My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 92AA, which is at the end of this group. It concerns what is potentially one of the most powerful instruments for protecting people against neglect and abuse: the Human Rights Act. Amendment 92AA would insert a new clause after Clause 46 to make all providers of social care services regulated by the CQC subject to Section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998. The Act applies to all public authorities and to other bodies when they are performing functions of a public nature. Under Section 6 such bodies are under a duty to act in a way which is compatible with the human rights protected by the Act. This duty does not simply arise as a result of litigation in the courts or dispute resolution, but means that human rights are part and parcel of the development and delivery of public services.
However, as a result of the case of YL v Birmingham City Council in 2007, a loophole opened up which meant that care home services provided by private and third sector organisations under a contract with the local authority were not considered to fall within the definition of public function under the Human Rights Act. This decision, that private and third sector care home providers were not directly bound by the Human Rights Act, meant that thousands of service users had no direct legal remedy to hold their providers to account for abuse, neglect or undignified treatment. Though the public body commissioning services remained
bound by the Human Rights Act, this was of little practical value to the individual on the receiving end of poor or abusive treatment.
Following a sustained campaign the then-Labour Government, with cross-party support, accepted that the loophole created by the YL decision needed to be closed. Section 145 was included in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 to clarify that residential care services provided or arranged by local authorities are covered by the Human Rights Act. The operative words are “provided or arranged”. If the noble Earl is responding to this debate, he will no doubt remember giving his support to the amendment from the opposition Front Bench.
Age UK and other organisations are concerned, however, that the Bill risks returning the situation in England and Wales to that at the time of the YL decision. Section 145 of the Health and Social Care Act refers specifically to those placed in residential care under Sections 21(1)(a) and 26 of the National Assistance Act 1948. However, it is expected that these sections will now be repealed under Clause 107, meaning that Section 145 will no longer have anything to bite on. This amendment seeks clarification from the Government as to how they propose to deal with this and an assurance that there will be no regression in human rights protection.
However, this is not the only point. The organisations supporting this amendment have long been concerned that Section 145 of the Health and Social Care Act does not cover all care service users or even all residential care service users. Rather, as I have said, it protects only people placed in residential care under the National Assistance Act 1948. Having accepted the argument that primary legislation was required to clarify that Parliament intended the Human Rights Act to extend to residential care services provided by private and third sector organisations under a contract with a local authority, it is anomalous not to treat residential care provided under other legislation and domiciliary care in the same way.
The Government’s view, as stated in a note submitted to the Joint Committee on the draft Care and Support Bill, is that all providers of publicly arranged care and support services,
“including private and voluntary sector providers, should consider themselves to be bound by the duty imposed by section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 and not to act in a way that is incompatible with a Convention right”.
The Joint Committee acknowledged that this is the Government's position but concluded that,
“as a result of the decision in the YL case, statutory provision is required to ensure this”.
This must surely be right. The words,
“should consider themselves to be bound”,
are not enough. It needs to be a matter of law, not just of honour. I have seen a letter in which it is stated that the Government’s position is that care providers are covered, and should not just consider themselves bound. However, the House of Lords said in YL that they were not covered and the Joint Committee was not convinced either. Given such uncertainty, it is surely essential that the matter is put beyond doubt in legislation.
The Government consider that there are dangers in doing this as it is felt that it would risk creating doubt about the interpretation of the Human Rights Act in other sectors. They stated in their note to the Joint Committee:
“Each time specific provision is made with respect to a particular type of body, we weaken the applicability of”,
the existing provision,
“and raise doubts about all those bodies that have not been specified explicitly in the legislation”.
Against this, it needs to be said that the legal situation following YL is already one of significant legal ambiguity, which is unsatisfactory for both service providers and the users of public services. It forces service users to litigate on a case-by-case basis to seek clarification.
The proposed amendment would bring the necessary legal clarity by deeming that all those providing social care services regulated by the CQC are exercising a public function for the purposes of Section 6 of the Human Rights Act. Without the direct, positive obligation to protect an individual’s human rights conferred by Section 6, human rights abuses of care service users are a frequent occurrence in private and voluntary sector provision. That is something which other noble Lords have highlighted and which is also highlighted by a succession of inquiries and reports such as the EHRC’s inquiry into home care, which uncovered serious and systemic threats to the basic human rights of those receiving care services.
This amendment also seeks to include those who are eligible for care but who, due to means testing, have to arrange and/or pay for their own care—the so-called self-funders—and who therefore currently lack the full protection of the Human Rights Act. To date it has been the case, at least for those who were found to be eligible for care in their own home, that the obligation for the local authority to arrange care regardless of the person’s resources provided them with a degree of protection under the Human Rights Act. The local authority’s duties to arrange care are subject to that Act, even though the provider might not be.
However, the changes to the system for arranging care to be introduced by the Bill weaken the protection. The Bill introduces a single system for arranging care, whether it takes place in a residential setting or the recipient’s own home. Under these proposals, where people are deemed eligible for care but are found after means testing to be responsible for paying part or all of the cost of that care, they will be able to request that the local authority arranges their care but may have to pay it to do so. This new system is likely to reduce the coverage of the Human Rights Act because people who are entitled to local authority care in their own home but have to pay for it will no longer be automatically protected by the Act unless they request that the local authority arranges their care. Many will not make such a request, either because they will not be able to afford to pay for having the local authority arrange their care on top of the cost of the care itself, or because they will simply not be able to cope with the bureaucratic hassle.
The Joint Committee on the draft Care and Support Bill recommended:
“The draft Bill should be amended to ensure that private and third sector providers of care services regulated by public authorities are deemed to be performing public functions within the meaning of section 6(3)(b) of the Human Rights Act 1998”.
The amendment that I bring to the Committee today follows this approach and, if accepted, would provide equal protection to all users of regulated social care, regardless of where that care is provided and who pays for it. The Government believe, as the notes to the draft Bill make clear, that protection under the Human Rights Act extends to care arranged by a local authority even if it is self-funded. The Joint Committee does not accept that this does not require explicit statutory provision. However, regardless of this view, the committee made the point that this does not address the situation of self-funders who arrange their own care and support. It said:
“The Government will need to consider whether it is right that, of all adults in need of care, only this group should lack the protection of the Human Rights Act, solely because there is no public sector involvement in arranging or paying for their care”.
There are those who argue, as their Lordships did in YL, that the right approach for protecting human rights is not an extension of the Human Rights Act. An alternative, often suggested, is that regulation can be better used to target specific issues. The CQC is under a duty to have due regard to the need to protect the human rights of those using care services in performing its functions, which include inspecting all care homes and registered home care providers. It is argued that this gives self-funders human rights protection, but without a credible prospect of litigation against the care provider itself, there is reduced pressure on it to respect and safeguard the human rights of service users.
I fully accept that bringing all regulated social care services within the scope of Section 6 of the Human Rights Act will not alone solve the problems of undignified care and human rights abuses in care settings. Improved regulation, additional safeguarding legislation and better training must also play their part. However, the evidence continues to mount that without direct application of the Human Rights Act and the proactive approach to promoting and protecting rights that it demands, abuse, neglect and undignified treatment are commonplace currencies. The status quo is not acceptable. The proposed amendment offers a simple, effective and lasting solution to this long-standing problem. The Human Rights Act can provide an essential safety net for social care recipients who find themselves in highly vulnerable situations. The Government must not deny them this protection.
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