Labour will “put health and wellbeing” at the heart of its employment strategy by embedding career advisers in health services, including addiction clinics, rehab centres and primary care, the party has said. In an interview with the Guardian, Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow work and pensions secretary, said the strategy would help people who had been “written off” to access work. The party would also guarantee those with long-term health conditions who moved into employment that they would not have to face a gruelling benefits reassessment if they needed to leave the workplace. Ashworth said the fear of reassessment was putting people off applying for work in the first place. The former shadow health secretary said there was a particular drive to help young people into work who were suffering with anxiety, depression and stress. “I do think there’s an urgency around younger people,” he said. “If young people are not in education or training, and don’t feel they can make a contribution because of mental health problems, we’re at risk of writing off a whole generation.”
The new employment services will be located within existing mental health, addiction services or charities, away from job centres, and involving specialists trained to support people with complex needs. “This is the new frontier of employment support services, above and beyond traditional job matching, finding reskilling opportunities, helping people with a benefit system,” Ashworth said. “Now we’ve got health and wellbeing at the centre of our approach.” He stressed there would be no sanctions for those who did not want to engage with a Labour government’s offer. But he said there was significant evidence that people with mental health barriers did want to find ways into work. “For a lot of those people helping them return to work, if it can be fulfilling work, will help them with their mental health conditions, help them flourish,” Ashworth said. “But equally, just because it’s not right for everybody, doesn’t mean we should write off everybody else. I think that is a monumental waste of their talents when they want to contribute to society.” He said the Department for Work and Pensions would not “threaten people or to make people feel they have to fear what’s on offer here … This is about giving people support and help if it’s the right thing for them. If they feel it isn’t right for them, I want to offer them a bridge back to disability-related benefits.” Ashworth said that was a different regime for those who were short-term unemployed – for whom there would still be conditions under a Labour government. “But threatening this group of people with benefit cuts and sanctions isn’t going to help this group of people. And that’s not what we’re proposing. It’s counterproductive,” he said. The MP for Leicester South said his desire to reform how work and health interacted came from his five years as shadow health secretary – and seeing how fragmented the systems were. “I was talking to a regional local director of public health recently, and I just said what interactions you have with the jobcentre? They said barely any,” he said. “It beggars belief to me that we don’t have these local partnerships between local health services and employment support, working together to get people into work.” Ashworth also plans to lead a review into occupational health inside workplaces – to help people at risk of leaving the workplace to stay. The announcement comes after a speech by Ashworth at the Centre for Social Justice, where he said the party in government would “target the highest employment in the G7” by tackling the systemic challenges preventing people from working. The proposals include: Devolving employment support to local authorities to target the best routes into work. Tailored extra support to work flexibly for those with caring responsibilities or chronic conditions. Offers of “in principle” decisions for access-to-work funding for disabled people. Change the work capability assessment regime to allow people to accept a job without fearing they would not be able to return to the benefits they were receiving. Ashworth said he had experienced both of his parents being out of work as a child, with his mother working two or three jobs in Manchester bars. “It was crushing,” he said. “Unemployment is never a price worth paying, the lesson I took from my upbringing was that employment wasn’t just about a wage but about opening doors to new horizons, aspirations and hopes for the future.” Ashworth said Labour would end the era of a slew of national programmes to get people into work, which were imposed “regardless of the local economic needs of a community”. He said it led to a “bewildering spaghetti junction of a fragmented system of different nationally imposed schemes with duplication and confusion failing to achieve the promises ministers make”. The Guardian revealed last week that Labour was planning to hand major powers to local authorities and turn jobcentres into hubs for skills training and advice for would-be entrepreneurs.