Social Care (Local Sufficiency) and Identification of Carers Bill

Debate between Tony Baldry and Hywel Francis

Friday 7th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir Tony Baldry]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that undertaking. I would understand if the Government did not want the Bill under discussion to progress, but that must be balanced against his undertaking.

[Dr Francis]

I welcome the new Minister’s statement. Does the hon. Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry) agree that the Minister should also be invited to engage with the national carer organisations and with the Health Ministers of the devolved Administrations, particularly because, as a good Liberal, he is an enthusiastic supporter of democratic devolution?

[Sir Tony Baldry]

We all know the organisations and bodies that are concerned about carers policy. I heard my hon. Friend the Minister say clearly that he was willing to engage with us and others to make sure that, when the Bill on social care is presented to the House, those parts of it that deal with carers are as robust as possible. For the first time, we are at last acknowledging that a large number of people in this country are carers and that there need to be robust policies in relation to them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Tony Baldry]

The hon. Lady has raised two important points and I will deal with them both, because I do not want there to be a scintilla of misunderstanding.

The private Members’ Bills brought forward by the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy), the hon. Member for Aberavon, Lord Pendry and others were valuable contributions. The difference with this private Member’s Bill is that since the hon. Lady and those who are proud to sponsor it brought it forward, the Government have published a substantial White Paper covering this policy area. We are dealing with a policy that the Government are still consulting on and thinking about across Whitehall and with other organisations.

It is in all our interests that effective carers legislation is, as far as is possible, contained in one piece of legislation, namely the Government Bill. I am not for one minute suggesting that codifying existing carers’ rights is sufficient. I am saying that if and when the Government bring forward the Bill on social care, I hope that a large part of it will deal specifically with carers, and that within that part there will be a codification of existing carers legislation, which the Minister has acknowledged there will be.

[Dr Francis]

May I clarify what happened with my Bill? It was part of the wider strategy of the Labour Government to advance equalities legislation. It is therefore slightly disingenuous of the hon. Gentleman to suggest that my Bill was somehow separate from the wider advances that were made. Similarly, he should be saying, as the joint chair of the all-party parliamentary group on carers, that he supports this Bill, irrespective of the wider advance in social care legislation under this Government, whenever it comes.

[Sir Tony Baldry]

I am clearly being uncharacteristically incapable of communicating what I am seeking to achieve. I do not in any way resile from the provisions in the Bill. The provisions that the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South has put forward are necessary and valuable. I am simply trying to find a constructive way to ensure that as many of those provisions as possible eventually arrive on the statute book.

The hon. Member for Aberavon has to recognise that the Government have a strategy for carers, which is set out very clearly on pages 34 and 35 of the White Paper on reforming care and support. It states:

“From April 2013 the NHS Commissioning Board and clinical commissioning groups will be responsible for working with local partners to ensure that carers are identified and supported.”

That existing strategy has a number of parts that we would all want to discuss with the Ministers and officials who have responsibility for this policy. For example, much of the hon. Lady’s Bill is rightly about how we help and support carers in the world of work. The White Paper states,

“we will produce and publish a road map setting out action to support carers to remain in the workforce.”

I am always a bit suspicious of phrases such as “road map”, because I am never sure what legislative force a road map has. We will want to discuss with Ministers, in fairly robust terms, how we can ensure that the Bill that the Government bring forward in due course meets the aspirations and needs of the millions of carers in this country, for whom all of us present in the Chamber are concerned.