament on the impact of benefit sanctions on the mental and physical health of men, women and children in workless households, and in working households of incomes below the national minimum wage.
Baroness Hollins,
Baroness Manzoor,
Lord Ramsbotham,
Baroness Meacher
Rev Paul Nicolson
TAP AMENDMENT TO WELFARE REFORM BILL ABOUT WORK AND WORKLESS ILL HEALTH
TO BE DEBATED BY THE HOUSE OF LORDS.
The House of Lords will now start work on the Welfare Reform and Work Bill on Monday 7th Deceamber. TAP has lobbied for the following amendment No 34 to clause 4 which adds the impact on health of poverty incomes and sanctions to the annual reporting duties of the Ministers at the DWP.
We are also supporting amendment No 22.
Lord Ramsbotham a Trustee of the Institute for Food, Brain and Behaviour. The peers who have added their names to his amendment are Baroness Hollins, Chair of the BMA Board of Science, Baroness Meacher the former social worker, and former chair of the East London NHS Foundation Trust and Baroness Manchoor, formerly chair of the Bradforn Health Authority and Shadow Minister for Work and Pensions for the Liberal Democrat Party. We are only allowed four names. We have lobbied for support for the amendment from Labour Peers, Bishops and other independent peers.
We will publish Lord Freud's reply after the debate, which might be after Christmas.
Amendment 34
LORD RAMSBOTHAM
BARONESS MEACHER
BARONESS HOLLINS
BARONESS MANZOOR
Page 5, line 16, at end insert—
“Working and workless households: reporting obligations
A1AG Working and workless households and health
( ) The Secretary of State must publish and lay before Parliament a
report containing data on—
(a) the impact on the mental and physical health of men,
women and children in workless households of benefit
sanctions, and
(b) the impact on the mental and physical health of men,
women and children in working households of incomes
below the national minimum wage.”
Amendment 22
Clause 4
LORD RAMSBOTHAM
BARONESS MANZOOR
Page 4, line 32, at end insert—
“( ) the progress of children living in England at age 5 in the
following developmental areas—
(i) cognitive;
(ii) personal, social and emotional; and
(iii) physical;
( ) the progress of disadvantaged children living in England at
age 5 in the following developmental areas—
(i) cognitive;
(ii) personal, social and emotional; and
(iii) physical;”