My Lords, this is largely a group of government technical amendments, interspersed with amendments from noble Lords probing important aspects. On Clause 69, my noble friend Lord Patel’s Amendments 105AA and 105CA would ensure that local authority safeguarding inquiries do apply to adults in bail accommodation and, in respect of Safeguarding Adults Boards, would enable prison governors or other prison staff to be members of the board.
Government amendments 105B and 105D address those issues. On safeguarding inquiries, the Government’s proposal to allow SABs to provide advice and assistance to persons in bail accommodation is a compromise. My noble friend has argued that that is not good enough and we strongly support that view. How can local authorities have premises in their areas where abuse or neglect could occur and not have a duty to conduct a safeguarding inquiry?
On prison governors being members of Safeguarding Adults Boards, my noble friend is exploring ways in which governors and prison staff can best participate in and learn about the board’s role and work. I look forward to the Minister’s response on how she thinks the Government’s amendments best facilitate this.
The remaining Clause 69 government amendments include a number of tidying-up measures which we support to reduce the burden on local authorities, such as clarifying local authority ordinary residence rules in relation to bail accommodation, explicitly exempting prisons and bail accommodation from local authority safeguarding adults reviews, and minor technical amendments to change the general language relating to the clause.
Under Clause 71 and Amendment 105Q from the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, we return again to the Secretary of State’s powers in relation to local authorities and NHS bodies. Both the noble Baroness and my noble friend Lord Touhig make a strong case for statutory guidance previously in place to continue to apply under the new legislation until the Secretary of State declares otherwise. The noble Lord and noble Baroness, as usual, speak strongly on autism and the Autism Act being embedded in the new legislation. However, there is a wider issue of ensuring that the Secretary of State retains ultimate responsibility, arguably more important than ever with the tendency of our current Secretary of State to hover above it all and act as if everybody else is responsible but him.
Amendment 105R of the noble Lord, Lord Low, to Clause 72 seeks to prevent a local authority from being able to delegate functions on its behalf under this part of the Bill. He is right to be cautious about how the local authority powers under this clause are used. I look forward to the Minister’s response to the amendment.
Finally, under government Amendment 105V in this group, I again raise an issue that I spoke of during last week’s safeguarding debate on the provider failure provisions under Clauses 47 to 49, designed to address responsibilities and actions in any future provider collapse, such as we saw most recently with Southern Cross residential care homes. The Lords Delegated Powers Committee expressed concern at the Bill’s failure to define what is meant by both “business failure” and “market failure”. Although I got an answer in passing in the following debate when the noble Earl the Minister responded to a question about provider failure from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, I would appreciate the Minister explaining today in more detail why the Government have chosen regulations to address these two issues, which are fundamental to the operation of the provider failure provisions of the Bill, rather than include the definitions in the Bill.