Contribution
But I will carry on. I also want to refer to the issue of absenteeism, but I feel as though I have wandered into the skivers debate, and I do not necessarily want to be involved in that.
I am not worried that sick pay will create a nation of skivers or everybody phoning up and saying, “I am off sick”. But I am confused—maybe the Minister can help me here—about what seems to be a conflict in government priorities concerning our attitude to work and, in a way, our attitude to sickness. There seems to be some tension between the discussion around reforming the welfare system and PIPs, for example, and the concerns raised in that debate about ever greater numbers claiming disability benefits, especially for mental illness. I thought that the questions asked by Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary—quoting experts and evidence on the problem of overdiagnosis and of encouraging a culture in working-age adults, especially young people, of feeling incapacitated and dependent on the state in a demoralising way, such that they are written off—are in fact a very mature way of looking at that discussion that we should consider.
We also have to acknowledge a phenomenon that we discussed quite a lot during the passage of the Mental Health Bill. Being unwell, particularly mentally unwell, has now become integral to many people’s identities. The figures given in the earlier debate—when I meant to speak, and when the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, and others made the point about huge numbers of people now being off work as a result of disability due to mental ill-health—indicate that there is an increase not in mental ill-health but in a new cultural phenomenon of people feeling unable to cope in some capacity.
I raise this issue in relation to the Bill because, although the Government are having a mature and interesting discussion on welfare in the other place, I cannot see that it does not conflict with the statutory sick pay provisions and debate we have had on this Bill. On Amendment 74A, which calls for an impact assessment regarding absenteeism, I am concerned in a different way about absenteeism. If Liz Kendall and Wes Streeting are incentivising or encouraging people who have been on long-term sick leave to return to the workforce—maybe to all those care home jobs that have just been created—will they willingly do that, or will they take advantage of this new flexible sick pay from day one? Is that likely to happen? I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, made this point. In what way would they be encouraged to employ somebody who has been on long-term sick leave if they must say, “Come and work for me—by the way, you can have sick pay from day one”, when they have taken all that time trying to persuade them to get back into work? At the very least, it becomes a bigger risk for the employer to take on such people: the very people the Government want to get back into work and who, for their own sake, should be in work, because the alternative is not doing them any good.
We need to be honest in this discussion. Sick pay was hard-fought for for all those years, but we live in a different time, when sickness is viewed differently. It is almost like a badge of honour in some instances, but it has also become a way of coping. To give your Lordships an example, when I was a further education teacher, some 25 years ago, it was the first time I had come across people taking time off for stress-related sickness. It was often when there had been a political dispute or some big row at work, or a disciplinary action had been taken. Instead of it being dealt with politically, people went on stress-related sick leave. Fair enough—that was fine when it was one or two people. But at one point, a third of the staff in a further education department of humanities were off on stress-related sick pay. As you can imagine, it was a dysfunctional department.
So I agree with the Minister when she said earlier that we are hoping that a happier workplace is going to have less stress. I get that point, but I genuinely think that something else is going on. That form of sickness has become a means for people to express their problems in a range of ways, and they lose the habit of work. My concern is that the Bill, particularly in respect of some of the less flexible ways this issue is being dealt with—in this instance, sick pay—will incentivise those regressive ways in which people are retreating from the workplace.
There is a report out today that says that Gen Zers, or whatever the term is, believe that the workplace itself makes them ill and that workaphobia has to be taken into account. I know that these concepts seem a bit flaky, but it is an academic study, so I am citing it. It says that what needs to be considered is that is why young people should be treated with leniency about not going into the workplace, because they find going into the workplace and interacting far too stressful. It is that kind of nonsense, to be frank, that I hope that we will not encourage inadvertently by this Bill.