Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, perhaps I may intervene briefly in support of the general thrust of the amendments without necessarily saying that I agree with every dot and comma. I also agree, not least, with the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins. The noble Lord, Lord Rix, and I have known each other for quite a long while in the field of learning disabilities and, indeed, through my role many years ago as Minister with responsibility for disabled people, so I am happy to lend a sympathetic word on this point. I ought to declare an interest in that several times I have told the House that I am the chair of a mental health trust. Of course, mental health trusts often deal with learning disabilities as well, as indeed does the health trust that I chair, although happily last year it transferred most of its residents on old-style campuses to Suffolk County Council for a more complete version of genuine living in the community and community care, and I am rather pleased that we did that. We need to recognise that, although there are overlaps—the word ““co-morbidities”” is used in one of the amendments—between mental illness and learning disability, they are not the same, and we need to make sure that we take particular and appropriate account of the needs of learning disabilities in all this. I hope that the Minister will be able to assure us that that will be the case.