(6 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberI advise the House that if Amendment 32 is agreed I shall not be able to call Amendments 33 and 34 for reasons of pre-emption.
My Lords, I shall speak very briefly to the amendments in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti. There is not, I think, a great deal of difference across the House on the need to ensure that there are proper medical reports and that the MedCo website should be used. The amendments would allow the Government to employ others with medical qualifications, in addition to MedCo, if that was thought to be helpful. Our amendments expressly state that there must be appropriate medical evidence of injury. The amendments are fairly straightforward: we do not dissent from those of the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, and we hope that the Government will look sympathetically on the amendments here.
Perhaps I should just say something. I am not going to make a long speech on this, your Lordships will be pleased to know.
The noble Lord needs to move it.
I will formally move it. I just think we need a proper debate, not at 11.30 pm, on the growing problem of homelessness and rough sleeping. We will deal with that on Report if the Government are not able to come forward with some assurances in the mean time. But it is too late to get into such an important issue, so I shall move the amendment formally.