DWP reforms affecting young people with mental health issues or neurodiversity, Digi Mart USA News (United Kingdom): Any Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) reforms will affect young people with mental health issues or neurodiversity, it has been confirmed. Claimants in these two groups are better off in work than on benefits, Pat McFadden has said.
The Labour Party cabinet member and DWP minister, who was re-appointed to the brief by Andy Burnham, says work is “part of the answer” for the 45% of young people who are not in employment, education or training and who have mental health conditions or are neurodiverse.
Mr McFadden told ITV: “There’s been a big change in recent years. In the last five or six years, maybe the last 10 years, we’ve had a really big increase in young people saying that they are unfit for work, very often because of mental health or neurodiverse conditions.”
“I’m concerned about that because I think that while there’s greater prevalence of these conditions, I don’t think it should lead to a life of inactivity and a life on benefits.”
Mr McFadden added: “I think for many people, work is part of the answer. Work is good for you and the people that I’ve met here in Denmark who benefited from the Fleksjob scheme, they are living examples of that.
“Every single person I met here in Denmark, who’ve been helped to work through the Fleksjob scheme that they operate in this country, said not only had it given them money to earn, but they felt better mentally by coming to work.”
Mr McFadden said the Government would not “lift and shift” the scheme to use in the UK, but that there are “lessons to be learned from the success of what’s happened in Denmark” for Britain.
Mr McFadden said: “We are acting now – we’ve changed the universal credit rules. We’re acting on fraud and error.
We’ve changed the rules in the Motability scheme.
“So, there are things that we’re doing now. We’ve got two really important reports coming out in the next few weeks from Alan Milburn and Stephen Timms on different parts of the benefits system.”
He suggested the Government’s response to those two reviews would be to bring forward a new law in Parliament. Mr McFadden added: “When they come out, we will respond to them.
I expect us to legislate next year, so we’ll be taking action in the near future in response to those reports.”
