By James Mills of the Save EMA campaign

One of the odd things about the government’s new plans to allow private companies to bid for a payment-by-results scheme to try to get NEET (Not in education, employment or training) teenagers into work or training, is that for a similar amount of money the government could have carried on the £30 EMA (education maintenance allowance) payments.

The average annual payment to EMA recipients receiving £30 a week, meaning those teenagers from household’s whose annual income was below £21,000, was £792.01 (over an average of 26.4 weekly payments).

In contrast, the contractors under the government’s new scheme will be paid £2,200 per teenager, with around 55,000 teenagers classed as NEET in that age group being targeted.

However, this NEET figure is based on 2010 figures and since the scrapping of EMA this number has gone up. Even by the government’s own figures, the number of 16-17 year olds classed as NEET has risen 0.9 per cent on 2010 Quarter 3 statistics.

And when this £126 million scheme is combined with the £180 million EMA replacement scheme it totals over £300 million which is close to what it would of cost to keep the £30 payment scheme for the poorest teenagers.

In a very rough estimate, it would cost around £380 million to continue the £30 payments; so the difference between the two policies is, at most, £80 million. That’s a price Gove is willing to pay when it buys him a Royal Yacht, but not when it helps the poorest teenagers stay in education.

The steep rise in the youth unemployment rate is what has helped encourage this government initiative.

The below chart shows the spike that has occurred in the youth unemployment rate for those aged under 17 since EMA was scrapped last September:

• January’s unemployment figures show that since October 2011 Under 17 year-olds unemployment is up by two thirds – which is a six per cent in the rise in the increase in the same time period last year;

• For 17 year-olds unemployment in January was up by four per cent since October 2011 and nine per cent since November 2011.

The graph below shows the percentage change each month since October:

The government is right that youth unemployment is a ticking time bomb, something we at Save EMA have said all along, but sadly this government is cutting the wrong wire. This new scheme is a shoddy patchwork version of the EMA that risks costs the tax payer more and does less.

The Treasury says there will be only 600,000 jobs for unskilled, unqualified workers in our economy by 2020; and if this new scheme creates a generation of unqualified teenagers embedded in low skill insecure work in their mid twenties, it will be the tax payer who has to pick up the bill to correct this spill-over in the labour market.

The education maintenance allowance was a tried and tested government scheme. It was recognised by a plethora of organisations, like the independent IFS, who argued that EMA help to get those classed as NEET into the work place. This is how the IFS described EMA:

The EMA significantly increased participation rates in post-16 education among young adults who were eligible to receive it.

In particular, it increased the proportion of eligible 16-year-olds staying in education from 65 to 69 per cent, and increased the proportion of eligible 17-year-olds in education from 54 to 61 per cent.

The simple cost-benefit analysis mentioned above suggests that even taking into account the level of deadweight that was found, the costs of EMA are completely offset.”

In stark contrast this new youth unemployment scheme is a shot in the dark, and if anything, it is a smoke and mirrors attempt at trying to correct the mistake of scrapping EMA. At a bare minimum it is like closing the door after the horse has bolted.

Teenagers need qualifications to enter long term well paid work, this scheme of mop and bucket incentives will not do that. If they are lucky they will get short term low paid work. Nevertheless, the most important thing to teach young people entering the labour market should be that you get a fair days pay for a fair days work. And not no days pay for an enforced days work.

For the almost the same amount of money they could have continued the payments of £30 a week like they have done in Scotland and Wales. But scrapping EMA was about the best politics and not the best policy.

See also:

• As Cameron talks up the Big Society, it’s crashing down - Dominic Browne, June 6th 2011

• OECD calls on Gove to save EMA - James Mills, April 8th 2011

• EMA replacement doesn’t make the grade - James Mills, March 31st 2011

• Students lobby Parliament as MPs debate EMA today - Shamik Das, January 19th 2011

• Miliband: “Let’s work with the progressive Lib Dems” - Shamik Das, January 15th 2011

In Prime Minister’s Questions today, right-wing-even-for-the-Conservatives MP Priti Patel used her space on the ballot to launch a defence of workfare, attacking “the militant hard left” who oppose it.

She was supported by the prime minister, who defended the schemes by saying they were voluntary.

It was buried slightly at the bottom of our last post on the topic, so this bears repeating:

Workfare is not voluntary.

There are five government programmes which can be described as workfare, and all have a compulsory element to them:

The work experience programme

Citizens Advice describes the work experience programme as a “compulsory program”, saying:

If you are claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance, you must take part … if you are advised to do so by a personal adviser. Your benefit may be affected if you refuse to do so or leave a scheme before completing it.

Mandatory work activity scheme

The clue’s in the name, and Citizens Advice clarify:

If you are required to take part in the scheme, but you don’t without a very good reason, you will be sanctioned.

The work programme

Citizens Advice detail the groups who have to take part in the work programme; although further groups can volunteer, it is compulsory if:

• You are aged 18-24 and have claimed jobseeker’s allowance for nine months;

• You are aged 25 or over and have claimed jobseeker’s allowance for 12 months;

• You are seriously disadvantaged in the labour market, for example because a disability has made it hard to find work. When you qualify and whether you can choose to take part will depend on which area you live in and what your circumstances are;

• You have recently claimed incapacity benefit, after claiming jobseeker’s allowance for three months;

• You are claiming income-related employment and support allowance, are in the work-related activity group, and are expected to be fit for work within three months.

Sector based work academies

Directgov explains:

Taking part in sector-based work academies is entirely voluntary, but once you accept a place you must complete the process. Your benefits may be affected if you do not complete the process. Taking part in sector-based work academies can last up to six weeks.

Community action programmes

The DWP’s guidance booklet states (pdf):

Mandation is there to use as a tool to ensure that claimants do what is required of them… Claimants who are mandated to undertake activity may incur a loss or reduction of benefit should they fail to comply without good reason.

To see the full information collated by Left Foot Forward and Political Scrapbook, click here

See also:

• The information you need to end workfare – Alex Hern, February 22nd 2012

• Chris Grayling should respond to criticism of workfare, not smear the critics – Izzy Koksal, February 21st 2012

• Tesco’s unpaid labour shows the flaw at the heart of workfare – Alex Hern, February 16th 2012

• Five reasons Clegg can’t stand on his social mobility record – Alex Hern, January 12th 2012

• 2012: The year ahead for young people – Alex Hern, January 7th 2012

Rob Berkeley is the director of the Runnymede Trust

Today’s announcement of an integration strategy from Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles, marks a dangerous and ill-advised reversion to assimilationist policy, where all differences of ethnicity and heritage are subsumed into a majoritarian ‘mainstream’.

Instead of taking the opportunity to further benefit from the diversity of the ethnic and faith backgrounds of its citizens, Pickles seems intent on restoring some notion of Britishness that is frozen in time and fails to take account of the nature of a modern Britain, its citizenry, or its role in the world.

While in interviews Pickles points to last year’s Royal Wedding as a unifying moment for the British people, he would do well to also remember this summer’s Olympics, won for a London sold as ‘The World in One City’.

His emphasis on ‘British values’ and ‘national unity’, in a series of interviews given to the Daily Mail and Express, suggests that people from minority ethnic backgrounds are somehow a threat to these values or to a unified country.

This is despite significant evidence to the contrary and the significant contribution people from minority ethnic backgrounds have made and continue to make to Britain. Pickles seems to be advocating that the government, or perhaps he, or just the white majority, should be the arbiter of these values rather than the citizens of this country in all their ethnic diversity.

Meanwhile even in the wake of the Lawrence convictions we still see persistent racial inequality and injustice in our society.

Youth unemployment among Black and Pakistani heritage young people is more than double the rate of that of white young people. There are three times as many young Black men in prison as in Russell Group universities. Police waste 5,500 days each year stopping and searching Black and Asian people without reducing the crime that they are more likely to be victims of.

Government research has highlighted that if you have an identifiably African or Asian name you have to make nearly twice as many applications to even get an interview.

Our research and that of others shows that concern about racial injustice was a key motivator in the riots last summer. Our football terraces and fields are once again dealing with overt racist attitudes. These facts seem to have escaped the notice of the government department charged with addressing racial injustice in our communities.

The government has taken over 18 months to articulate its (still incomplete) strategy in response to these problems, and has failed to meaningfully consult the communities that this strategy will effect most.

Due to this lack of engagement, it has identified ‘integration’ as the solution, and sought to blame marginalised groups for ‘choosing to remain outside of mainstream society’.

Rejecting any targeted responses to racial injustice in favour of ‘mainstream’ services, the government proposes that a ‘Big Lunch’, ‘community music days’, and support for The Scouts Association are the kind of responses that we need.

The Secretary of State appears to have completely misunderstood the problems we face in building a successful multi-ethnic society, and the solutions proposed as a result simply miss the point.

While it may win a few political points on the soft right, a return to assimilation is neither desirable nor practicable and puts at risk the benefits we have gained from the ethnic diversity of British people. This government has sought to make fairness its catchword; this strategy does nothing to turn such rhetoric into reality.

See also:

• Outside In: A conviction politician, and a good read to boot – Carl Packman, January 24th 2012

• The hidden legacy of the Stephen Lawrence case – Dr Phil McCarvill, January 15th 2012

• What will Cameron do to end the racism of the young Conservatives? – Alex Hern, November 23rd 2011

• He sees no corruption, hears no racism and speaks no sense: It’s time to kick Blatter out – Shamik Das, November 17th 2011

• All eyes on Barcelona as racism rears its ugly head again – Shamik Das, May 3rd 2011

Edwina Currie has returned, triumphantly, to what she does best: attacking people living in poverty for having the temerity to do things like watch TV, smoke cigarettes, or own pets.

In an phone-in show on Radio 5, Currie spoke with Hayley, a mother from Derbyshire, who’d been explaining that her and her husband sometimes have to skip meals to feed their children.

The first thing Currie said in the discussion was to quiz Hayley on her lifestyle, asking:

“Have you by any chance got any animals? Dogs or anything like that? … Do you feed the dog everyday? … How many animals and pets have you got in the house? … Have you got Satellite TV? … Have you got clubs, are you paying through catalogues for clothes? … So where’s all the money going, Hayley?”

Currie’s implication is that answering yes to any of these questions – having a pet, buying clothes through mail order, paying the equivalent of two cinema tickets a month for TV – renders one ineligible for sympathy. And her incredulity at the difficulty of Hayley’s life despite not committing these ‘sins’ belies her ignorance at life below the poverty line in the UK.

When Currie hears something she thinks she can blame Hayley for, she jumps to conclusions almost instantly.

One of the expenditures mentioned is paying off bills. Currie hears this, and goes for the throat, declaring:

“What’s happened here… is that when the money was coming in – this sounds like there were two salaries coming in and no savings – life was being lived to the full and a very good life indeed.

“But when that’s no longer the case, when there’s no longer money coming in, then  you have to evaluate whether you’re going to be able to get back to the good life quickly or not in which case you’re going to have to think about maybe declaring yourselves bankrupt.”

Which causes Hayley to tearfully respond:

Can I just say to Edwina that I’ve never lived life to the full, I don’t go out every weekend, and I don’t— cause you’ve really upset me to be honest. We don’t buy clothes on a weekly basis or anything like that, we’ve never lived life to the full… When have I borrowed money? I’ve never said I’ve borrowed money from anywhere…

[Paying off bills] isn’t borrowing money, I’m paying council tax, I’m paying my debt.

You can listen to the discussion, and Edwina’s shocking heartlessness, below:

Currie simply can’t believe that people who have hard lives aren’t personally to blame. It’s the point she made in November, when she said:

“I don’t think people in this country go hungry. But are these people at the same time maybe buying the odd lottery ticket? Do they just occasionally have the odd cigarette? Somewhere along the line does food come as the first priority?”

And it’s the point she’s making now. She is a walking embodiment of the just-world fallacy, she appears to be impervious to reason or evidence, and she makes people cry on the radio.

See also:

• The right’s attack on child poverty targets shows their ignorance – Tim Nichols, December 15th 2011

• How can we fight child poverty without hitting people’s pockets? – Matthew Butcher, December 8th 2011

• Does the child poverty agenda now belong to the Conservatives? – Declan Gaffney, December 7th 2011

• Look Left – Tories past and present battle to out-nasty each other – Shamik Das, November 20th 2011

• Currie v Jones: Do people go hungry in Britain? – Alex Hern, November 14th 2011

Today, the latest unemplyment figures will be released, and are expected to show another rise; Harriet Williams gives a personal account of life on JSA and her efforts to find a job

One set of records the government won’t be shouting about during this year’s Olympics are the records unemployment is currently breaking. With youth unemployment at the highest level since 1991, and new, worse figures every month, it seems unstoppable. This is no surprise to me, after my recent job seeking experience.

I’m a graduate from a respected university, with a masters degree, but when I signed on earlier last year the first clue I got that JSA wasn’t going to help me get a job was when they failed to ask about my qualifications.

Can a government that professes to care so much about getting young people into university really justify the indifference to qualifications in the job seeking sector?

This was the first of many disappointments; meetings billed as ‘in depth interviews’ which lasted two minutes, inflexibility and rudeness, a lot of aggressively worded letters. All for £50 per week.

Many graduates will go through the job centre at one time or another, but things have got so bad that none really think that the job centre will help them find a job.

People will say, “why does this matter?”, “graduates are privileged and will always find a job” - Careers departments, old boy’s networks and recruitment services are available to shepherd them in to highly paid investment banking or sales jobs.

To a certain extent that’s true, but leaving aside the fact that not all graduates want the kind of jobs recruitment services offer, it matters because the lack of effort signals a greater malaise in the system.

The important thing is that school leavers, career changers and recent redundancies also aren’t getting the help they need to find a job that suits their qualifications and interests, and are often in a far worse position than graduates. Without help, the unemployment cycle will continue and the jobless who find jobs will quickly become jobless again.

I filled in my job seeking diary obediently, as the job centre says is required. You’re supposed to apply for three jobs a week, but no-one ever looked at it.

I spoke to a job seeker, Ellen, who after six weeks hadn’t received any benefits. She queried this and discovered that no-one had processed her claim because they thought she wasn’t eligible. No-one had bothered to tell her when she dutifully signed on every two weeks. This is emblematic of a general sloppy attitude.

The next problem I discovered was a complete lack of ambition for job seekers. The job centre wants to get the people on their books back into work, but they don’t care what sort of jobs they find people, whether they are suited or not. They kept suggesting I apply for ‘night secretary’ jobs. What even is a night secretary?!

When I was signing on, there was huge excitement about security jobs at the London Olympics – a full year away at that time and clearly a time limited role. What were people feted to do this job going to do in the meantime? Slip into being long term unemployed, or look elsewhere for work.

This focus on finding people just any job doesn’t keep people in work, and certainly doesn’t challenge the benefits culture whereby people earn more on benefits than they do in a job.

When asked what sort of job I was looking for, I decided to be honest – “journalist”, I said. They replied “oh, journalism assistant?” and told me, as if I didn’t know, that journalism was hard to get in to and I should try other things.

I know it’s an old fashioned idea to like your job, only the rich are allowed to do that, but it does help to get people to stay in them.

There’s no ambition, no feeling that people should be able to try to do anything they actually want to do. It’s no wonder than so many people turn to reality programmes like X Factor that create a fantasy world where anything is possible, or TOWIE where ordinary Essex girls find fame for being themselves, when the government tells you you shouldn’t even try.

A key example of the failure to be ambitious for their clients is the widespread touting of Tesco’s new work experience scheme.

Tesco (and other big retailers including Poundland) offer ‘work experience’ to people on JSA which involves menial work in stores, shelf stacking, for example, for a short period. They are exempted from minimum wage, although they continue to get job seekers allowance – paid for by the government.

Everyone will be glad that the UK’s biggest company is stepping in to help job seekers at this time of crisis.

Except, it does seem like Tesco is gaining a lot, while the government pays, and job seekers are exploited, gaining nothing. No real jobs are created or are likely to be with a steady stream of free labour from the government. ‘Work experience’ in Tesco is not something that is going to get anyone a great job afterwards, or, perhaps more importantly, teach people to value the labour that they do.

It also undermines the low skilled workforce who will find themselves out of job, if Tesco can get people to work for free. A great solution all round.  The government keeps paying and no-one has a job.

What needs to be done is simple, but as all simple things, will be fiendishly difficult to achieve.  Make job centres act like recruitment offices. Give them access to all levels of jobs, and make them able to match people to a job dependent on their skills and qualifications – look at their CV, spend more time with them, try to understand more about them.

Of course, all this requires money, and the government tells us there isn’t any. We all see how people on benefits are vilified every day in the right wing press and it’s becoming a left wing maxim, thanks to UKUncut, that we should do the same to the rich.

Perhaps the UK’s tax dodgers might step in – Topshop owner Philip Green, dodging £285 million every year? Vodafone, whose sweetheart deal with the government means they are dodging tax until 2014?

However you feel about tax dodging, it’s unarguable that this money would come in handy. This, to me, demonstrates the inequality in our society, in which the rich are encouraged to dodge tax, and the poor get bullied and humiliated for every penny they get in welfare.

See also:

• The US has turned a corner in unemployment; can we follow them? - Tony Burke, February 6th 2012

• What’s right for Aberdeen isn’t for York; unemployment needs city-specific solutions - Paul Swinney, January 23rd 2012

• European Socialists present their action plan on youth unemployment - Alex Hern, January 26th 2012

• Unemployment: Plan A isn’t working - Richard Exell, December 14th 2011

• Unemployment hits 17-year high – record number of young people out of work - Shamik Das, October 12th 2011

The ‘ping-pong’ has started over the welfare (reform) bill, with the House of Lords debating amendments now. Six Lords amendments were rejected by the Commons, and the Lords now have to decide whether, essentially, to accept or contest each of these rejections.

In a perfect world, the Lords would fight for all of these amendments to be kept (actually, in a perfect world, the commons would see sense and drop the whole bill); but at the very least, these are the three which should be fought for tooth and nail.

Clause 51 – To time limit contributory ESA to a period “not less than 730 days” rather than a period “not exceeding 365 days”.

Dan Elton explains:

Employment and support allowance (ESA) is mainly intended for those who are disabled or ill but can work. It provides extra financial and personal support, such as training, to enable the disabled to get back into work.

Under the bill, if an ESA claimant has

• Worked in the past and previously paid national insurance

• Can perform some kind of work and

• They either have a partner earning at least £7,500 per year or limited savings

they will lose the benefit completely after one year of claiming.

Let us put aside the rather conservative point that this reform will be a disincentive to saving or to the partner  of the claimant working. At a time when many are predicting a recession, and therefore today’s high unemployment to hold or increase, ministers estimate that at the end of the year 94 per cent of claimants will become ineligable.

In the absence of jobs or benefits, we are throwing hundreds of thousands of the most vulnerable people, including those with MS, cancer, Parkinson’s, bowel disease, kidney failure, heart disease, lung disease, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and their families to the wolves.

Clause 52 – To protect the entitlement of profoundly disabled children to qualify for NI credits on becoming adult.

Declan Gaffney argues:

The provision that clause 52 abolishes allowed people under 20 with work-limiting conditions to be treated as if they met the national insurance contributions for ESA.

The rationale was that people with conditions that begin in childhood may never be able to accumulate sufficient contributions to entitle them to the non-means tested benefit.

This arrangement prevented a situation where people with lifetime or early-onset conditions would generally have less favourable entitlements than people who became disabled in adulthood.

Clause 93 – To exclude child benefit from the benefit cap.

As Dr Sam Royston wrote for Left Foot Forward in January:

The government plans to include a number of key benefits in the calculation of benefit receipt calculated against the benefit cap. These include payments paid for the support of children in the household, including child benefit and child tax credits (or the child additions within universal credit).

There are clear reasons to remove child benefit from household income for the purposes of the cap:

• Child benefit is a non means tested benefit paid to all households with children.

• Child benefit is paid to assist with the costs of children.

• This amendment represents a compromise position between children in larger families receiving full current levels of state support, and receiving none at all.

Just three votes – albeit three more rebellions – that would prevent untold suffering. Do it, your lordships.

See also:

• It’s time to take mental ill health seriously – Ed Jacobs, February 11th 2012

• Why child benefit must be removed from the benefit cap – Dr Sam Royston, January 23rd 2012

• As Lords debates DLA reforms, charities call for pause to welfare reform bill – Helen Sampson, January 17th 2012

• Welfare reform bill in tatters after Lords defeats – Shamik Das, January 12th 2012

• Five reasons to oppose the welfare bill – Daniel Elton, December 12th 2011

There was something depressingly familiar about the coverage this week of the government’s latest defeat to its controversial health and social care bill.

At its heart was an amendment which made explicit on the face of the bill that both mental and physical health should enjoy parity within the health system.

It was an important step, a moment that Peers recognised that mental ill health should no longer be treated as the hidden problem it once was, but be right at the heart of the health promotion agenda. Yet despite this, coverage on the amendment focussed not on the issue at stake, but about the political ramifications it had for the government.

When 1 in 4 people will suffer from a mental health problem, ranging from stress, anxiety and depression through to full blown psychophrenia mental ill health will at some point touch us all, be it suffering ourselves or having a friend or family member who suffers.

More startling still, the Prison Reform Trust has outlined that 72 per cent of males and 70 per cent of females sentenced to prison suffer from two or more mental health problems.

And the cost? On a crude, financial level, the Centre for Mental Health has put the figure in England alone at over £100 billion. But more seriously is the personal cost to those who suffer. Alistair Campbell for example, writing of his own depression has put it:

I had a pretty heavy nervous breakdown in 1986, and I’ve had depression on-and-off ever since. With the help of friends and family, sympathetic bosses, a good GP, a psychiatrist, sometimes medication, I have learned to manage it better than I did once.

At its worst, it is like an invisible dark force that first approaches, then envelops, then appears to fill every waking thought. You can escape via sleep, but you wake and find your eyes won’t open, you lack the energy to brush teeth, shave, speak, think anything other than thoughts of emptiness and despair.

When it’s bad, my partner Fiona says it is like living with somebody from a different planet. When you get into that mode it’s very dangerous and corrosive. People ask, “what’s wrong?” and you don’t really know. “What triggered it?” and you can’t answer that either. One thing you do know, there is no way you would wish to have it.

You would not wish to have it. It is that sentence that sums it up. It might not be seen by the naked eye in the same way an operation scar might be, it might be not be as visible as a plaster cast, but it is an illness every bit as serious as being physically ill. Any idea that anyone would want to feel that way is simply absurd.

Yet the sad truth is that the across all sections of society, the stigma remains, the attitude that mental ill health isn’t a real problem remains rife, putting fear into the hearts of those who suffer about coming forward to admit their sense of vulnerability.

Janet Street-Porter’s declaration in the Daily Mail in 2010 that depression was simply the new “trendy illness” and the media’s woeful lack of coverage of Andy Burnham’s important speech on mental health just a few weeks ago demonstrated both an ignorance and reluctance to discuss mental health problems across our mainstream media, a reluctance very rarely shown when discussing issues such as heart or cancer care.

Employers remain in a state of denial about the impact of mental ill health, with research published just before Christmas by the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development showing that just 25 per cent of respondents to a survey said that their organisation encouraged staff to talk openly about mental health problems with only 37 per cent saying that their employer supports employees with mental health problems well.

Summing the findings up, Paul Farmer, chief Executive of the mental health charity Mind, explained:

“This research shows that there is still a long way to go until workers feel able to discuss their mental health openly in work, enabling them to get the support they need.

“With 1 in 4 people surveyed having experienced mental ill health, this is an issue that will touch almost every workplace in the country.

“Supporting staff through a difficult period does not have to cost the earth and can have huge benefits for any organisation.”

All this as stress in the work place continues to increase, with many now finding themselves competing with valued and close colleagues as they face the daunting prospect of having to re-apply for their jobs.

And across society as a whole, the stigma continues. Research points to a partner being four times more likely to leave someone because they have a mental health difficulty as compared to a physical disability. And 27 per cent of sufferers report facing discrimination, with one telling Mind:

“When I was a teenager, I spent time in a child psychiatric unit and when I came out, the kids near where I lived found out. Over the next few years, every time I left the house I would be attacked and have abuse shouted at me. As a result, I started to go out less and less. This led to over a decade of having no social life.”

And the result? A fear within those who suffer that telling other or seeking help will result in being misunderstood and stigmatised, could result in losing their jobs or face mockery and being the butt of jokes.

Sad though it sounds, it is a reality. As a society we need to establish a climate in which those who suffer have the confidence to admit their problem early on in the knowledge that admitting it, being upset, indeed crying, even for men, is a sign not of weakness but of strength, admitting that help is needed.

And at its heart there is an urgent need to halt those cuts which are serving only to embed mental health services as the Cinderella service. Predications last year pointed to over 50,000 mental health posts in the health service being shed, whilst the Independent, writing last year noted:

“Mental health services for society’s most vulnerable people are unfit for purpose, according to the findings of a damning independent inquiry published today.

“Seriously ill patients are subjected to assaults, taunts and overcrowding in over-stretched hospital wards where containment rather than recovery is the priority. Meanwhile, others on the verge of suicide or a manic breakdown cannot access help because crisis teams are too busy or closed outside office hours.

“A combination of rising demand and government cuts is leaving the services at breaking point in some areas.

“The year-long inquiry by the charity Mind found huge variations in the quality and availability of hospital and community crisis services across England and Wales. Evidence from 400 patients and staff found that innovative, humane and responsive services do exist, but only for a lucky minority.”

With economically turbulent times serving to drive up workplace and household stress, loneliness increasing and mental health services stretched to their limit, there has never been a more important time for society as a whole to send a clear message to those who suffer that there is no shame in suffering from mental ill health.

It is time therefore that all sections of society – patients, the medical profession, the media and the politicians form a commission to address once and for all how each can play their own important role in stamping the discrimination out once and for all.

As a society, it is imperative that we are judged by how we treat out most vulnerable. Never have those lines be as appropriate as they are today for the 25 per cent of us who at some stage will suffer from mental ill health.

See also:

• ConHome: Neuter the Health Bill – Daniel Elton, February 10th 2012

• The Financial Times comes out against the NHS bill – Alex Hern, February 9th 2012

• Don’t believe the spin – the health reforms are Cameron’s just as much as Lansley’s – Shamik Das, February 8th 2012

• Miliband goes on attack as fight to save the NHS stepped up – Shamik Das, February 6th 2012

• GP in Cameron’s constituency: “Nobody supports the NHS changes” – Shamik Das, February 1st 2012

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• The coalition of support for the government’s NHS reforms is falling apart at an alarming rate. The health and social care bill, always contentious, has lost the support of the Financial Times, ConservativeHome, and three cabinet ministers this week alone.

On Tuesday, it became clear that the government was having real second thoughts about the legislation, as news came through that Number 10 was… well, upset.

The Times reports that a Downing Street source said:

“Andrew Lansley should be taken out and shot. He’s messed up both the communication and the substance of the policy.”

But as Shamik Das wrote, this scapegoating of Andrew Lansley is just an attempt by the prime minister to abdicate responsibility for a bill that has his fingerprints all over it:

• In July 2010, David Cameron, alongside Nick Clegg and Andrew Lansley, personally signed the foreword to the white paper – “Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS” (pdf) – which set out the government’s NHS reorganisation plans.

• In April 2011, Mr Cameron told Sky News’s Dermot Murnaghan he had “been involved in designing these changes way back into opposition” with Mr Lansley, and takes “absolute responsibility with him for all the changes we are making”

• The prime minister has regularly defended the reorganisation inside and outside Parliament.

• Cameron’s former No. 10 adviser James O’Shaughnessy recently revealed that during the “pause” last year “it did take the energy of Steve [Hilton] and the prime minister and Oliver Letwin and others to keep pushing it through”

• And just last week, at PMQs, David Cameron made it clear he would not back down – even citing Tony Blair in his support.’

And at the end of the week, the news went from bad to worse for the prime minister.

First, the Financial Times wrote that the bill was a “mess” and should be dropped:

The paper begins by attacking the prime minister for failing to live up to his manifesto pledge to avoid top-down reorganisations of the NHS, but then praises the ultimate objectives of the bill. It lays the blame for its failings squarely at the feet of the “political skill”, or lack thereof, of the government, and Andrew Lansley in particular.

The leader concludes (£):

There is no easy escape from the mess the government has created. But its objective should be to pursue the course that offers the best chance of securing the substance of the reforms.

Dropping the bill and pursuing change without omnibus legislation looks on balance the better bet, even if it comes at a cost. The NHS is already adapting to the new structures. Some bureaucratic machinery might have to be rebuilt. Mr Lansley’s position would be weakened – perhaps fatally.

Then Tim Montgomerie wrote today on ConservativeHome that the NHS bill was “potentially fatal to the Conservative Party’s electoral prospects”:

“The greatest mistake of his time as prime minister has been to put it [The NHS] back at the centre of political debate…

“Many Conservatives think that the NHS needs fundamental reform but for far-reaching reform to succeed certain pre-conditions must be met.

“The public needs to have been persuaded that substantial change is necessary.

“The government cannot be distracted by other consuming projects but its best brains must be focused and single-minded in ensuring the policy’s success. The Whitehall machine needs to be prepared and co-operative.

“The health secretary needs to enjoy significant goodwill amongst NHS staff and possess exceptional communication skills. Few – perhaps none – of those preconditions exist.”

As Dan Elton wrote this morning:

We know the health profession is against the bill. We know the public are suspicious. We know it will make more bureaucracy not less, and will probably push up costs.

It is bad policy and bad legislation. Time to put it out of its misery.

• The Bank of England has announced it will perform a third round of Quantitative Easing, pumping another £50 billion into the economy.

But as Josh Ryan-Collins of the New Economics Foundation pointed out, the risk is that that money will stay floating around the financial sector, rather than going where it’s needed:

The hard truth is that commercial banks are still in a process of ‘de-leveraging’, more keen on getting their loans repaid and building up their capital base than making new loans to productive businesses in what is perceived to be a risky real economy.

Evidence suggests the additional funds provided by QE are more likely to be used by banks to create more speculative credit, not least commodity speculation,  that provides shorter term returns. As a result, the money supply in the real economy is contracting just at the point where new investment is most needed.

And Ben Fox agreed, writing today:

While the central banks have undoubtedly helped banks improve their balance sheets, these emergency measures are precisely that – emergency. They have done little to help the ailing economic situation. Instead, without lending requirements, the banks have continued their post-credit crunch over-reaction in refusing to lend.

The Bank has rightly argued that the scheme of printing new money and buying government assets with it has helped keep a lid on borrowing costs and inflation. But there is little evidence that banks have passed on the effects to businesses.

In fact, QE has actively hit pensioners’ incomes by depressing annuity rates by up to 25 per cent. What we have, is a situation where extra money worth around 20 per cent of our annual GDP has been printed, yet lending is stagnant as is the UK economy. The stand-off between government, the banks and customers continues.

The fact is, though, that while there may be better options than QE – from the green investment bank proposed by Ryan-Collins to the stronger lending targets Fox wants – it is still better than nothing, which is what some right wing commentators would want.

Today, Tony Dolphin was forced to defend the policy against one of them:

Fraser Nelson likes thought experiments: he starts his article with one. Here’s another one.

Imagine George Osborne were to stand up in the House of Commons and declare that, despite the risk of a new economic crisis, he had ordered the Bank of England to end its policy of quantitative easing because of its effect on annuity rates and the income of pensioners.

Furthermore, interest rates would in future always be maintained at a level of two per cent or above. And no, he would not be relaxing fiscal policy because maintaining the UK’s credibility and credit rating was still of primary importance.

As a result, he might add, business and consumer confidence was expected to collapse, there would be a sharp increase in mortgage rates and the Office for Budget Responsibility is now forecasting a deep recession and youth unemployment of 1.5 million in 2013.

This seems grossly unfair on the current generation of school and college leavers, but the alternative is poorer pensioners and that is unacceptable.

• With just 83 days until the London mayoral elections, the race is heating up, but it’s also getting dirty, with Ken being accused of homophobia and Boris of racism.

Both stories came from a pair of interviews by Jemima Khan of the New Statesman.

Ken, talking about the changing nature of political parties’ relationship to homosexuality, told Khan:

[The public] should be allowed to know everything, except the nature of private relationships – unless there is hypocrisy, like some Tory MP denouncing homosexuality while they are indulging in it…As soon as Blair got in, if you came out as lesbian or gay you immediately got a job. It was wonderful…you just knew the Tory party was riddled with it like everywhere else is.

The Boris machine jumped on Ken’s quote, pointing out, accurately, that ‘riddled’ means infested with sickness – but, as Dave Hill pointed out, cannily avoiding accusing Ken directly of homophobia:

That is probably wise. As Ken himself has remarked in the recent past, he was campaigning for gay rights when Tories were campaigning for Section 28. Some of us are old enough to recall the filth thrown at him by Tory newspapers and commentators for his trouble. I don’t recall the likes of Norman Tebbit rushing to his defence at the time.

Khan also reports her interview with Boris:

“I’ll tell you what makes me angry – lefty crap,” he thunders in response. Like? “Well, like spending £20,000 on a dinner at the Dorchester for Sinn Fein!”

That dinner was in fact the annual St Patrick’s day dinner. Which cost the taxpayer nothing. And garners enough profit each year to donate to an Irish community charity and the St Patrick’s day parade.

Hardly lefty crap.

Progressive of the week:

Up is down, black is white, and Tim Montgomerie is our progressive of the week. Not only for coming out against the NHS bill, but also for the strong support of gay marriage he gave on Monday, while very definitely maintaining a conservative case for it:

David Cameron has been right to support same-sex marriage from the first days of his leadership. If marriage is embraced as an institution of relevance to all people I hope we will begin to see the kind of pro-marriage public policy that exists in nearly all other developed countries.

By making social conservatism if not fashionable again, but certainly acceptable, I think, for example, it will be easier to see the kind of pro-marriage tax policies that exist in every other European state (and which, David Binder noted yesterday on ConHome, can be more pro-poor than raising the income tax threshold).

I hope, over time, we will get to a policy where we can combine gay rights with religious liberty. On occasions – such as with Catholic adoption agencies – religious liberty has been compromised in unacceptable ways.

The government has promised that any gay marriage bill will protect the rights of religious groups to hold firm to their view that marriage must remain between a man and a woman. I may no longer share other Christians’ opposition to this social reform but we should live in a society where the state guards freedom of religion and association.

Soon I hope we’ll get to that position which I described at the beginning of this blog. Gay people as full members of social institutions. Religious liberty protected. And public policy dedicated to building up the family and all of the benefits that it brings to society.

Regressive of the week:

Tory economist Andrew Lilico, less for his defence of parents’ right to hit their children (which has its defenders on the left as well) and more for his bizarre leaps of logic used to do so, as Daniel Elton reported:

His argument basically runs as follows:

1) Whether the evidence suggests smacking is good or bad for a child is irrelevant, as there’s no such thing as a perfect parent anyway, and evidence-based policy-making when it comes to smacking leads to a totalitarian state.

2) There may be no disciplinary alternative to smacking, so the choice for many is smacking or no discipline whatsoever

3) “Instinct, in all human societies, tells us that smacking delivers something.” [direct quotation]

4) “I smack my children as an expression of my special parent-child relationship of touch…Smacking, done properly, is an authentic expression of love in touch.” [direct quotation]

Evidence of the Week

The House of Commons Library (pdf) report on the currency of a future independent Scotland. Reporting on its release, Matthew Pitt wrote:

Salmond has been mistakenly pushing the argument that goes along the lines of:

‘The Bank of England has had independent control over monetary policy since 1998 and therefore will continue to take Scotland into account’.

Not so. The Bank of England is currently obliged to regard the effects its decisions will have on Scotland. Without Scotland being part of the UK and with no currency board, this will not apply. In other words, decisions that have an impact on Scotland will be taken in another country that is focused on stabilising the national economy, not the Scottish one.

Instead of actually attaining independence, a separate Scotland will ironically tie itself to the rest of the UK through the importation of the effects of monetary policies conducted by the Bank of England.

The independent Library research paper states that it is thereby “more directly and irrevocably exposed to instability in [the rest of the UK]” by sharing a currency and adhering to the decisions by the central bank on matters of inflation and interest rates.

This week’s most read:

1. The DWP’s ‘scrounger’ rhetoric is causing real harm – Alex Hern

2. The government’s drug policy favours dogma over harm reduction – Mark Thompson

3. Climate change sceptics and rural romantics – the Tories are a shambles on renewable energy – Kevin Meagher

4. Polls apart? The news for the SNP might not be as good as it looks – Ed Jacobs

5. Amidst the burning flesh of Homs, Syrians plead: “We are getting slaughtered, save us” – Shamik Das

By Neil Churchill, chair of the Prescription Charges Coalition and chief executive of Asthma UK

The prospect of tax cuts is on the agenda as we approach the Budget. But if there is money to reignite that long lost feel-good factor and kick start growth by putting a bit of cash back in people pockets, how fairly will it be distributed?

One proposal would aid the squeezed middle who most need it: those with long-term conditions. The strain of recession doesn’t just make people feel bad, it makes them ill.

There are 15.4 million people in England with long term medical conditions and with dramatic increases to the cost of food, energy and transport, many are now struggling to afford their prescriptions and putting their health at risk by reducing or rationing their medicines.

An Asthma UK survey found that 34 per cent of people who pay for their prescriptions sometimes chose not to get some of their medicines because of the cost. Non-compliance with medication is a leading cause of avoidable and costly hospital admissions for asthma.

The prescription charges coalition is campaigning for a freeze on prescription charges until the next general election to make everyday medicines more affordable and keep people out of hospital.

This will benefit the huge numbers of patients whose medical conditions do not entitle them to free prescriptions, and who have been stung by rises in prescription charges every one of the last 15 years.

Research published by Rethink Mental Illness showed that 38 per cent of people with severe mental illnesses like schizophrenia have had to choose between paying household bills and paying prescription charges. People with long-term conditions are a significant voter population and many feel passionate about prescription charges.

They are disappointed with a Labour Party that never kept its promise to make prescription charges free and a coalition government that just says they can’t afford to introduce a fairer system.

This issue has been brewing for a while – surveys conducted as far back as 2009 show 37 per cent of people with asthma stated that the recession was making it harder for them to afford their prescriptions. However, the recent sharp increases in living costs could put more people at risk of being hospitalised unnecessarily for long-term conditions they have lived with and managed for many years.

It is quick and simple to support the e-petition and it could make a real difference. If it reaches 100,000 signatures, this issue will be debated in parliament. However, several thousand signatures would raise the profile of this issue enough for MPs to call the government to account in advance of the spring budget statement. That could mean a brighter outlook for the health of the nation and the economy.

The e-petition for a freeze on prescription charges can be found here: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/25087.

See also:

• Scots support “devo-max” as new Tory leader distances herself from Cameron - Ed Jacobs, November 7th 2011

• New warnings over UK cancer drug divide - Ed Jacobs, August 30th 2011

• Holyrood vote exposes Tory splits on free prescriptions - Ed Jacobs, March 3rd 2011

• Should we defend the middle class welfare state? - Ben Baumberg, October 17th 2010

• Irish budget cuts praised by British Tories but criticised at home - Duncan Weldon, December 10th 2009

Rowenna Davis, a Southwark councillor and campaigner, has today launched her high streets first campaign – the aim of which is to pressure Eric Pickles, the secretary of state for communities and local government, to giving local councils the power to limit the number of betting shops in a local area.

As Davis penned in a recent blog post:

“My constituents tell me [betting shops are causing problems]… The problem is that as a councillor, I can’t do anything about it.

“Current planning laws mean that local councils have no meaningful way of controlling the number of betting shops in their area.”

The reason local councils are powerless to limiting the amount of betting shops in their local area is because currently betting shops are classified in the same way as banks, estate agents and restaurants.

But a recent report by the “queen of shops” Mary Portas recommended that the government make changes to the status so as to easily keep check of the number of such shops on the high street.

In Portas’s independent review into the future of the high street she notes her belief that:

The influx of betting shops, often in more deprived areas, is blighting our high streets […] Currently, betting shops are oddly and inappropriately in my opinion classed as financial and professional services.

Having betting shops in their own class would mean that we can more easily keep check on the number of betting shops on our high streets.

Davis is keen to point out that this is not an anti-gambling campaign. She told me:

There’s nothing wrong with responsible gambling, I do it myself. But people in my constituency are worried that their high streets are being overrun by bookies, and local councils don’t have any meaningful powers to change that.

Every time a good local business closes in the downturn, another betting shop seems to open in it’s place. We now have more betting shops than libraries or post offices in some of our poorest areas. People love their high streets – they should be able to shape what they look like.

This isn’t about whether you are for or against gambling, it’s whether you support a community’s right to choose.

In an article for the New Statesman at the end of last year, Davis pointed out that betting shops were often conveniently located close to payday loan shops.

In December last year the Financial Times ran a story (£) explaining how American executives of Speedy Cash - a payday lending business – travelled to London in order to take advantage of the UK’s soft touch regulation on the industry.

Jeff Weiss, the chief executive of listed US lender DFC Global - now the biggest UK payday lender by market share, owning among others The Money Shop - speaking at a New York investment conference during the summer of 2011, was nothing if not honest when he said:

“We diversified into geographies like Canada and the UK with relatively little competition where we can build a dominant market position.”

Weiss likes to use the term Alice – “asset-limited, income-constrained, employed” – to refer to his customer base, but neglects to mention the risk payday loans have even for the employed, who are suffering a relative fall in their incomes, pay freezes, underemployment and the rising cost of utilities.

What Davis has realised is that the rise in betting shops and payday loan stores has taken place on our, often deprived, high streets, at a time when people are feeling the pinch the most.

With interventions from the coalition government like the reform of the social fund - which, instead of expanding the emergency crisis payments, made the decision to scrap it entirely - more people are likely to find alternative means of surviving until pay day.

Davis’ high street first campaign addresses a major part of the problem, which is that councils are unable to have a say on how many betting shops litter a locality, which therein creates greater social and economic problems. Eric Pickles would do well to listen to Davis, and take heed of the recommendations on betting shops in the Portas review.

To sign the petition, click here.

See also:

• Legal loan sharks are licking their lips as the social fund is scrapped – Pete Jefferys, January 26th 2012

• Ignore Wonga’s spin; they’re still targeting students – Alex Hern, January 13th 2012

• Wonga target students with friendly advice: Take our 4000% loan – Alex Hern, January 11th 2012

• Here’s what the Portas review left out – Elizabeth Cox, December 13th 2011

• Livingstone tackles “proliferation” of betting shops – Toby Thomas, September 9th 2010