Mental Capacity (Amendment) Bill [Lords]

Barbara Keeley Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Tuesday 18th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add:

“this House declines to give a Second Reading to the Mental Capacity (Amendment) Bill, notwithstanding the need for reform to the current system of mental capacity assessments and while acknowledging the improvements made to the Bill by the House of Lords, because the Bill underwent no pre-legislative scrutiny, it does not put the interests of the cared-for person at the heart of the Bill, it enshrines a conflict of interest in relation to independent providers of health and care services, it fails to provide measures to reduce the substantial backlog of Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards Assessments and it fails to recognise explicitly the interface with the Mental Health Act when determining which legislation should be used to authorise care or treatment arrangements.”

The issue before the House today is one of fundamental importance to us all: the individual liberty of vulnerable people. Today, we are being asked under which conditions it is right to deprive vulnerable people of that liberty when they need care and treatment and cannot give their consent, and what protections should be in place when their liberty is taken away.

The proposals in the Bill to replace deprivation of liberty safeguards have the scope to affect the rights of a large portion of the 2 million people in the UK thought to lack capacity to make their own decisions. Among them are people with dementia, learning disabilities, autism and brain injuries. Whether to deprive some of the most vulnerable people in this country of their liberty should be an issue that we treat with the utmost respect, thought and care. However, I am afraid the Government’s approach to this immensely important issue has shown few of those qualities.

The reform of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 requires methodical planning, but the truth is that the Bill has been rushed through without proper scrutiny, despite the best efforts of many people who are concerned about its contents and have been working to change it for the better. The fact that the Bill has less than two hours for Second Reading and was brought forward with just two sitting days’ notice speaks volumes of the speed that the Government are adopting in respect of the Bill, and will raise further concerns among those who care about these matters.

The process of reforming the 2005 Act began when the Law Commission produced a draft framework for new liberty protection safeguards to replace the existing deprivation of liberty safeguards. That came after two years of painstaking work and wide consultation ended last year. The Government accepted the commission’s proposals at the time they were produced, but the Bill that was introduced to the House of Lords has diverged substantially from the original recommendations— an issue on which the Secretary of State answered a question earlier. At the outset of the process, the draft Bill published by the Government was subject to no prelegislative scrutiny whatsoever, meaning that important stakeholders were not consulted about its contents.

During the Bill’s passage through the House of Lords, my colleagues and I heard many concerns about it from interested stakeholders, from charities representing people with dementia, learning disabilities and autistic people through to directors of adult social services, organisations representing social workers, and social work professionals involved with the current system. They have been unanimous in their agreement that the Bill is deeply flawed, that there has not been adequate time for consultation, and that the proposals in the Bill could cause more problems than they solve.

The Secretary of State quoted a smattering of organisations; let me read him this list: the Relatives & Residents Association, Mencap, the National Autistic Society, Mind, Rethink, the Alzheimer’s Society, VoiceAbility, Disability Rights UK, POhWER, the British Institute of Human Rights, Sense, Liberty, Learning Disability England and Inclusion London have all called for the Bill to be paused so that further consultation can take place. But as we can see today, that call has not been heeded.

[Mr Dhesi]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, given that Sir Simon Wessely’s review has only just been published, the Government should consider pausing the Bill to look into the interplay between it and the recommendations on the Mental Health Act? Otherwise, we risk creating legislation that fits together very poorly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Barbara Keeley]

Absolutely, we do, and that is a real concern. The Opposition’s concern is that we do not want to end up with a flawed piece of legislation replacing another flawed piece of legislation, and then to have to change it again.

It is worth noting that until yesterday the Government had not even published an equality impact assessment, more than five months after the draft Bill was first presented. Before that, the Government’s only published impact assessment was concerned solely with the cost savings that the new system would bring. That initial impact assessment is now woefully out of date, given the number of amendments made to the Bill in the House of Lords—I understand that more than 300 amendment were tabled. I pay tribute to the work of many peers in the House of Lords, including my colleagues on the Labour Front Bench, who worked to try to improve the Bill, despite the hurdles placed in front of them by the Government. Nevertheless, fundamental problems with the Bill remain that simply cannot be rectified by amendments.

We cannot support the Bill in its current form because, quite simply, it proposes to replace one deeply flawed system with another. I will come onto the flaws in the Bill in due course, but, first, I wish to address the need for substantial reform of the Mental Capacity Act, which we accept. We recognise that the deprivation of liberty safeguards system is deeply complex and bureaucratic, as the Law Commission identified in its report last year. Concerns about the deprivation of liberty safeguards predated even the Law Commission’s report, and we know that a House of Lords Committee declared the DoLS not fit for purpose in 2014.

The scope of DoLS is too narrow, applying only in care homes and hospitals. Authorisations outside care homes and hospitals have to be done through the Court of Protection, which is costly and cumbersome. It is clear, as we have already heard in this debate, that the explosion in the number of DoLS applications after the Cheshire West judgment left the system struggling to cope. The latest figures, as the Secretary of State has said, show a backlog of 125,000 applications. That, of course, leaves the person subject to the application potentially unlawfully deprived of their liberty. If the Government want to resolve that backlog, as they profess to, then the way to do it is to provide local authorities with the resources they need to process all the applications they receive. The Government should not be trying to hide their failure to fund local government behind a streamlined process that does not protect vulnerable people.

Although the deprivation of liberty safeguards need reform, and I agree that they do, the Bill deals with none of the challenges that have been outlined and creates some new problems that cannot be solved simply with further amendments. I am afraid we feel that the Government cannot be relied on to make the necessary changes during the remaining legislative stages given the resistance that they showed to making important changes in the House of Lords. On the contrary, the transformative spirit of the Law Commission’s draft Bill has been squashed, and the measures that would place the best interests of the cared-for person at the heart of the new system have been reduced.

The Government should have enacted the Law Commission’s proposals in full through the 15-clause Bill that was drafted, but instead we have this five-clause Bill. Why did they not simply bring forward the Law Commission’s proposals? The inescapable conclusion that we have come to from reading the Bill is that the Government are more interested in cost saving than in the best interests of cared-for people. This is a crucial point, because there can be disastrous consequences when the best interests of cared-for people are not taken into consideration.

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

I say this in a spirit of co-operation on such an important issue. The Labour party amendment is to decline to give the Bill a Second Reading. Instead of trying to change the Bill and bring in some of the Law Commission’s recommendations, why, with nearly 200,000 people waiting to have a DoLS assessment, have the Opposition proposed an amendment to reject the Bill out of hand?

[Barbara Keeley]

That is a question that the hon. Lady needs to put to her own party. What has happened up to this point is that the Government have been asked repeatedly to pause, to carry out more consultation, and to consider redrafting the Bill. There is a list of 40 organisations that have asked for a pause and a redrafting of the Bill. This is a familiar situation from health and social care legislation—it has happened before in this House. The Government could have considered a pause, and the Minister for Care, the hon. Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage), knows that I have discussed that with her. The whole question really falls back on the Government.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend refers to what happened in 2012 with the Health and Social Care Bill. We had to have a pause halfway through its parliamentary stages because it had not been thought through properly. I worry that we might end up having the same thing happen again if the Government do not take heed of what the shadow Minister is so clearly setting out.

[Barbara Keeley]

I thank my hon. Friend for saying that, and it is the case.

Let me give an example. Just last week, the BBC’s “Victoria Derbyshire” programme exposed the horrific case of Rachel Johnston, a woman with learning disabilities who died after having an operation to remove all of her teeth. Rachel had a long-standing and extensive dental problem, but, clearly, could not consent to the dental work. Rather than doing the surgery in several treatments, the dentist opted to remove all her teeth in one operation, using the Mental Capacity Act to authorise the use of a general anaesthetic because he deemed it to be in her best interest. After being discharged, Rachel bled profusely from her gums, developed breathing difficulties and later died. How on earth can that treatment have been in her best interest? That case shows a need for greater safeguards, not fewer safeguards. We should not allow medical professionals to make decisions without considering the best interests or wishes of people who lack the capacity to consent to treatment.

I recognise that, as the Secretary of State mentioned, the Government conceded in the House of Lords that the cared-for person must be consulted, but there are still worrying aspects of the Bill that undermine that principle. We should ensure that individuals have access to an independent advocate. That is a vital safeguard that allows people to challenge authorisations, and it should be the default. The manner in which the independent mental capacity advocates can and should be appointed remains ill-defined and even contradictory.

The Minister in the House of Lords, Lord O’Shaughnessy, seems to have dismissed concerns raised about the application of a best interest test before the appointment of an advocate. The role of an advocate is essential to allowing individuals to access appeals and review their rights. Access to support from advocates should not depend on best interest tests, and the provisions in the Bill are far weaker than those proposed by the Law Commission. Yet despite that being pointed out in the debate in the House of Lords, the Minister there seemed unwilling to listen to advice, merely saying that it would work “in practice”. That is simply not good enough. These factors amount to a severe undermining of the concept of the individual’s best interests, which should be at the heart of the Bill but is sorely lacking.

I will now address the backlog of deprivation of liberty safeguard applications, because at the outset the Government presented the Bill as a cost-effective way of reducing it. On Second Reading in the House of Lords, the Minister claimed that the Bill would relieve

“local authorities of the…legal liability burden of more than £408 million by removing the backlog of…applications.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 16 July 2018; Vol. 792, c. 1060.]

But he made no mention of how that would happen. Our conclusion is that by attempting to place the onus for assessments on care home managers, the Bill would remove the responsibility from cash-strapped local authorities.

The Government initially tried to pass responsibility for assessments on to care home managers, and that was clearly intended as a cost-cutting measure. That was amended in the House of Lords, but care home managers will still decide whether an assessment needs to take place and will also identify whether the person being cared for objects to a liberty protection safeguard for their own care and treatment. The British Association of Social Workers has said that this presents a potential conflict of interest for care homes, as they need to maintain occupancy and may not readily identify an objection by the cared-for person.

The BASW has a further concern about the grounds on which the responsible body would decide whether it or the care home manager would make the necessary arrangements for an LPS authorisation. There is a significant risk of a two-tier system, whereby local authorities under financial or waiting list pressures would default to care home managers completing the new duties, and other local authorities under less strain would do the assessments themselves. I think we have enough of a postcode lottery in care without adding to it through the Bill.

Care England, which represents the network of care providers, says:

“There is a lack of clarity about the role of the Care Home Manager...the separation of roles between care homes and community care provision seems designed to increase rather than reduce confusion and complexity.”

Indeed, the body is so concerned by this Bill that is has also said:

“This ill-considered Bill risks storing up a range of problems of a kind that we do not want and should be slowed or returned for redrafting.”

There remains a further dangerous conflict of interest at the heart of the Bill because of the role that independent hospitals are given in the assessment process. Despite debate in the House of Lords regarding the role of independent hospitals, under the Bill they would still be allowed to appoint their own approved mental capacity professionals. That would allow independent hospitals the responsibility to authorise deprivation of liberty for people in that same hospital for the assessment and treatment of mental disorders. That is plainly wrong.

[Matt Hancock]

indicated dissent.

[Barbara Keeley]

The Minister says no, but Lord O’Shaughnessy in the House of Lords would not consider amendments tabled by two parties to deal with that issue. It is plainly wrong and represents a very clear conflict of interest.

Moreover, the Bill currently allows for the deprivation of someone’s liberty to be authorised for up to three years without review after two initial periods of 12 months, as the Secretary of State said earlier. It cannot be right to have that period of three years without renewal. The Bill is reducing the protections afforded by the current DoLS system, which operates a maximum period of 12 months before renewal.

[Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is outlining, with some good reason, the fact that there may be fewer safeguards and fewer opportunities for people to review or appeal under this Bill than when someone is sectioned under the Mental Health Act. She has a point about the need to look into that point, and to look more broadly at how this Bill sits alongside the Mental Health Act, given Simon Wessely’s review. Does she agree that a pause would be helpful to consider the interface of those pieces of legislation?

[Barbara Keeley]

Very much so. I will come on to that shortly, but I will not leave the point about independent hospitals, because it is important.

We know only too well from media reports, and the Secretary of State does too, of the torrid situation in independent hospitals that detain people with autism and learning disabilities under the Mental Health Act, and the measures in this Bill could have disastrous and far-reaching consequences. I have raised at the Dispatch Box on several occasions the appalling treatment of people with autism and learning disabilities in assessment and treatment units. I have described the situation as amounting to a national scandal, and I believe that it is still so. As many as 20% of people in these units have been there for more than 10 years. The average stay is five and a half years. The average cost of a placement in an assessment and treatment unit for people with a learning disability is £3,500 a week, but the costs can be as high as £13,000 a week or more.

As the journalist Ian Birrell has exposed in The Mail on Sunday, private sector companies are making enormous profits from admitting people to those units and keeping them there for long periods. Two giant US healthcare companies, a global private equity group, a Guernsey-based hedge fund, two British firms and a major charity are among the beneficiaries of what campaigners have seen as patients being seen as cash cows to be milked by a flawed system at the expense of taxpayers. According to a written answer I obtained from the Department of Health and Social Care, in the past year alone the NHS has paid out over £100 million to private companies for these placements. Shamefully, the Government cannot reveal how much they have spent since they came to power, because they claim that they did not record the expenditure before 2017. It cannot be right that the Bill potentially gives private companies the power to lock up vulnerable people for years at a time to feed a lucrative and expanding private health sector.

I would like to draw attention to one more issue that the Bill does not address—we have already discussed it—and that cannot be papered over by amendments. The Government commissioned Professor Sir Simon Wessely to lead a review of the Mental Health Act, which is of course long overdue for reform. However, as the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) said, there is clearly a complex interface between the Mental Capacity Act and the Mental Health Act. Professor Sir Simon Wessely has made the point that there is now a worrying trend of people, particularly with dementia, being detained under the Mental Health Act when their deprivation of liberty should be dealt with under the Mental Capacity Act. His review recommended imposing a new line of objection to determine who should be treated under which legislation, but, as the hon. Gentleman said, there has been no engagement with these recommendations, which were finalised as this Bill was going through the House of Lords.

In our view, the Government must commit to a review of the interface between the two Acts, with full consultation, which has, to date, been sorely lacking. It is one thing to say that Sir Simon had a conversation with the Secretary of State about this, but that is not full consultation. The consultation must look at both hospital and community settings and provide clear and accessible rights of appeal.

[Matt Hancock]

Of course the interface between the Mental Capacity Act and the Mental Health Act will be considered, but Sir Simon himself favours bringing forth the Mental Capacity Act renewal now and then dealing with the Mental Health Act later. As with all of the hon. Lady’s other considerations, that has been taken into account, and this is the best way forward.

[Barbara Keeley]

Well, clearly we do not agree.

The reform of the Mental Capacity Act began as an attempt in good faith to reform a flawed piece of legislation that fails to protect the human rights of some of the most vulnerable people in this country, but it now threatens to infringe those rights further through this Bill. We simply cannot afford to rush an issue of this magnitude where individual liberties and human rights are at stake. Indeed, the Minister in the House of Lords himself admitted:

“We cannot introduce another Bill or piece of legislation that just creates a problem three years down the line.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 16 July 2018; Vol. 792, c. 1110.]

But that is exactly what this Government are trying to do today. We will fail some of the most vulnerable people in society if we allow the creation of flawed legislation that needs to be replaced in just a few years. We must get this right. That is why the Government must pause the Bill, and why I urge hon. Members to vote for our reasoned amendment and ensure that Ministers get the message loud and clear.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD)]

I want to start by reinforcing the point that the Bill deals with an issue of profound importance: the deprivation of a citizen’s liberty and the circumstances in which that can be done. That is why it is so vital that the measures are properly and closely examined and scrutinised. This is particularly important when dealing with people who potentially cannot object to the deprivation of their liberty. There is a real need for robust safeguards to be in place to ensure the least restrictive care possible in all cases and to restrict liberty only if that is genuinely in the best interests of that individual.

The system that the Bill seeks to reform is clearly not fit for purpose. The Joint Committee on Human Rights reached that clear conclusion. After the Cheshire West ruling, which actually happened during the period when I was a Minister, we have seen the development of a massive backlog, in particular because of the broadening of the definition of what constitutes the deprivation of liberty. It is therefore imperative that we sort that out. If we think about it, here and now we are routinely flouting people’s human rights. All those people on the backlog waiting list are being deprived of their liberty without proper authorisation. That is intolerable and it is why I resist the idea that we should just stop this process and leave in place the current wholly imperfect system.

When we think about reform, it is vital that we replace a flawed bureaucratic system with an effective robust system with proper safeguards, not another flawed system. It is very important to recognise what turned up in the House of Lords. My colleague Baroness Barker commented:

“This is one of the worst pieces of legislation ever brought before this House.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 11 December 2018; Vol. 794, c. 1247.]

That was the view of many peers when the Bill first appeared in the House. I pay tribute to peers on all sides. I know my Liberal Democrat team did an incredible amount of work, but they worked with Labour colleagues and, I should say, the Minister Lord O'Shaughnessy. He collaborated with peers on all sides to improve the proposed legislation.

[Barbara Keeley]

The comment from Baroness Barker, who did some great work in the House of Lords, was made on Third Reading; she still described it then as one of the “worst pieces of legislation” that they had seen in the House of Lords.

Mental Capacity (Amendment) Bill [Lords]

Barbara Keeley Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 12th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

I do not think it is ever possible to say that. This particular area of law has always been open to legal challenge. We decided to include a definition because so many stakeholders, as well as the Law Commission and Members of the other place, thought it essential, but the wording is very specific.[Official Report, 13 February 2019, Vol. 654, c. 7MC.] It refers to what does not constitute a deprivation of liberty rather than what does, because we did not want to leave out accidentally something that could open up a legal challenge further down the line. This is where the code of practice comes into its own. It will include case studies and examples, so that those affected by the Mental Capacity Act will have a better understanding of how it works for them.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

The Minister has just mentioned case studies, and she has mentioned them before. She has circulated case studies to a few people, but they were not circulated to me or to any other members of the Committee, which I think was very discourteous. We keep hearing about things that are in the distance—over there—and will come together at some point, but those case studies have not been circulated, and they should have been.

[Caroline Dinenage]

I think that there must be some confusion. The case studies will be part of the code of practice. They will be gathered together in the document, and third-sector organisations will contribute to ensure that we cover every cohort. We must bear in mind that we are trying to cater for wildly different groups of people. The document will have to cover the young person with an acquired brain injury to whom the hon. Member for Rhondda referred, a 16-year-old who has had a learning disability since birth and the 97-year-old with dementia. It must not be the box-ticking one-size-fits-all exercise for which the current legislation provides.

We are aware that mental capacity assessments may be of particular concern to the group of people mentioned by the hon. Member for Rhondda. Assessing the capacity of people with acquired brain injuries can be particularly challenging, and will require skilled and careful consideration. Government amendments 28 to 37, which I shall discuss later, outline our intention to publish regulations in order to ensure that the assessors have the appropriate knowledge and experience.

We agree that the likelihood of capacity to fluctuate should be ascertained during the assessments, and we will expect that to be considered in the authorisation, in the length of authorisation and in the frequency of reviews. Fluctuating capacity is complex and fact-specific and deserves in-depth and detailed guidance, which is why we will include the details in the code of practice. I appreciate what the Opposition amendments are trying to do and I fully agree with their spirit, but I hope that my commitment to work with others on the code has given the hon. Gentleman and other members of the all-party parliamentary group the reassurance that they need.

Through the scrutiny of the Public Bill Committee and the ongoing engagement with stakeholders, we have identified a number of areas in which the Bill could be strengthened further. As I have said before, I firmly intend to introduce a more effective, efficient system of robust safeguards, moving away from the one-size-fits-all approach that no longer works. I am committed to doing this in a very collaborative way, and where possible to identify legislative improvements that can be made to work. I am committed to looking at this again, and as a result a number of Government amendments have been tabled that improve the Bill and the way in which liberty protection safeguards work.

Amendment 5 aligns the definition of a care home manager in Wales with that in England. The Bill as currently drafted defines care home managers in Wales as a registered manager. This amendment changes that so that it is linked to the registered service provider. Amendments 7 to 23 will remove any perceived conflict of interest where a deprivation of liberty occurs in an independent hospital. Under amendment 14 the responsible body in cases where arrangements are mainly carried out in an independent hospital would be the local authority in England and in Wales the local health board for the area in which the hospital is situated. This removes any potential misuse of power or conflict of interest in independent hospital settings. Amendment 22 outlines that in England the responsible body is the local authority responsible for the education, health and care plan or the care plan under the Care Act 2014. If a person does not have one of these, the responsible body is that in the area where the hospital is situated.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

The opening two speeches have taken 55 minutes, and we have to finish at 6 pm. I recognise that a lot of other people want to speak, and I certainly do not want to put pressure on the Opposition spokesperson, who also wants to make a speech. When other people come in, please remember that we want to get through everybody.

[Barbara Keeley]

We should not be in this position of having less than two hours on Report. This Bill has been rushed. We were in the same position on Second Reading, and it is absolutely unacceptable for such an important Bill to be rushed through as it has been today. I spoke to the Minister about this yesterday. She could have chosen to bring the Bill back on a different day, and I am sorry that she has not.

I am every bit as concerned about this Bill as I was on Second Reading. It remains deeply flawed. It weakens the current safeguards for people who lack capacity, and we have not even had a clear answer to the question that the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) just asked about the current backlog of DoLS applications. It is not clear how that will be cleared.

The Minister said at the start of Committee that she would work constructively with other parties on this Bill, but that has not been reflected in our experience. She has dismissed many of the serious concerns raised both by Opposition Members and by the many charities and representative groups outside the House with an interest in the Bill.

I said in Committee that our amendments were the bare minimum required to ensure that the Bill is fit for purpose. The Government rejected all our amendments in Committee, and, despite some movement on one or two issues since, the Bill retains the majority of the significant flaws it contained on Second Reading. It is sad that, having been through all the stages, this is where we are.

We have tabled further amendments to address some of the glaring holes that remain in the Bill, and I thank all the stakeholders who have helped us, including the Alzheimer’s Society, VoiceAbility, Mencap and Lucy Series. Without these amendments, we simply do not believe that the Bill is fit for purpose, and we oppose it progressing further.

[Janet Daby]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill should be paused until the draft code of practice is ready?

[Barbara Keeley]

I very much agree with that. We have heard about a code of practice and regulations, but we cannot see any of these things. With this Bill, we should have had the promised detail on the code of practice. We should not be passing the Bill without it.

First, I wish to talk about amendment 50, which addresses the role proposed in the Bill for care home managers. A number of Members have raised that issue, and we fundamentally disagree with that role, in the same way that we disagreed with the role in the liberty protection safeguards system being given to independent hospitals, which the Government are now amending. There is no logic in the Government removing one conflict of interest from the Bill and not the other.

When this Bill was introduced in the House of Lords, it placed almost all power and responsibility for the LPS in the hands of care home managers. It would have allowed them to be judge and jury, deciding when to deprive people of their liberty. I accept that the Bill has been marginally improved from the original position. The Government were forced to make concessions in the House of Lords, but what they have done so far is the bare minimum. The Bill still hands far too much power to care home managers. Stakeholders across the sector, including care home managers themselves, are very concerned about this. Care England, the representative body for care homes, has said:

“As providers we are very concerned about the inherent conflict of interest associated with placing Liberty Protection Safeguards assessment responsibilities on care home managers “

I also want to quote something that was written in evidence to the Public Bill Committee. A submission made by the Albert House nursing home stated:

“Managers in Care Homes are already stretched and heaping further responsibility on them could lead to more people giving up and looking for easier work.”

It seems clear that even care home managers do not want this responsibility to be given to them. I cannot understand why the Government are insisting on doing so, unless of course the reason is just cost saving.

Under the Government’s proposals in the Bill, local councils will be able to delegate the assessment and consultation process to the care home manager whenever they see fit. That risks creating a postcode lottery, where some local councils with adequate resources carry out LPS assessments themselves, while others will have to reduce their role to simply rubber-stamping the applications they get from care home managers. That cannot be right.

We have to be clear in this Chamber that one issue facing the current system is that some local councils are not able to properly resource their DoLS teams following years of cuts to their funding. This Bill would allow cash-strapped local councils to outsource the process entirely, with serious consequences for cared-for people. If care home managers organise the authorisation process, they decide who carries out medical assessments, and who determines whether the arrangements are necessary and proportionate. I have heard colleagues expressing concern that the statement provided by the care home manager forms the basis of authorisation. We know that many local councils do not currently have the resources to fund their DoLS teams properly now. Conservative Members have talked about the backlog and concerns about that, but in recent weeks we have seen a further £1.3 billion taken out of grant funding to local councils. The Minister has given us no reassurance that the Government will provide any new funding for the proposed system.

[Steve McCabe]

While my hon. Friend is on the subject of care home managers, may I ask whether she agrees that if they are responsible for the consultation, which is supposed to be one of the safeguards protecting a person’s liberty, the person cannot possibly be at the heart or centre of the Bill? Such a provision drives a coach and horse through the notion that their liberty is being protected.

[Barbara Keeley]

I absolutely agree with that. Local councils face a serious resource issue, and we see a pressing of this role away to care home managers. I have got some examples with me, but I do not know whether I will have time to go through them. However, we can see that there will be a strong temptation in local councils simply to presume that the care home manager is right. We have to recognise that over-stretched professionals in local councils will sometimes simply accept the word of care staff without fully investigating the case.

In the Public Bill Committee, I talked about the recent case of Y v. Barking and Dagenham. This was the case of a young man who was placed in an inappropriate care home. Initially his parents were satisfied with his placement, but over time the quality of his care deteriorated. We hear a lot and have great concerns about restraint. That young man was restrained in that care home 199 times in two years and suffered significant harm. Y eventually got out of that placement, following a court-appointed guardian visiting and raising concerns, but it took the intervention of somebody outside the care home—that is the key thing.

[Caroline Dinenage]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful case and she talked about many such cases in Committee. Does she agree that this shows exactly why the DoLS system needs overhauling? It is not offering the required protections for vulnerable people, which is why this Bill is so urgent.

--- Later in debate ---

[Barbara Keeley]

I could not disagree with the Minister more, because what she is doing is putting people into the lion’s den. I do not know whether she is listening to me, but I am reading her a case where the difficulties arose because the local authority listened to care staff and did not listen to the parents’ objections at all. That is the difficulty. Under the new LPS system, that young man would not have had any safeguards or protection, because the care home staff would have been the people sorting out his authorisation.

[Caroline Dinenage]

Under the new system, family members and parents will be listened to, because they will be the approved person, the representative and the advocate. Their voices will be heard, which is not happening currently.

[Barbara Keeley]

It is not helpful if the Minister and I argue about this. We have had this argument enough times in Committee. She just needs to see that there is a level of concern. I am quoting a case where significant harm was done to a young person in a care home because the parents were not listened to and the care staff were.

[Dr Poulter]

I can understand where the hon. Lady’s concerns come from, but having had detailed discussions with my hon. Friend the Minister, I am reassured, perhaps more than the hon. Lady, by the systems and some of the amendments that have been put in place to take into consideration concerns about conflicting provider interest. She makes a good point on the lack of funds and resources and cash-strapped local authorities. Without the money to support local authorities, there is a real risk that scrutiny of care homes and the processes in place under the legislation will be sadly lacking, to the detriment of people under deprivation of liberty orders. What reassurance has she had, if any, during the passage of the Bill that the funding crisis affecting social care and local authorities is being addressed by the Government, both in respect of this legislation and otherwise?

[Barbara Keeley]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question. We have had no reassurances whatever. In fact, since the Committee finished, £1.3 billion has been taken out of central Government funding to local councils. Whatever our position was when we were in Committee, things are now much, much worse.

The Minister does not agree, but it is disturbing that we are still in the position on Report of trading the arguments back and forth. We gave lots of examples. There is provision in the Bill for an approved mental capacity professional. With our amendment we want to be sure that we do not have cash-strapped local councils delegating responsibility. There is talk under some amendments to bring in reviews, but reviewers have to be able and willing to stand up to care home managers, and that is a difficult thing.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) said earlier, care home managers have a lot of power. They have the power to evict and the power to stop visits. Amendment 49 would work with amendment 50 to address the role that the care home manager could play. It is one of the most concerning provisions in the Bill, and it must be addressed if the new liberty protection safeguards are to be fit for purpose.

I do not in any way want to stigmatise care home managers, but I ask Government Members to accept that we are talking about a situation where at least 20% of care homes require improvement or are rated inadequate. Care home manager vacancies are at 11%. We are not talking about a situation where all care homes have a proper care home manager in place, or where they are all doing as well as they could. If the Minister reads many CQC reports, she will see that care homes often fall down on care planning. CQC inspectors often find that there is not a proper or adequate care plan for the situation.

[Catherine West]

Is my hon. Friend satisfied that rights of appeal are being managed correctly in the Bill?

[Barbara Keeley]

No. On the Opposition Benches, we are not satisfied with very much about the Bill, but I am talking about our amendments for care home managers because we feel that safeguards have been weakened. I will give an example, because there are many cases where the powers of care home managers are used to shut down any opposition to what they are doing. A person whose husband was in a care home visited him every day and took a keen interest in his wellbeing. He had lost the ability to speak and had little mobility. She found that he was in pain and when she raised that with staff, they failed to act and dismissed her concerns. She then raised it with the care home manager who warned her that if she continued to take up staff time, she would be banned from visiting her husband who was actually nearing the end of his life. That is an awful thing—that a wife would be banned from visiting her husband near the end of his life. It was only with the help of an outside organisation that the cause of the pain was identified. If relatives, including spouses, were prevented from visiting in the situation that I have just described, how could they be raising a major objection? How could they be challenging the care home manager? The appeals question that my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) just raised with me is very concerning.

Under the current provisions of the Bill, care home managers are expected to carry out the consultation process, and yet this is the one opportunity that the cared-for person and their family have to register any objections to the proposed arrangements. The process needs to be carried out independently so that people can feel free to speak their minds. Amendment 49 achieves that. It prevents the local council from delegating the consultation process to the care home manager, and then this crucial step must be carried out by the local council itself.

In Committee, the Minister said she believed that it could be appropriate for a care home manager to carry out that process, because those with an interest in the welfare of the cared-for person can flag up objections, but that would not always work in practice. For that to happen, a family member would have to know that they had the right to do that. They have to know with whom to raise their objection and then raise it in a timely manner. That is pretty key in relation to this business of care homes and to challenging on behalf of the cared-for person. It is not reasonable to expect people to understand the intricacies of the system. Similarly, we cannot expect everyone to have the confidence to negotiate the system for themselves. We here perhaps do not always think how hard it is to challenge those in authority, but it is a very difficult thing to do indeed. We need to offer a cared-for person a chance to object in a setting that they are comfortable with, without fear of reprisals from care home managers.

Government amendment 38 goes against the principles that I set out in relation to our amendment 49. It is unacceptable for the care home manager to be involved in that consultation with the cared-for person and their family, so we are in a situation where the two amendments are directly opposed.

Let me move on to our third amendment, amendment 51, on advocacy, because that addresses the provision of independent advocates for cared-for people. That is a crucial safeguard, which enables people to realise their rights under the Mental Capacity Act 2005. The advocacy system proposed in this Bill is excessively complex. It could see people being denied an advocate when they need one. Our amendment seeks to simplify the system, ensuring that advocacy becomes the default option. Stakeholders have told us that they are concerned about the use of a best interests test to determine whether somebody should receive an advocate.

Clearly, there is a situation in which the Minister thinks that a best interests test is used to avoid overriding the wishes and feelings of the cared-for person. We agree that advocacy should never be forced on somebody, but we must be explicit about this principle of advocacy being available as the default.

[Catherine West]

My hon. Friend is so generous in taking interventions. Does she agree that there is no consistency in the choice of advocates across the regions?

[Barbara Keeley]

That may well be the case, but the difficulty here is that we have a complex system when we should have a simple system that clarifies that an independent advocate, an IMCA, should not be appointed if a cared-for person objects to it, but that everyone who wants or needs an advocate can get one. There should be an absolute right to request that an advocate be appointed both for the cared-for person and for any appropriate person who is representing them.

Our amendment would ensure that support is provided where an appropriate person is not able, on their own, to give the cared-for person the support that they need. That is particularly important, and there are many examples. I am sure that the vast majority of responsible bodies would not exploit loopholes, but we feel that there are loopholes in the current situation.

Budget pressures are another concern. There are concerns that advocates may not be allocated because of Government cuts to local council budgets. We feel that it is important that the wording from the existing Mental Capacity Act is retained. Let me give an example. The concern was put succinctly in evidence submitted to the Public Bill Committee by the Doughty Street Chambers Court of Protection team, who said:

“The requirement to ‘take all reasonable steps’ is a weakening of the current requirement that the supervisory body must appoint an IMCA...It is therefore possible that a ‘cared for person’ may qualify for an IMCA but that due to resource issues the reasonable steps taken do not result in such an appointment, and this safeguard may not be available.”

From everything the Minister has said, I know that she agrees about the importance of advocacy, and we have heard a lot of case studies, one of which I will briefly mention. My hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) described a case that has stuck with me since. An advocate was visiting a man in a care home who was clear that he wanted to leave and move back to his own home. When the advocate looked into the matter further, they discovered that the man’s home had been put up for sale by the local council to fund his care. He had no idea that that was happening and was extremely upset. With the help of an advocate, he was able to challenge the local council’s decision and prevent his home from being sold. I recall that example from Committee, and it is a powerful one that demonstrates just how important an advocate can be. Without one, this man’s home would have been sold without his knowledge, and he would then have been forced to remain in a care home that he wanted to leave. There are countless examples of how important an advocate can be.

--- Later in debate ---

[Norman Lamb]

I want to speak primarily in support of the amendments in the name of the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley), and others. However, I want to comment right at the start—I realise this is not the decision of the Minister—about the time we have to debate a Bill that deals with fundamental human rights. I just think it is absolutely outrageous, and we should place on the record our total opposition to the way in which, wholly inappropriately, it has been rushed through.

I should also say that I completely understand the need for reform. I said that on Second Reading, and I acknowledge the Minister’s sincerity on that. I recognise that we breach the human rights of the people who are on a long waiting list for anything to happen to them, but that is no justification for getting it wrong at this stage. Surely we must not weaken the protections for very vulnerable people, yet the organisations that have followed this process all the way through are very clear that that is precisely what we will do.

I just think this is extraordinary: the Government have commissioned a review of the Mental Health Act, and although we have not had the formal response yet, I expect that much of what the review calls for will be supported by the Government, yet the review moves in a diametrically opposite direction to this Bill. The review talks about “rebalancing the system” and about

“a real shift in the balance of power between the patient and the professional”.

The review also talks about

“a right to advocacy based on an opt-out approach.”

That is what the amendments in the name of the shadow Minister seek. This will not, as the Minister implied, force advocacy on anyone; this is about having it as the default option. The Law Commission has called for a right to advocacy as an opt-out approach, yet the Government are resisting it. Why are they resisting it? This reduces the rights and protections of vulnerable people, and for that reason it seems to me that it is unacceptable.

On Second Reading, I said that I would not oppose the Bill at that stage, and I said:

“Our assessment will be at the end of the process: is it workable? Does it genuinely respect and safeguard individuals’ human rights? Does it result in very vulnerable people being better protected than they are under the existing…flawed system?”

At that time, I asked the Minister to meet all of us, including interest groups, before going into the Committee stage. I said on Second Reading:

“Do not rush headlong into the Committee stage.”—[Official Report, 18 December 2018; Vol. 651, c. 744.]

Yet, within a fortnight, we were in Committee, which is exactly what I had urged her not to do.

Then we come to the views of the sector. I mentioned earlier that over 100 organisations, including care providers, disabled people’s organisations and charities, have written to the Minister. They make it clear that reform should not be at the cost of the human rights of people who rely on essential social services. I want to deal, specifically and finally, with the conflict of interest issue. They say in that letter to the Minister that

“serious conflicts of interest will be placed upon care managers who will be in control of key information about assessments and review processes.”

The Law Society—surely we should take its concerns seriously—says of care home managers that

“any task or role they undertake must be completely conflict free”,

and that they should not be arranging or carrying out critical assessments. Care home managers should not be responsible for consultation with the cared-for person. It describes the current process—it is not a past but a current concern about the Bill, as amended—as “deeply flawed”. It says:

“It is not difficult to envisage a vulnerable person being uncomfortable or reluctant to give an honest answer when questioned by the care home manager on their willingness to stay”—

in that care home—

“or their ‘happiness’ in the current placement.”

The Law Society’s concern is also about the capacity of care home managers to undertake this work, given that the whole system is under massive pressure. Bluntly, the quality of care home managers is such—many of them are really good, but some of them are not, frankly, good enough—that we cannot rely on them to undertake this vital work, which goes to the protection of the civil liberties of vulnerable people.

[Barbara Keeley]

On the training that the Minister has talked about and the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) just referred to, I understand from impact assessments that there is half a day’s training for care home managers and two hours of training for social workers. What does the right hon. Gentleman think of that?

[Norman Lamb]

That is clearly insufficient when it comes to the vital task of playing a role in the protection of people’s civil liberties and human rights. That is what the Bill envisages.

Sue Bott, the deputy chief executive of Disability Rights UK, says:

“Given the rare unanimity across the health and social care sector and disabled people’s organisations we urge the Government to delay the Bill and look again at its provisions. It is better to have a co-produced piece of legislation that works for everyone than rush through a new law that, in its current form, will seriously undermine the human rights of disabled people.”

I urge the Minister to listen carefully to that—the “rare unanimity” across the sector. When I was responsible for taking the Care Bill through Parliament, we ensured that by the end pretty much everyone was on board, although it was a slow and sometimes frustrating process.

The Minister will be applauded if she now recognises that these concerns about the amended Bill are not past ones but current ones. If we are to get people on board and ensure that everyone agrees that we are properly protecting the human rights of very vulnerable people, the right thing to do now is pause, before the Bill goes back to the House of Lords, to ensure in particular that the provisions on conflict of interest of care home managers and the rights of advocacy are properly addressed. If the Minister can do that, she will go a long way towards bringing people on board. I am sure that that is what she wants.

--- Later in debate ---

[Barbara Keeley]

It is appalling that we should have had less than two hours for Report stage of a Bill affecting the human rights of some 2 million vulnerable people who lack capacity—and we had less than two hours for Second Reading. Given that there is no appreciable business to occupy ourselves with next week, it is ludicrous that the Government should have forced the Bill through today.

The Bill that we are being asked to pass today is simply not fit for purpose; it simply replaces the current flawed system, which the Minister has just described, with a new one that is actually more flawed. There are a number of issues that we still consider unacceptable. The largest is that the Bill still creates a major conflict of interest in relation to the managers of private care homes. It is simply wrong that a business with a financial stake in seeing a deprivation of liberty authorisation granted can do all the legwork and then just have its recommendation rubber-stamped by the local council.

I hope that care home managers will seek to carry out their new role well, but we know that they are already overstretched. The Bill creates extra pressures.

[Norman Lamb]

Does the shadow Minister share my confusion and concern that the Mental Health Act review, which the Government commissioned, appears to be moving in one direction—strengthening the rights of individuals—while this Bill appears to be moving in precisely the opposite direction?

[Barbara Keeley]

That is very much the case. We asked on Second Reading for some consideration of the interface between the two.

As well as the issue of care home managers, there is a real concern about the restrictions on access to advocacy under the Bill. Advocacy is a fundamental pillar of any system for authorising deprivation of liberty. The Bill means that vulnerable people who need an advocate may not get one, and amendments that could have changed that have been rejected. The use of a best interest test to decide whether someone gets an advocate has been widely criticised. The Government could and should have removed the reliance on the best interest test.

The maximum renewal period of a deprivation of liberty authorisation is tripled by the Bill. As the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) said, the Mental Health Act review is moving in one way while this Bill moves in another. The Bill could see people being detained for three years at a time without a full reconsideration of their case. The only safeguard against that being misused is a series of regular reviews, but we do not know how regular those will be or what they will look like.

In Committee, the Government introduced a new definition of deprivation of liberty to the Bill. It is woefully inadequate and will inevitably result in costly litigation. The Government introduced the definition late on, with next to no consultation. The clashes between that definition and existing case law will lead to court challenges. The definition will see some people deprived of their liberty without the safeguards they need, while the issue is sorted out in the courts.

The process that the Bill has been through could be used as a case study of how not to make legislation.

[Alex Cunningham]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Barbara Keeley]

I do not have time, I am afraid.

The Government have consistently tried to push the Bill through as fast as they can, with minimal consultation. It should be clear that stakeholders are united in thinking this a poor piece of legislation, and on many issues the Government have failed to address their concerns. On Second Reading in the House of Lords we heard the Bill described by Baroness Barker as

“one of the worst pieces of legislation ever brought before this House.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 11 December 2018; Vol. 794, c. 1247.]

The Bill may have improved slightly, but there has been too little progress for us to support its becoming law. It would enshrine a fundamental conflict of interest and weaken the current safeguards of people without capacity.

It was clear from the start that the Bill was intended to shift the costs of authorising deprivation of liberty away from the state and on to private providers. This matter is too important for us to pass a Bill that we know will not work properly simply because Government budget cuts have created a problem. The Government chose to continue to cut local council budgets; as a result of that lack of resourcing, tens of thousands of people are being deprived of their liberty without authorisation. Letting the backlog build up was a political choice, but this Bill is not a solution. It will not adequately protect people’s human rights, and replacing one bad system with another will not be progress. If the Government were serious about protecting people’s liberty, Ministers would have paused the Bill, which we called on them again today to do, and given local authorities the resources they need to address the backlog. They could then have given this matter the time, consultation and consideration it needs before beginning a new Bill that does not weaken the protections that vulnerable people rely on.

I thank members of the Public Bill Committee, our excellent Whip, all the hon. Members who contributed to this shortened debate tonight and, particularly, the Clerk to the Committee. I urge right hon. and hon. Members to join us in voting against this flawed piece of proposed legislation that undermines the human rights of vulnerable people who lack capacity.

Question put, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

Mental Capacity (Amendment) Bill [Lords]

Barbara Keeley Excerpts

Ping Pong: House of Commons
Tuesday 2nd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

The code of practice is being worked on as we speak. It is very important that we take it forward in partnership with all the key stakeholders and those who are involved at the front end implementing the liberty protection safeguards. Once we are all content that the code of practice is robust and fully covers everything that we want it to it will then be presented to both Houses of Parliament.

This will mean that the definition will be considered regularly. It will remain up to date with evolving case law. It means that we are laying a report of the review before Parliament and that there will be a review within three years of the measure coming into force to ensure that it is working as intended. The review will extend to all the guidance related to the liberty protection safeguards contained in the code of practice and not just the definition. By regularly reviewing the code in this way, we will ensure that there is up-to-date guidance for people and practitioners and this will support the successful operation of the liberty protection safeguard system.

The amendment will ensure that the code clarifies when a deprivation of liberty does or does not apply and provide useful guidance for families, carers and professionals while also ensuring that we do not put a definition in statute that conflicts with article 5 of the convention and I ask the House for its support in this.

I shall briefly turn to Lords amendment 25A, which was tabled in the other place with the admirable aim of ensuring that the authorisation record is provided to the individual and other relevant persons in a timely manner. This followed the Government amendment that clarified the responsible body’s duty to provide information to the person and other relevant persons. Noble lords amended the Bill to specify that a record must be kept if the authorisation record is not provided immediately. If the authorisation record is not provided to the person within 72 hours then a review must be conducted.

The Government agree that it is very important to make sure that the authorisation process record is provided quickly. However, there are some issues with Lords amendment 25A that need to be addressed before it can be put into statute. For example, it does not make a specific person or organisation responsible for recording that an authorisation record has not been provided for completing a review, so the duty cannot be enforced. Government amendment (a) in lieu of Lords Amendment 25A states:

“After authorisation arrangements, the responsible body must, without delay, arrange for a copy of the authorisation record to be given or sent.”

Government amendment (b) in lieu will ensure that if the responsible body has not done this within 72 hours of the arrangements being authorised, it must review and record why this has not happened. Providing information, including in the authorisation record, is so important to ensure that people are able to exercise their rights. The Government have listened and reflected on the concerns of the other place and have brought forward this amendment. I ask that the House supports it.

Finally, I take this opportunity to put on record my thanks to the Members of both Houses. We set out to consult very widely on this piece of legislation and to listen very carefully to the concerns of both Houses. Both Houses have very carefully scrutinised this crucial piece of legislation. I also thank many of the stakeholders who have supported its development. I thank the Bill team, particularly the Bill manager Sharon Egan, and officials across the UK and Welsh Governments who have worked with the team to deliver this reform. I thank, too, the legal team and my private secretary Flora Henderson. It is through a great deal of dedication and hard work that we will be able to rectify a failing system and provide protections to the 125,000 vulnerable people for whom it currently falls well short.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

When we last debated this Bill, I was clear that Labour did not think that the Bill was adequate to become law. The Minister has just expressed her thanks, but we did make it clear that it contained a number of serious flaws and this still remains the case. While improvements have been made in the House of Lords, they do not fix many of the concerns that we still have with this Bill.

The Bill still places more power than it should in the hands of care home managers. From organising assessments to carrying out consultations with the cared-for person, the Bill means that an untrained, or an ineffective, care home manager could end up carrying out the process in a flawed or improper way.

Recently, there was a focus on the scandal of abuse that happened at the Mendip House Care Home in Somerset, with six autistic residents with complex needs. The Safeguarding Adults Review carried out by the Somerset safeguarding board revealed a host of management failures by the National Autistic Society. The registered manager of that particular care home did not address the unprofessional behaviour of a thuggish gang of male staff. This resulted in the following abuse being meted out to the residents of Mendip House: they were “ridden like horses” by staff; forced to crawl on all fours; made to eat raw chillies; and, in one horrific instance, forced to eat food spiked with mustard, which caused the resident to vomit. The resident was then made by a member of staff to drink that vomit.

People living in Mendip House had complex needs and all would have lacked capacity to make certain decisions and all required deprivation of liberty safeguards. The Care Quality Commission had not receive any notifications that DoLS had been authorised. On care planning and recording, the review report on Mendip House states:

“Care plans were very poor with no mental health or Best Interests assessments recorded... DoLS not being followed.... recording poor, plans out of date...”

The Minister has previously said that, through this Bill, the Government

“are ensuring that people’s wishes are always considered and respected, and that people are safe, cared for and looked after.”—[Official Report, 18 December 2018; Vol. 651, c. 757.]

But I have just cited a case where the care home manager neglected both care planning and safeguarding, so what steps will the Minister take to investigate what happened at Mendip House? Will she ensure that such behaviour does not continue under the provisions of this Bill, given that so much power is given to care home managers? Today is World Autism Awareness Day, and we must do more than pay lip service to showing solidarity with autistic people.

--- Later in debate ---

I listened carefully to the shadow Minister, who discussed how to regulate care homes and to ensure that standards are applied. I am not suggesting that every consultation should be carried out by someone from the local authority. Indeed, as I said at an earlier stage of the Bill, it may be more appropriate for a carer who knows the person well to carry out part of the consultation rather than having someone turn up from the council. Again, this is about how to ensure that appropriate standards are maintained. I will keep to the amendments, but we could have a longer debate about how to ensure that regulatory standards are where they need to be.

[Barbara Keeley]

In the example I gave, residents who had lived in a care home for a long period had a manager who did not keep their care plans or any documentation, and they suffered terrible abuse. Such things do go on, and I am still concerned that we are giving responsibility to people who are already overstretched and may not be doing or may be unable to do a good job.

[Kevin Foster]

I accept the point. However, the hon. Lady’s example is not just about standards being ignored, because there was a raft of, bluntly, criminal behaviour and abuse. If we were having a longer debate about care homes and the regulatory system, we could look at whether having the Care Quality Commission cover such a wide range of areas is the best way of ensuring that such things do not happen, but Mr Deputy Speaker is always keen for us to stick to the topic of the debate.

The amendments relating to Lords amendment 1B are appropriate and slightly better than the original, and the amendments relating to Lords amendment 25A make eminent sense. It makes sense to record why something has not happened, because if there are concerns about the management of a care home, there should be a duty to record why something was not done, not just to review it. The management could in theory say, “I’ve reviewed it, but I didn’t record what I’ve concluded,” or try to come up with a conclusion later.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who makes such thoughtful contributions. I will be brief, as we appear to have a large amount of consensus on this piece of legislation.

First, I want to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Minister for the work she has done on the Bill, her extremely consensual approach to it and the way she has listened to concerns from Members on both sides of the House and consulted stakeholders widely. It has been a real pleasure to work with her on the Bill, and I thank her for that.

This Bill is critical because it concerns some of the most vulnerable people in our society. We have talked about the fact that there are 125,000 people waiting to be processed for deprivation of liberty orders, and the system is not working, but there are 2 million people who have impaired mental capacity in the country, and we need to get the system right for all of them, not just the 125,000 who are being let down by the current system.

It is also important to say that the Bill builds on more than three years of work and the recommendations of the Law Commission. It has been fully scrutinised by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, and the other place has contributed to it, as have members of the Bill Committee. I have received many emails in support of the fact that it introduces a better system, gets rid of the bureaucratic box-ticking exercises in the old system and should be better for both the individuals who are deprived of their liberty and their families.

[Barbara Keeley]

The work that was done for three years was on a 15-clause Bill that is not this Bill. We discussed that plenty of times in Committee. I think it only fair to be accurate. This five-clause Bill is not the Bill that was consulted on, and it is not the Bill that had three years of work. It is not correct to claim that it is. We spent a lot of time in Committee trying to put right the things that were missing and taken out of the earlier 15-clause Bill, and it is better to be accurate about that.

[Helen Whately]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. Broadly, I was attempting to say that a significant amount of work has gone into this. I have heard overwhelmingly from those working in the sector about the importance of doing something about the current situation, because it is not working and cannot be allowed to continue. This is urgent.

It is right that the NHS and social care providers will be given a bigger role in the decision-making process, so that people under their care receive better care and their rights are protected. The fact that we have people outside the system unprotected at the moment clearly cannot be right and cannot continue. During the passage of the Bill, I raised concerns about how it will work for people with fluctuating conditions, and I have been reassured by the Minister that responsible bodies will be required to keep individuals’ circumstances under review. I welcome the fact that there is further detailed guidance on fluctuating conditions in the code of practice.

I turn to the amendments and particularly the debate about the best way to define “deprivation of liberty”. It feels like a sensible conclusion has been reached in order for us to move forward, with a plan to develop the definition further through the code of practice. These things evolve and are extremely complex, and we need a flexible system that meets the needs of our society.

To sum up, the old system is not fit for purpose. The Bill makes important and timely amendments. It is better for individuals and all those around them to ensure that they have appropriate protections for the very serious matter of depriving individuals of liberty.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House does not insist on its amendment 1 to which the Lords has disagreed, and disagrees with Lords amendment 1B proposed in lieu, but proposes amendment (a) to the Bill in lieu of the Lords amendment.

Resolved,

That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 25A proposed to its amendment 25, but proposes amendments (a) and (b) to its amendment 25 in lieu of the Lords amendment.—(Jo Churchill.)