to those with mild depression or anxiety need to be on benefits or would help to get a job and to stay in that job be better for them better for society cheaper for us all than giving them cash that's the question the welfare secretary is posing today at a time when the number receiving the main disability benefit pip or personal independent payments has reached more than 2 and a half million and the numbers are much higher than they were before the pandemic mride the working pension secretary said says that some everyday worries are now being treated as mental health problems so when I spoke to him a few minutes ago I asked him what his solution was I think we need to have a grownup conversation about that we've seen a very high increase in the number of people presenting with mental health issues and I think there is a concern that in some cases it may be the case that we're too readily labeling those conditions as serious mental health conditions when in fact they may be uh effectively the kind of ups and downs of life that is part of the human condition we all have challenges in our lives and so on now none of that is a step away from the fact that we totally recognize there are people that have very significant mental health challenges and that's why we have invested so heavily in mental health 2.3 billion from next year uh onwards extra on Mental Health on top of the over four billion that the chancellor announced in the past but I think it's right Nick that work and all the evidence shows this work being right at the center of people's lives is something that is really good for mental health good for individuals good for the communities and of course also good for the economy does that mean taking benefits away from some not all of those with mild depression or anxiety who are currently categorized as being incapable of work with Pip specifically what we need to look at is this benefit and how it's functioned it hasn't actually been reassessed for over a decade and what I want to see is firstly a sustainable welfare uh system so one that is affordable for the taxpayer but I also want to see that it's fit for purpose and what that means is targeting that benefit on those that need the help the most I'm particularly concerned for example about those that have lifelong uh Progressive conditions where sadly they're not going to be getting better through time and I question whether we need to keep reassessing those people putting them through these bureaucratic hoops and sometimes causing them anxiety or whether there's a simpler way of looking after those people but be clear what that means though you say grown up conversation you say affordable sustainable targeted what that means is some people who get it now won't get it in the future you want to cut the bill for benefits by cutting the number of people getting personal Independence payments I want the best outcomes across the piece so what I was going to go what's the difference between that and my question because I I was going to come on to this very point it's a really important point there are different ways that different countries do this around the world and we've got a lot uh that we're looking at and we're learning from different countries in the way they do it and one issue that I think is important here is should we be giving cash benefit payments or should we be giving uh support that is better for that individual in the longer term and you mentioned uh mental health and lower level mental health conditions there's plenty of evidence that things like for example talking therapies within the NHS with a chance to announced 400,000 more of those that particularly when it's combined with work actually can really work wonders when it comes for people's mental health wouldn't it be grown up to say look a part of the problem is the fact that there is a massive cue inside the NHS to see anybody about your mental health condition at all there are 1.9 million people on the waiting list so the problem may not be that there are too many people on benefits the problem may be the conservatives have run a health service that can't support the people who need support well we have a 12we consultation there are questions within the consultation very much about how do we provide this additional support I've already can't provide it if you haven't got the doctors and nurses to treat the people waiting on a huge well actually you say that but we we are already standing up this Autumn additional support for people as part of something called work well which brings together health care support alongside work coaches forg me who does the assessments of all this what you're essentially saying is that we need to make sure that the people who need help get it and those who don't don't get cash which the country can't afford but your own former Health Minister man called Dan py you know him I think he was a conservative MP until two days ago he's now in the labor party points out that a quarter of a million people now wait more than a month for mental health treatment if they can't get care they can't get treatment you're not going to be able to make this assessment well those backlogs are coming down and you'll know Nick the backlogs have decreased by 200,000 since September of last year but look I come back to the point that this is a consultation it's going to take three months we need to ask these questions about exactly how this model is going to work I have a very open mind about it you're on the eve of an election this is a welfare state that the conservatives designed personal Independence payments were designed by the conservative government Universal Credit was designed by the conservative government and you want to have a row about welfare scres with the labor party on the eve of a general election so you're putting out ideas now that will give you that ammunition later and say haha They Don't Really support this well first thing is this is certainly not about welfare scers as you put it this is about is Piper benefit that is fit for purpose we need to have a conversation about that but as to whether this is just come out of the blue because we want to get a dividing line with labor I'd make two points one is that since I became Secretary of State 18 months ago we have brought in a huge level of fundamental welfare reform for example to the work capability assessments which the obr says will mean 400,000 fewer people going onto those long-term sickness and uh disability benefits going forward getting the opportunity to get into work we brought in Universal support all sorts of things this is part of an ongoing reform agenda as to labor labor have nothing to say about welfare in fact the only thing they've been saying about welfare is that they're very squeamish about sanctions they don't think they should be uh applied in the way that we think which we believe will cost billions of pounds we're going be talking to them at harest date Labor has accused the conservatives of attempting to make mental health quotes another front in the culture wars and the party is today highlighting its promise to recruit more mental health staff to the NHS as well as to offer specialist support in schools and in the community too we're joined by Ellie Reeves who's Labor's Deputy national campaign coordinator good morning to you good morning can you just begin with that interesting claim what do you mean the conservatives are using mental health to fight the culture wars well they haven't got a solution to any of the issues around mental ill health so you know it's very easy to make sweeping statements but actually unless you can provide uh Solutions it's not particularly helpful so labor have set out a plan to help to uh prevent mental ill health before people reach crisis point and in turn that will help people uh enable them to uh take work and uh live independent and fulfilling uh lives so you know we have this rhetoric from the government but without any of the the solutions do you think that they are trying to imply that people who have anxiety or what was referred to as mild depression are somehow work shy is that what you mean by them fighting a culture War well I don't think that their characterization is particularly helpful you know I know from speaking to constituents that many of them uh wait huge amounts of times to get mental health support uh We've young people languishing on waiting lists for months if not years without being able to get the help that they need which is why we have set out a plan to tackle ill health with those mental health specialists in every single school to to help young people and avoid mental health problems later on in life uh uh that might hold them back in terms of work and other opportunities won't you face the same problem as the government though which is retaining staff uh in the last few years the mental health Workforce has increased by about a fifth but the problem this government faces and if you form government surely you will face as well is that more and more of those people leave because they don't like the job they find it too stressful they think the pay is too bad this but this government's got no plan uh and no funding behind any of this you know we've said that we'll put in place 8,500 uh mental health uh workers in the NHS and that will be paid for by closing the private Equity uh tax loophole we've said that we'll pay for the mental health specialists in school by closing tax loopholes for private schools those are the choices that a labor government would make so that we can we can put the money into preventing mental ill health in the first place at the moment but if the benefit bill is soaring then you might not be able to find that money so what we've seen is that the expenditure on the main disability benefit pip as it's called specifically on people with quotes mixed anxiety and depressive orders cost 7 half million back 10 years ago it now costs 1.6 billion isn't the reality that if you're in government you will have to get this welfare Bel benefit down you will have to say to some people who are on p p payments I'm sorry you can't have it anymore there are too many people not in work and people who can work should work but it's important but it's important the answer to the question then that you will have to get people off so there are number of things that could happen so for example uh putting a duty on job centers to break down barriers to good employment at the moment there's no duty to collaborate with other uh services for example the uh NHS so uh if you put a duty on uh the job centers to to to work with the NHS to uh actively helping people getting the mental health support that they need then that's a way of breaking down barriers to work but one of the things about pip at the moment is that if you uh take on a job if you try work then you risk losing your pip and having to go through uh another lengthy uh assessment if the job doesn't work out and that discourages people from taking work so uh what we have said is that people should be able to take work without risking losing their entitlement to to pip so encouraging people to take that plunge into work okay Ellie Reeves thank you very much indeed for joining us thank you