Mental Capacity (Amendment) Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)

Debate between Steve McCabe and Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi

Tuesday 15th January 2019 Public Bill Committees

[Steve McCabe]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Austin. I want to make a brief contribution, particularly on amendment 37.

If I may say so, the Minister was rather dismissive in her contribution. It has become evident in the past hour that the real challenge for the Bill will be to provide an affordable and worthwhile set of arrangements that guarantees that people who genuinely need care and protection get it, but that protects individuals’ liberties at the same time. We do not want to end up putting the wider establishment’s interests first and the individual’s second.

The Minister said that she was anxious not to put too much in the Bill, because that might expose it to challenges about what had been left out. Conversely, the Government cannot put too little in the Bill and ask us to rely on a non-existent code of practice. As legislators scrutinising legislation that will have a massive impact on the liberty and human rights of some of the most vulnerable people in our society, we need to ensure that the Bill is fit for purpose; I notice that Sense, an organisation with a lot of experience of many people who will fall within the Bill’s remit, takes the view that it is not. We need to be certain that we have the balance right, rather than tipping it in favour of the authorities or institutions—the people with power, effectively—against the interests of vulnerable people.

I know that the Minister’s intention is to streamline the process, but if she succeeds in streamlining it by flouting the legitimate liberties of some of our most vulnerable people, it seems to me that she is exposing the system to some risk. Disability Rights UK fears that one of the Bill’s dangers is that it

“takes the rights of disabled people backwards.”

[Mr Dhesi]

My hon. Friend is making very powerful points. Does he agree that there needs to be greater democratic accountability and responsibility? If a clinical commissioning group or local health board decides that a cared-for individual should be looked after in an independent hospital, it should be the responsible body. It is important that we have that accountability and responsibility in the whole process.

[Steve McCabe]

Yes, I agree.

I happily accept that every member of this Committee is committed to trying to do the right thing by very vulnerable people—there is no doubt about that. However, it is easy to rush such a Bill, particularly at a time when the Government are a bit distracted by other matters. The argument may seem simple on the surface: “Oh, we have a bit of a backlog, but let’s not concentrate on how it developed—maybe it was resource-driven. Let’s focus on the fact that we have a backlog and find a way of streamlining things to get that down.” When taking that approach, it is easy to gradually step away from the essential safeguards.

Sometimes these things take time. I do not want there to be unnecessary repeat authorisations. The Minister mentioned that to me recently and I accept that it is just pointless bureaucracy, but it is possible to try too hard to limit it. One of the reasons why protections and safeguards are built in is to stop us from trampling over people. It was a long time ago now, but I should confess that in my dim and distant past I was once a social worker, and I know what happens when people are under pressure. The case load of an average social worker these days is unbelievable compared to 30 or 40 years ago, and they are under enormous pressure to get things done with insufficient resources.