Extract from Openmind 134 Jul/Aug 2005 'Respect!'

Rachel Perkins on ending discrimination under New Labour

Almost the first action of our new government was to promise action to promote 'respect' in our society. Openmind readers may feel reassured that nearly ten years after Mind's Respect campaign to end discrimination on mental health grounds, Tony Blair has caught on to the idea. But will the New Labour version of respect reduce the discrimination faced by people with mental health problems or entrench it?

If government is serious about respect, we would expect it to show its commitment in several ways. A good start would be to respect people who claim incapacity and other disability benefits. To counter media comment that implies that benefit claimants are work-shy scroungers or fraudsters, they would only have to look at the evidence. Studies have never put Incapacity Benefit fraud at over 0.5 per cent. Indeed, because it is so rare, they have struggled to put a figure on it at all. And if government wants to encourage employers to recruit people who have been living on benefits, wouldn’t it be a good idea to talk about their talents and strengths? After all, who on earth is going to employ scroungers and fraudsters?

David Blunkett has been leaning over backwards to stress that he will not take a punitive approach. With the spectre of a backbench revolt in mind, he is instead promising support. Yet still tabloid headlines rage that the government has 'thrown down the gauntlet' by placing Incapacity Benefit reform at the heart of its agenda; that it will 'order' a million people back to work quickly. The government needs to build trust with the many citizens who claim benefits and who want support to work. That means practical support – indeed respect – not vilification in the media.

It would be a mark of respect to those of us with mental health problems if the government fulfilled the positive policy commitments it has already made. Vigorous implementation of the Social Exclusion Unit’s 'Mental Health and Social Exclusion' could bring an end to some crass examples of direct discrimination, like the bar on jury service or being a school governor if you are receiving psychiatric treatment. It could also mean significantly more opportunities for service users and survivors to take part in education, employment, voluntary work, raising kids and really being a part of the communities in which we live.

If the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit report on 'Disabled People’s Life Chances' is properly implemented, it would mean putting control of support services – and even the money for those services – in users’/survivors’ own hands. Under proposals for 'independent living', the services we need to support us in our daily lives (things like advocacy and social support) would be available on our own terms, in ways and at times to suit us. This will only happen if a bid for funding through the 2006 spending review is successful. Tony Blair has already backed the proposals. Government can now show respect by really putting its money where its mouth is.

Finally, when government turns its attention to encouraging us all to be good and active citizens, from the outset it needs to think about people with mental health problems. It is no good dishing out anti-social behaviour orders to people just because they are noisy when disturbed or distressed. Might it not be more relevant to point to the prejudice and intolerance of some neighbours or landlords? How about anti-social behaviour orders for extreme forms of 'nimby-ism' and victimisation – the sort of thing that Mind found in its Not just sticks and stones survey, like being harassed in the street, having dogs’ mess put through the letter box and being laughed at by kids for being a ‘nutter’?

We now have hate crimes legislation on the statute book. This could protect service users/survivors from attacks motivated by prejudice. But it will only work if we are taken seriously when we report crimes – not only by the police but also by the staff in health, social care and voluntary services who may be the first people we go to for help. Perhaps a commitment to reducing anti-social behaviour should start by ensuring that no one is disbelieved when they report a crime just because of a diagnosis of mental illness.

It is possible to make Britain a more respectful country. But this respect needs to start by ensuring that those who face the greatest disrespect are treated with the fairness and decency that all citizens have a right to expect. That means mental health service users in general and those facing multiple discrimination in particular. Government must avoid at all costs allowing the rhetoric of respect to cloak greater intolerance and small-mindedness about who is and who is not respected; who is and who is not included. If we get respect right for people with mental health service problems, we could get it right for everyone.