31st october 2008
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Thank you for inviting me.
And I want to thank you, too, for hosting this event.
The focus you are placing today on mental health is enormously important.
Mental health is, truly, the Cinderella service of the NHS.
Constantly losing out in the battle for resources.
Ignored in the media.
But a defining feature of literally millions of lives in Britain today.
So I’m delighted that you have come together to discuss how best to fight discrimination and stigma in the workplace for people with mental health problems…
To ensure everyone has the support they need to fulfil their potential at work.
I’m sure you already know that 1 in 4 people will have a mental health difficulty at some point in their life.
Every one of those people will have family, friends, neighbours or colleagues who are indirectly affected too.
So mental health should always be a high priority for government, employers, doctors, researchers - everyone.
But I believe the economic crisis currently raging has made tackling mental health problems even more urgent than before.
So I’m not going to focus today on the detailed issues of how best to manage staff with mental health difficulties.
There are many speakers here today with much more expertise and experience, and I commend their work.
Instead I want to look at the bigger picture…
And offer a wider context for the important work you are doing here today.
It’s clear to anyone who’s picked up a paper in the last month, or watched the news that Britain is effectively already in a recession.
We don’t yet know how long it will last, or how deep it will be…
But we do know that the prospects are not good.
House prices predicted to fall by more than a third.
Hundreds of billions wiped off the value of Britain’s stock market.
£500bn poured into banks that still refuse to lend to ordinary people and businesses.
Hundreds of thousands of workers facing unemployment.
And this disastrous state of affairs repeated in country after country across the developed and developing world, so there is no indication where global recovery will come from.
The recession could be long, and deep.
Now, I’m not just trying to stoke up misery in the room.
I simply want to set out, in simple terms, what a mess Britain’s economy is in…
Because among all the other effects a recession will have…
Will be devastating effects on many people’s mental health.
Debt and financial worries are intimately linked to mental health problems - and linked in both directions.
People with mental health problems are more likely to get into unmanageable debt…
And people with unmanageable debts are more likely to develop mental health problems.
I want to talk for a few minutes about the second half of this equation.
How debt crises can create or exacerbate mental health problems.
And what we can do to help.
And then I’ll go on to talk about the other element: why people with mental health problems are particularly vulnerable to financial difficulties.
The number of people with debt problems is huge, and spiralling.
British people have, between us, £1.4 trillion of personal debt.
Interest payments add up to nearly £95 billion a year.
And with the credit crunch, that total is likely to rise.
We have lived off our debts for the last decade, and we are now paying the price.
Millions of families face negative equity - the stress of being trapped in a home worth less than the loan you took out to buy it.
And tens of thousands will be repossessed: evicted from their home because of their debts.
More than a million people could lose their jobs over the coming year or two.
We have to ask ourselves: what effect will this have on people’s mental health?
The answer’s pretty obvious.
Imagine it happening to you.
Your mortgage goes up by a couple of hundred pounds a month…
Because your cheap deal has ended, and you’re stuck in negative equity so you can’t get a new one.
You take out a loan.
Then you lose your job.
And you can’t pay your debts, or your bills - let alone buy clothes for the kids or put decent food on the table.
For months, you’re threatened with legal action, never knowing when or if they’ll take your home.
You’re not seeing friends because you’re not going out to work, or really out much at all.
And then the bailiffs come.
They throw you and your children and everything you own out onto the street.
Lock your door behind you.
And you’re left queuing for a bed sit at the council housing offices.
How would you feel?
If you’ve been mentally unwell before, or are vulnerable to mental distress, you’re going to be right back in the thick of it.
And even if mental illness is completely new to you, the chances of you developing problems with stress, depression or anxiety are extremely high.
I have a report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation from the 1990s on the social consequences of repossession for parents and children.
The list of consequences they identified is heartbreaking.
Humiliation.
Sense of failure.
Difficulties in parenting.
Depression.
Marital breakdown.
Loss of friends, loss of independence, lost hopes and dreams.
This is happening to a family every 11 minutes.
Combined with unemployment, and debts that are getting harder and harder to pay off, this could dramatically increase on the number of people suffering from mental health problems in Britain…
I’m talking about an epidemic of mental distress.
This will be the hidden tragedy of the recession.
We need to decide.
Do we just want to deal with these devastating consequences of recession?
Or do we want to do all we can to stop them happening in the first place?
We need to stop needless repossessions.
Courts must not issue repossession orders unless every alternative has been considered.
The government has issued advice on this - but it isn’t binding and it should be.
Government must also get the banks lending again so that viable small businesses don’t fold, and create mass redundancies.
We need tax cuts for people on low and middle incomes so they’ve got money in their pockets to pay off their debts, make payments on their bills, and keep food on the table.
And we need better debt advice for people in crisis…
And more financial literacy for people who aren’t yet, so problems don’t escalate.
Private debt has risen by £1 trillion since Labour came to power.
While we only save 40p for every £100 we earn.
So as a country, we need to go back to school.
And learn again about how to manage our money.
Perhaps these things seem peripheral at a mental health and employment conference.
They aren’t.
Because many people seem fine on the surface…
While unmanageable debt is pulling them under.
Economic circumstances mean there will be more and more of those people.
More people feeling too stressed to cope with work…
And in need of help from people like you.
The biggest problem facing people with mental illness is simple: income.
As many as three quarters of adults with long term mental health problems are unemployed, so they’re reliant on welfare benefits.
Vulnerable people of all kinds are more likely to fall victim to loan sharks and doorstep sellers.
And on top of all this, many mental health conditions actually make it harder to manage your finances.
Sometimes because depression makes it impossible to motivate yourself.
Or because mania leads you into compulsive spending.
No wonder people with mental health problems are three times as likely to have problem debts.
These factors make the work you’re doing here extremely important.
You’re ensuring as many people as possible can work despite their mental illness, and get the support they need to stay in their job, and maintain a stable income.
We also need to use your expertise to make sure people with mental health problems can get into jobs in the first place.
The government’s Pathways programme to get people into jobs is far less effective for mental health users than for people with physical disabilities.
That’s partly to do with stigma: employers worried to take on people with mental health problems.
But it’s also because the treatment people need - talking therapies in particular - just isn’t available.
People are still waiting months or even years to see a therapist to help them.
Languishing on drugs that we now know don’t even work for many patients.
The government must now invest in training all the thousands of new psychological therapists Britain needs.
I believe when it’s cost effective, the DWP ought to be funding therapy - in the private sector if necessary - rather than waiting for the NHS to get round to it.
And we want a maximum waiting time of 13 weeks for therapy.
That way we can help people to conquer or manage their problems, and get back to work.
Not everyone with a mental health problem can work, though.
And even those in jobs still may struggle with their finances.
We need to get much better financial advice to everyone with a mental health problem who’s at risk of getting into problem debt.
Mental health professionals need to be trained in debt issues…
So they’re alert to the risk that their clients could be in financial difficulties…
Know what questions to ask …
And know where to send people for the best advice.
Debt counsellors also need to be trained - so they know how to deal with people with mental health problems appropriately.
And this training is vital, too, for debt collectors and bailiffs, whose actions can cause so much mental distress.
Crisis advice is important - but we need to help ensure people with mental health problems don’t get into financial trouble in the first place.
People with mental illness should be able to act when they’re well to limit their ability to get into debt when they are unwell.
You can already put a note on your credit rating asking people not to lend to you.
I want a system where people can also “flag” their bank account, and ask their bank to monitor for unusual spending patterns.
With a predetermined notice period, or a system of joint authorisation from a friend or support worker, so you can’t just override it at a time when you’re unwell.
Banks should put procedures in place to help customers who have disclosed their mental health problems, and missed payments.
So that if a customer has been unwell and therefore unable to manage their finances, they’re not penalised with late payment fines and charges.
But some people will remain reluctant to tell their banks and credit agencies about their health problems.
So I want a system where people can put a generic “freeze” on their credit rating, so they cannot acquire new loans, but they don’t need to specify that this is for mental health reasons.
It’s an idea promoted by anti-fraud campaigners, so identity fraudsters can’t get money in someone else’s name.
But it would also help people suffering mental distress to protect themselves.
What I’m suggesting, overall, is that we need to be much more sensitive to the financial problems people face when they have mental health difficulties.
And to the mental health problems people face if their finances are spiralling out of control.
So make sure everyone you work with knows where to get good, independent financial advice.
These are difficult times for everyone.
They are harder still for people who are already vulnerable.
So we must all do everything we can to protect them…
At work as well as at home.
Thank you, and congratulations on such an important conference.
October 31st, 2008 at 4:37 pm
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November 1st, 2008 at 3:59 pm
It’s good to see mental health getting recognition from a top politician. This illness is too often overlooked, well done Nick Clegg.
November 4th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
[...] PEOPLE. At least, I think they’re normal. They don’t comment like political anoraks, or internet anoraks come to that. No by-elections, polls or other political [...]