My Lords, this Bill has the potential to do for social care what Beveridge did for the welfare state and Bevan did for the health service. It is potentially the most significant development in, for example, residential care since the workhouses were replaced by a more civilised form of residential accommodation.
The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, anticipated precisely the point I was going to make, which is that this is not just a matter for local authorities. My principal reservation about these amendments, if I have one, is that it looks as though the entire burden of information and advice is to be placed on local authorities whereas of course, as the noble Baroness rightly said, there are other potential partners who clearly need to be involved. I scribbled on the grid that is helpfully provided by those who support the Front Bench on this side the words “in collaboration with”, and then I thought of a number of potential partners. Of course the health service is one of them, but in addition I would suggest that the Court of Protection needs to be involved. It has a supervisory and supportive responsibility for a particular group of people and, with the development of lasting powers of attorney and so on, their deputies as well. I have to say—I have said it before and I will say it again—that I am not convinced that the Court of Protection is doing a terrific job in this area, but that is another reason why it should be looked at as a potential partner.
There may be other partners. For example, in the case of younger people perhaps with a learning or other disability, there are roles for those involved in further education, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Those bodies might look at their role in terms of what is available by way of education, training and so on. It seems to me that a range of organisations should be involved, certainly as a whole, but more particularly in the provision of information and advice.
On these Benches we support most of the amendments that have been moved and spoken to this afternoon, with the qualification that, where relevant and necessary, a reference to collaboration should be included. For example, in Amendment 82B, the first amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, one would want to see “in collaboration with” appropriate partners.
We support the amendments, notably moved by my noble friend Lord Lipsey, around the provision of independent financial advice. That seems very important. I have a slight reservation about Amendment 86D, which is about payment of,
“the reasonable costs of a first consultation with an independent financial adviser”,
to be paid for “by the local authority”. If I am ever in need of this kind of advice, I would be able to afford that relatively easily. Given the pressure on budgets, is a universal application of that principle necessary or desirable? That, however, is a detail, that might be looked at later. Given the scale of the potential involvement and the potential conflict of interest referred to by several noble Lords, the independence and proper status of such financial advice are important considerations.
With regard to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, I will perhaps anticipate the Minister by quibbling over the word “demonstrably”. Frankly, I am not sure that that takes us very far. As the noble Lord admitted, what is demonstrable to some is not necessarily demonstrable to others. I do not think that that part of his amendment is particularly cogent, although I agree with the rest of it.
I have more serious doubt about the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Browning. Amendment 86H requires that the information and advice be provided by “social work-qualified staff”. It could be, but I am not sure that it should be a requirement that it should be, given the pressure on the service in dealing with casework as it is. I do not think that the skills of social workers are always consistent with the role of giving information and advice in the sense that is intended by the amendment.