Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Howarth of Breckland and Lord Warner

Monday 4th July 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord Warner]

My Lords, I briefly support Amendments 52, 53 and 54. These have echoes of the debate we had on my Amendment 29, in which I argued—with support from other Members of the Committee—that the onus should be on the local authority to take the initiative in offering help. I ask the Minister to think about the circumstances in which many of us are placed as parents, where the Government are trying to get the principles of corporate parenting as close as they can to the responsibilities of parents looking after children who are not part of the responsibility of a local authority. We as parents—I can speak from personal experience—do not watch our children walking over a cliff and wait for them to request us to do something. If we see that they do not understand something or they are going to take some ill-advised action, we do not wait for them to ask us: we intervene. We try to intervene in a sensitive manner but we do try to intervene to give them the information they require to make better decisions. Why are the Government asking a group of people who, on their own acknowledgement, are vulnerable, who often find it difficult to interact with public bureaucracies, to make a well-informed request for help? Indeed, if they are capable of making that well-informed request for help, there is a large chance that they do not need it in the first place. What the Minster has set up looks like a gesture, but the “on request” totally minimises the effectiveness of that gesture. I ask the Minister to reconsider the Government’s position on this, in the light of the moderate way that the noble Lord, Lord Wills, and others have argued for the amendments.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, I add one sentence because I clearly heard the Minister say that there would be young people who would not need personal advisers or would not wish to have this sort of help. I understand that absolutely, but all the amendments are suggesting is that we move out “on request” so that the local authority has to take responsibility to ensure that information is given so that a refusal could be made. If we do not ensure that the young people have the knowledge of what is available, they can walk into difficulties.

Care Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Howarth of Breckland and Lord Warner

Monday 22nd July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Warner]

My Lords, I follow the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, with some trepidation but I do so as a member of the Joint Select Committee that recommended a change to the Bill along the lines asked for so eloquently by the noble Lord, Lord Low. I remind the Minister of an individual case which demonstrates the lacunae in the current legislation. It was the case of a lady over 90, who wholly self-funded in a private nursing home. This lady expressed her views—I suspect rather trenchantly—about assisted dying. She did not ask them to do anything about assisted dying but merely offered her views—though probably, as I say, quite trenchantly—but the home owner and members of staff took great exception to those views. She was pretty much immediately given four weeks’ notice to quit. We are talking about an elderly person who was very vulnerable. Her son took counsel’s opinion, which seemed to be remarkably similar to the views expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. We are faced with a situation where you can fall down on two grounds: on the grounds that you are in a privately provided home, and on the grounds that you are a self-funder. Whatever the arguments, and we have been over this ground several times in this House, the reality is that vague requirements on the CQC to observe the requirements of the Human Rights Act do not safeguard elderly people in the kind of case that I have posited.

We have to look at this again, which is why, when the Joint Committee looked at this issue, we took advice from our adviser, who is legally qualified. If I may remind the noble Lord, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, was a member of the committee, which went along with that recommendation. The Government have to move away from the rather brushing-off response that they gave to the Joint Committee’s recommendation and think again, particularly in light of the powerful case made by the noble Lord, Lord Low, and strongly supported by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, I had not intended to speak today. I support the amendment, but in a rather different context. I welcome the work that the Government have done on the safeguarding clauses. Those of us who work in this area find that extremely helpful. However, the tone of today’s discussion has been very negative about providers, so I am probably outside my comfort zone, even more than the noble Lord, as a provider. I declare my interest as the president of Livability; I chair both its providing committee and its safeguarding board.

Throughout the sector there are large numbers of organisations that run their own safeguarding boards within the organisation, where they review every single incident that occurs within it. Quite properly, they already refer to the local authority those cases where they think it should be informed, and indeed to the CQC. In the not-too-distant past I had conversations with the Charity Commission about its role in these areas as well as those of the providers and the regulators.

It would be a pity if we did not recognise the huge amount of work that was going on already on safeguarding, and that we can learn a great deal from it. I would be pleased to support the amendment that says the Secretary of State should collect any report, because we could then look at trends. There is not a single provider that would object to being controlled by the Human Rights Act; I think that we all see ourselves as already being controlled by that Act, because we work under contract to the local authorities and see that as a clear extension of it. If it were direct, we would not operate any differently from how we do already.

I apologise for taking the time of the Committee today because I have not intervened very often, but it needs to be on record that there are thousands of elderly people and disabled people being significantly cared for by very good providers in conjunction and partnership with their local authority.

One of the issues that I would really like to have supported is the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, saying that you have to change the culture. What will make the difference—this has made a difference in the organisation where I work, where we extended our services—is a culture of no blame. The sense that I have had here today is rather one of blame, but having no blame brings people forward and makes them report incidents that you can then look at. In my role, I am really concerned when no one comes forward and reports an incident.

I welcome what the Government are doing, but I hope that whatever else comes is not so draconian that it actually prevents people coming forward and making it clear that they want to report incidents in their organisation.