I strongly agree with the right hon. Gentleman. He might be interested to know that, while I am not an expert, I am told that principle 5 of the 2005 Act talks about the least restrictive option to achieve the best interests of the vulnerable adult. Can the MCA apply itself to itself, please?
I wonder whether there is another reason why the Ministry of Justice is sticking to the principle despite all the evidence and pressure. Perhaps it wants to get more people to go to the Court of Protection so that the judges there can help with the deputyships of those vulnerable adults as they turn 18. One can have a discussion about whether more families should ultimately go to the Court of Protection. However, when one reads the guidelines of the Court of Protection, it is clear that it rightly sees itself as a court of last resort for a family dispute about money or, more likely, for how a person should be cared for, who should be caring for them and where they should live.
Sometimes, if there is a dispute in the family, the court is necessary and the Court of Protection is brilliant at that. Sometimes, a vulnerable adult may have no loved one or family member, and then the Court of Protection rightly fills that vacuum. However, if families can come to an agreement among themselves, more often than not that will be better than having to go to
the Court of Protection. We should make the Court of Protection available to more people. We could advertise and market it—people may want to think about that in due course.
My wife and I are old parents; my son is 16 and I am 58, so I am quite an old dad. I worry about when my wife and I die. My son does not have a degenerative condition, and he is going to live for quite a few years. Of course, we are thinking in due course of going to the Court of Protection or getting a family member such as his sister or one of his cousins to be there for him. The Court of Protection, as I say, has good reason to be there. No one is against it, but it should be used when it is needed.
Perhaps the Ministry of Justice thinks that it has no court backlogs and loads of judges who are just sitting there twiddling their thumbs, so we should give them more business. Come on! Please take the pressures off the system by adopting something simple. I do not like saying this, but there may be a reason why people in the judiciary and legal profession are keen to force people to go to the Court of Protection even when it is disproportionate. Perhaps it is vested interests. I really hope that that is not what we are dealing with, because it is not acceptable.
We are talking about people who are vulnerable, and parents and carers who are stretched to their limits. We are talking about small amounts of money. I urge the Minister to listen to us, and to go back to his Department and the Secretary of State and say that the officials and some of the judiciary from the Court of Protection need to be overruled on this. We need to act proportionately. We need to act in the best interests of thousands of young people who should have access to their own money.
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