Care Bill [HL]

Lord Deben Excerpts

Wednesday 9th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I support what my noble friend has just said. I have to say to the Minister that this amendment is rather necessary because there is a generalised belief that forces in our society are determined to marginalise that which has actually made our society and has had such an influence on the provision of healthcare for our people. The history of healthcare in Britain shows that it was fundamentally founded by those of faith. That does not say anything about anyone else, but it does say that if we want holistic medicine—I am not a great believer in anything other than orthodox medicine, so I am not encouraging all kinds of what I consider to be alternatives, which are best left alone—we have to understand that it is about the whole person, and for many people this is a most important part of the whole person. For this not to be in the Bill will be seen by many as another example of society specifically seeking to marginalise an important section of our community on whom we depend widely for many of our voluntary activities, and certainly on whom we have depended and do depend for our health services. I hope very much that the Minister will take this point seriously.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I would like very briefly to support what my two noble friends have just said. Surely this is not the Government conceding to a secular society and surely they recognise that for many sick people, the spiritual dimension is extremely important. It is not a question merely of healing physical ills and curing physical diseases, it is a question of recognising that many people, particularly as they near the end of their lives, have a great need to fall back upon their faith, and that should be recognised and encouraged. For the life of me, I cannot see what the Government are doing here and I hope that my noble friend will be able to give us a satisfactory answer. I am only sorry that the Bishops’ Benches appear to be empty this afternoon because one would have liked to have heard a contribution from them.

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[Earl Howe]

First, we are not dealing with the NHS; we are dealing with local authorities and adult social care. Secondly, the NHS has not rowed back on this. We have debated hospital chaplains on many occasions and I have made very clear the Government’s view that hospital chaplains perform an important role in the spiritual context. So on the NHS front, I want to reassure my noble friend that here we are dealing with local authorities and adult social care. I was trying to explain that the way in which this Bill is framed is perhaps different from how my noble friend has construed it.

[Lord Deben]

If it does not make any difference to add this to the Bill, why cannot the Government accept that many people would feel much reassured by its addition?

I have been in my noble friend’s position—and he knows with how much respect I view him—and I cannot remember an occasion when I have said, “This does not make any difference” that it did not quite mean that. What worries me here is that it does not quite mean that. I should be much happier if he would please look again at this, because it is a matter which does concern people. If it makes no difference, surely we can do these things in order that people should not be concerned? Their not being concerned would make a difference.

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[Lord Deben]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chairman of the Association of Professional Financial Advisers. One of the areas that regulated financial advisers are most concerned about is that they should be able to do the job that they are there for. I am concerned that recent “reforms” have meant that there are fewer people available to give advice and fewer people getting advice. One of our problems is that this means that people get bad advice. They say something to their friend round the corner, or somebody says “I think so-and-so’s OK”, or they have read something in the newspaper. One of our difficulties here is that the perfect gets in the way of the good. People are frightened to say things like, “here is a list of people” or “here is somebody I have used”, in case they then incur some kind of responsibility. Yet if we do not help people to find someone who can give them advice, the very people who most need advice do not get it. I am concerned that this is becoming almost a social problem in the sense that those who are best off and least need advice get the best advice while those who are less well off and need advice do not get it because we have got ourselves into this mess.

I am not in a position to say that this or that amendment is ideal, but I hope the Minister will accept that, in today’s circumstances, unless we give clarity to people and make it relatively easy and simple for them to go to get advice, they will not go and will not be able to.

I have two more short points to make. First, we have concentrated on the simplicity of the advice when you get it, which seems to me to be the wrong place. It is the simplicity of getting the advice that really matters. Very often, the advice that is given may not be all that simple, because the circumstances may not be all that simple, but if the simplicity of getting the advice is right then it can be moved through more effectively.

Secondly, in considering these amendments and, indeed the Bill—at this stage and going forward—I hope the Minister will realise that one of the problems about seeking advice is that the language used is incomprehensible to anybody but the professional. I find this embarrassing: I once sat on an FSA committee designed to try to make more people more financially literate and spent my whole time asking superior people in the finance world to explain to me what they meant. I discovered that they did not always know what they meant. There is a sort of language which is used and batted backwards and forwards between these people. There is a terrible fallout in this. I remember that a friend of mine was asked for advice—not about finance, but about how to buy a theatre ticket—by a man had never gone to the theatre before but whose wife wanted to go to something. She explained and dealt with it but a friend of hers said, very superiorly: “Of course everybody knows how to buy a theatre ticket”. My friend asked, very simply: “Could you buy a football ticket”.

That is one of the problems, so I hope we can try to do this in a way which is comprehensible and simple and which does not mean that the most needy are unable to get the service they need.