Powers of Attorney Bill

Angela Richardson Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 17th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Angela Richardson (Guildford) (Con)]

It is a privilege to follow the excellent speech of my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (James Wild) and to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe) on bringing forward this important legislation unamended to Third Reading.

Powers of attorney, specifically lasting powers of attorney, are incredibly powerful and useful appointments. They allow people to retain control over aspects of their lives in circumstances where they might not otherwise be able to make decisions or take actions. In particular, lasting powers of attorney ensure that people have the opportunity to make provision for a future where they may no longer have the mental capacity to understand what is happening to them and therefore to make decisions about the things that they care about.

We all know that our population is ageing and that, as my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk illustrated with good statistics, the prevalence of dementia is increasing. For those people, such documents will become ever more important to ensure that they can continue to live the lives that they want to live. They will also be more important in protecting people who might otherwise be the target of fraud, scams and abuse. I have seen some terrible examples of that in my casework on behalf of Guildford constituents, where vulnerable people have been taken advantage of in so-called romance scams and similar, without the protection of someone who can look after their best interests.

As has been said, hon. Members on both sides of the House agree that the current situation is unsustainable. The Office of the Public Guardian carries out manual administration checks and stores 11 tonnes of paper at any one time. LPA applications are generally increasing, with the number submitted for registration more than doubling between 2014-15 and 2019-20. That creates an ever-increasing need for staff, equipment and storage space.

The ability to use a digital channel alongside the paper route to make and register an LPA would help to resolve some of those issues. Most of the current manual checks could be automated to speed up the time it takes for applications to be processed, which I know has been an issue. It would also increase the Office of the Public Guardian’s resilience to backlogs. It is important that some safeguards remain, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock mentioned. Importantly, the Bill achieves sustainability for the Office of the Public Guardian while keeping LPAs as affordable as possible for everyone in society.

Approved Premises (Substance Testing) Bill

Angela Richardson Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 29th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rob Butler]

My hon. Friend raises a very plausible scenario, but I am not aware of any specific evidence to suggest that. There is quite a strict regime in approved premises around the behaviour of residents. For example, they are required to abide by a curfew and their behaviour is very carefully scrutinised. If their behaviour is in breach of the rules, there are possible sanctions that could ultimately lead to a recall to prison. However, he highlighted a danger area. At present, most of the concern is about the wellbeing of individuals in the premises and, once they leave the premises and move into the community more widely, the danger of their continuing a drug habit that would likely lead them to engage in illegal behaviour. But ideally, the further testing that the Bill would introduce would reduce the chance of people succumbing to that temptation.

[Angela Richardson (Guildford) (Con)]

It is clear that the Bill aims to reduce the number of drug-related deaths on approved premises and help with the rehabilitation of offenders, but in widening the scope of what my hon. Friend wants to test for, what sanctions would be in place for those who possess, supply and use the increased range of substances?

[Rob Butler]

I will say a bit more about sanctions later, but first, and most importantly, the aim in approved premises is to help people on their journey to rehabilitation. If somebody fails a drugs test, the first step will be for the staff to engage in conversation with them, try to work out what the causes are and direct them towards the appropriate substance misuse organisation. Every single approved premises in the country—there are approximately 100—has a link with a substance misuse premises that can do that. However, if that behaviour were to continue, as I mentioned, more punitive sanctions are possible and could be implemented. If people were caught in possession of drugs of whatever type—let alone if there was a fear of supply—they would, of course, be subject to normal police intervention. If necessary, that would lead to a prosecution, but that would be beyond the scope of my Bill and in the normal course of the law, as it stands.