Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)

My Lords, in the evidence and analysis document that the Government very helpfully gave us last week, it notes that up to 1.3 million employees will get a new entitlement to statutory sick pay and that that will increase the amount of sick pay that workers receive by around £400 million a year. At face value, this is in many ways a very positive step forward. However, that same document brought up some cultural issues. I would like the Minister to reflect on whether day 1 statutory sick pay will help to tackle those issues. The document notes that “stress, depression or anxiety accounted for 17.1 million working days lost in 2022/23, equivalent to a loss of £5.2bn in output per year”. Is there a danger that an unintended consequence of day 1 sickness pay would be people being encouraged to too easily see themselves as not fit for work? Can the Minister answer that? The same document says that: “Measures to improve worker wellbeing will result in happier, healthier and more productive workers, which could be worth billions of pounds a year”. That seems rather far-fetched. It might mean that people will more easily go on the sick, not because they are shirkers but because we are creating a culture where that is the norm.