Armed Forces Act (Continuation) Order 2018

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Geddes

Tuesday 20th March 2018 Grand Committee

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, let me begin by thanking in particular the noble Lord, Lord Jones, for having focused our minds on the historical origins of the order. I fully agree that we should not treat this as a mere routine measure. It behoves us to remind ourselves of where this all came from and where the legal framework on which our Armed Forces rely originates. I had to turn to my officials for a copy of the Bill of Rights in light of the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell—

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Geddes) (Con)]

My Lords, a Division has been called in the Chamber. The Grand Committee stands adjourned for 10 minutes, to resume at, give or take, 5 pm.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

My Lords, I rudely interrupted the noble Earl mid-flow. Perhaps he would like to continue.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, not for the first time, we can be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Pittenweem, for drawing our attention to what may seem an anomaly in the date I read out from the Bill of Rights. I hope that I can convince him that I was correct—and that he too was correct. The Bill of Rights, a copy of which I have in my hand, is indeed dated 1688. However, the noble Lord may be interested to know that in the preamble of the Bill, the following words appear:

“Whereas the late King James the Second by the Assistance of diverse evill Councellors Judges and Ministers imployed by him did endeavour to subvert and extirpate the Protestant Religion and the Lawes and Liberties of this Kingdome”,


and so on. It is apparent from the notes attached to the Bill that:

“The Bill of Rights is assigned to the year 1688 on legislation.gov.uk … although the Act received Royal Assent on 16th December 1689. This follows the practice adopted in The Statutes of the Realm, Vol. VI (1819), in the Chronological Table in that volume and all subsequent Chronological Tables of the Statutes, which attach all the Acts in”,


the first year of William and Mary’s reign,

“to the year 1688. The first Parliament of William and Mary (the Convention Parliament) convened on 13th February 1689 (1688 in the old style calendar—until 1st Jan 1752 the calendar year began on March 25th)”.

So I am afraid that we are at the mercy here of a historical quirk which has, quite rightly, prompted the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, to question the accuracy of what I said.

Care and Support (Business Failure) Regulations 2014

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Geddes

Tuesday 3rd February 2015 Grand Committee

[Earl Howe]

I will be very happy to do so.

The noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, referred to the closure of the Independent Living Fund, and asked for the Government to provide guidance in the light of that. In response to the views of stakeholders during the consultation, we have provided guidance on how local authorities should manage the transition to social care for people previously receiving ILF funding. The guidance is included in the Care Act guidance that has now been published.

Both the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, and the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, questioned the words “significant impact on well-being”. In particular, they expressed concern that there might be a variation of interpretation of that phrase. One of the core principles of the Care Act is that the person is central to the new care and support system, and that support is built around their needs and the outcomes they want to achieve. Considering the impact on the person’s well-being in deciding on their eligibility will make the determination personal to them. This recognises that people with similar needs and inabilities to achieve certain outcomes may have different eligibility determinations because the impact on their well-being is different.

It is important that there is consistency in approach in how the eligibility criteria are used. We have commissioned Skills for Care to develop training material and the Social Care Institute for Excellence to develop practice materials to support implementation of the eligibility criteria across authorities. Professional judgment will remain key to decision-making—this should not become a tick-box approach which does not focus on the person. We have never claimed that this will remove disparity. The system is person-focused, so it is inevitable and right that individual decisions will be made.

As regards the concern of the noble Baroness about requiring people to be unable to carry out two or more outcomes, and whether that would restrict access to care, this was an issue that was raised with the consultation version of the regulations, where there was concern that it would be impossible for people with mental health problems to become eligible due to how we described the outcomes that had to be considered. We addressed this in the regulations we are discussing today by converting the two lists of outcomes which were described in the consultation version of the regulations into one list which would capture all groups. We checked this approach with our stakeholder working group, which included members from the Care and Support Alliance and ADASS. The group concluded that it could not identify any groups that would be unintentionally excluded from eligibility due to this approach.

I turn next to the issue of informing the public, so that they have a clear understanding of their rights and the system overall. The noble Baroness will remember that we discussed this extensively during the passage of what is now the Care Act. We are putting in place a full communications campaign to ensure that people receiving services, their carers and families—and the broader population—understand the impact of the Care Act and what it means for them. The campaign will feature a partnership between the local and the national, building on the successful approaches pioneered by previous campaigns such as Change4Life. Local authorities, working with other local partners including the NHS and the voluntary sector, will get messages out directly to their own populations. We have developed a range of campaign materials and guidance to help councils communicate the changes in their local area. That will be supported by wider-reaching national activity—

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

With great respect to the noble Earl, I am afraid that a Division has been called in the Chamber. The Grand Committee stands adjourned until 4.35 pm.

NHS: Bed Capacity

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Geddes

Thursday 20th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

I agree with the principle that the noble Lord has articulated. Certainly, commissioners and providers of care should reduce beds only where it is clinically safe and appropriate to do so. The NHS is very experienced at flexing the number of beds it has available; it does this every year and every winter. As a principle, I would agree with the noble Lord but I come back to the point that bed occupancy rates have, in fact, remained stable over the past 10 years, fluctuating between 84% and 88% on average, and increasing slightly over the winter period.

[Lord Geddes (Con)]

My Lords, further to the question from my noble friend Lady Barker, is it mandatory for the NHS to advise next of kin before discharging frail patients?

Health: Pancreatic Cancer

Debate between Earl Howe and Lord Geddes

Monday 23rd April 2012 Grand Committee

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I will be happy to clarify that point in a letter.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Geddes)]

The Grand Committee stands adjourned until 4.30 pm, or indeed there may be a Division during that time, in which case it will be 10 minutes from the time when the Division is called.