My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time, in both senses—in the parliamentary sense of a Second Reading and in the sense that this is the second time that the Bill has been before the House. As noble Lords will know, it is the same Bill that was passed by this House last April. It was subsequently introduced in the House of Commons by Roger Berry but ran out of time there. The Bill is a high priority for those of us concerned with disability. I declare an interest as a disabled person, so there is a certain self-interest in this Bill being passed by both Houses.

Those of us who are interested in disability issues intend to make them a high priority in this country. Without that we will get nowhere, but with public support we can make progress. We are determined that this Bill should become law. It may not happen now, but it will definitely happen. A Government who support the Bill will find themselves in good favour in the country. They have been warned that if they reject this Bill or do not bother with it, somebody else may take up the cudgels.

I thank Caroline Ellis of the Disability Rights Commission for her magnificent help, work and support on this important Bill. I warmly appreciate it, as do millions of disabled people around the country. The Bill includes many things and all claims for it can be verified. It is a rescue operation for the victims of the worsening crisis in social care. It is a blueprint for the future, compensating for the many short-sighted policies and practices. It is a Bill that seeks to end the misery inflicted on disabled people and their families by an antediluvian system of care that is restrictive and inflexible.

The need for reform grows more urgent every day. It is staggering that three-quarters of councils are now refusing to support people with moderate needs and at least four councils provide support only if the person would otherwise die. You have to be dying to get any kind of help from councils and, of course, if you die it is no help anyway. Three-quarters is an outrageous figure. Unless you are dying, you need not bother applying. Those are the facts in Great Britain. Without support, people are left to deteriorate, carers cannot work and families are put under strain.

Pilots, reviews and warm words from Ministers are not what people want or hope for. They want a new law that gives them clear entitlements and guarantees them a chance to live an ordinary life contributing to their community. They hope that the Government will seize the opportunity offered by the Bill to bring about a real and lasting change. The House will listen with great care to the Minister who winds up. We are hoping for something that is positive, constructive and definite. Disabled people hope that the Government will seize the opportunity offered by the Bill to bring about a real and lasting change. If they do not, they must take the consequences, as we intend to make social care a high priority.

I remind the House of the main points of the Bill. First, it provides a set of guiding principles for the delivery of public service support to disabled people. It would prevent the everyday abuses of dignity and autonomy that we see today. Nowhere in the existing pattern of community care provisions will we find any reference to choice, control, dignity or equality. Disabled people are as much entitled to those as anybody else, but social services departments routinely make decisions that contradict those fundamental values.

The Bill would get rid of fragmented services and bewildering bureaucracy. It would place local authorities, National Health Service bodies and other key partners under a clear obligation to promote independent living. This goes hand in hand with greater strategic duties to co-operate and pool funds. Under this scheme, disabled people would be relieved of the nightmare of negotiating with a bunch of different agencies to try to get their needs met.

The Bill empowers disabled people to assess their own support needs, supported by an advocate if they need one. This gives every disabled person the right to be told up front what resources they are entitled to and to plan their own support package. It gives people a real choice between managing their budget with practical assistance, placing it with a trusted person or organisation to manage on their behalf or taking statutory services in lieu of cash. These are important changes.

Some councils only feed and clean, nothing else. In place of the insulting feed-and-clean-only approach, the Bill provides for holistic entitlements to support that extend beyond personal care. Disabled people would have clear rights to support for mental health and communication needs and for rehabilitation, as well as rights to support in bringing up children. These are things that the Government have pledged to deliver for disabled people by signing the United Nations disability convention. We thank the Government for that, but the catch is that they have yet to enshrine that in law. There is no point in saying how clever we are in singing the declaration if it is not legally binding, so the Government may be wasting their time if they do not pursue this further and make it mandatory. We want the law. I ask my noble friend the Minister, who I see is listening carefully, when disabled people can expect the Government to enshrine these provisions in law. It is a positive, constructive step, which I fully expect the Government to take without hesitation.

This new framework provides for national minimum guaranteed entitlements so that postcode lotteries are eradicated. To make freedom of movement a reality for disabled people, the Bill provides for portable support packages. With these, disabled people can move from one local authority to another for jobs or family reasons without the uncertainty of having to undergo reassessment and renegotiate a support care package from scratch. That happens. People who want to move for any reason find themselves having to negotiate each provision with different local authorities. Imagine all those bureaucrats lining up to tell you what you can and cannot have. It is a nightmare. The Bill would definitely eradicate that. I hope that the Government accept that without any discussion at all.

The Bill also fills the glaring absence in law of effective protection against unnecessary institutionalisation. This is an important point. It would be unlawful to institutionalise—a hell of a word, but you know what I mean—a person against their wishes or on grounds of financial expediency. For those in private and voluntary sector care homes, the Bill provides the full protection of the Human Rights Act.

A decent home is at the heart of independent living. The Bill places a duty on local authorities to establish disability housing registers to ensure that they make more efficient use of existing adapted or accessible stock and provide disabled people with real choice. All new homes would be built to lifetime home standards and an appropriate proportion of new homes would also have to be built to full wheelchair accessibility standards. Although we have not decided on a proportion yet, we will eventually decide on an effective and reasonable figure. That is important.

The benefits of the Bill extend not just to disabled people but to carers and whole families. The Bill would end the scandal of children as young as five carrying out adult support roles for their parents because the parents are so badly handicapped. That is a fact of life. Adopting this policy would free hundreds of thousands of carers to rejoin the labour market and enable women carers to find a way out of poverty and build up a decent pension.

I assure Ministers and their advisers that I am well aware of their objections to the Bill. I do not seek to brush those objections aside, although I do not agree with them. After all, we are all on the same side in wanting a fair deal for disabled people without massive expenditure. However, that does not mean no expenditure. Nothing in this Bill can be accomplished overnight or implemented all at once. I recognise that and the difficulties facing the Government, but we must begin to make positive advances now. We can and must begin a dialogue on the contents, timing and phasing in of the Bill. If the Government seek to get away with a blanket refusal, they are heading for serious trouble, but if they begin discussions, we will be on our way, seeking sensible solutions to long-standing problems that are damaging disabled people and causing increasing difficulties for the Government. Those difficulties will increase enormously if the Government give negative answers to these requests.

The Government have reservations about legislating for independent living. They say that they are not convinced of the need for new law. That is a ridiculous statement. They are surely aware of the leading community care law experts who say that the law is a dreadful mess. Even senior judges, the most cautious men in the world, express dismay at the law’s complexity and obscurity. All the major stakeholders in this debate, including the Local Government Association, believe that the time has come for root-and-branch reform. That is precisely what is required, not a bit of tinkering here and there, which the Government have been advocating for some time in the hope that they will not have to reform the law after this debate.

Ministers have also expressed concern about timing. There is more than adequate evidence of the benefits and feasibility of key provisions for us to move ahead confidently. These, such as self-directed support, are just waiting to be implemented. Indeed, the message coming from all parts of the Department of Health—I know that my noble friend the Minister is not from that department—to local authorities appears to be, “Please get on with self-directed support and individual budgets”. However, the Government are not providing the necessary duties or legal framework, so I hope that they will change their mind on that.

If the Government deny the need for urgent reform, this will become a long battle of attrition between us. However, I hope to elaborate, perhaps in Committee, on what I think would be a workable timetable for implementing the Bill. It cannot all be implemented at once; I recognise that there must be a staged process. That is particularly important, as it will be implemented in the context of the current, extremely tight financial settlement. I recognise the Government’s difficulties on that. We cannot work miracles overnight, but I hope that we shall start with miracles and move on to the major miracles. As I said, if the Government deny the need for urgent reform, it will become a long battle of attrition. I hope to get together with the Government to discuss the tight financial settlement that they are faced with and the way forward.

I am glad that the Minister is listening to this because cost is a crucial element for the Government. They have failed to deliver the kind of investment for which people are screaming out in social care. The Comprehensive Spending Review was a bitter disappointment. Apart from some positive pledges on short breaks for disabled children and their families and greater access to psychological therapies, there was precious little to rejoice in. A derisory 1 per cent increase in local government funding and a rise of just £190 million in adult social care funding from the Department of Health were announced. Frankly—and we need to be frank—the Government have failed to respond to the crisis.

I have spoken for far too long, but I shall say that I hope that we may convince the Government of the benefits of investing in independent living. The Office for Disability Issues, an independent organisation, clearly understands those benefits and has done some excellent research showing the huge economic benefits of radically transforming the system. The money can be saved; it is there, if the Government act properly. The more we invest in independent living support, the bigger the economic savings will be as more people pay taxes and come off benefits and fewer people need acute healthcare. Why on earth have the Government disregarded this research? We do not need a massive injection of investment to get the reform process under way. The very process of transforming public service support for disabled people and their families in the manner set out in the Bill will free vital resources to tackle unmet needs. It is to some extent a question of redirecting resources to secure better outcomes for disabled people.

Stakeholders interviewed for the cost-benefit study commissioned by the Office for Disability Issues suggested that no less than 20 to 30 per cent of social services expenditure is wastage because it goes on inflexible block contracts and inflated agency fees. If we tackled that by implementing the Bill, the savings would be in the region of a staggering £3.8 billion. That is the amount that Derek Wanless said would be needed to extend support to 450,000 older people. Similarly, the Government have estimated that reducing the rate of institutionalisation among older people by just 1 per cent would save a further £3.8 billion, so the Bill’s provisions would save money and make it available for the Government to use in different ways.

I am sorry to have gone on for so long, but this is an important Bill. It is a blueprint for the future and will be acted on sooner or later. The sooner the Minister is able to act on it, the better for all concerned. I commend the Bill to the House.

Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Ashley of Stoke.)

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Ashley of Stoke, on his unremitting pursuit over the years for better facilities for disabled people. I am sure all noble Lords will agree with the aim of the Bill that:

“disabled persons enjoy the same choice, freedom, dignity, control and substantive opportunities as persons who are not disabled at home, at work, and as members of the community”.

As a disabled person—I broke my back in 1958—I must declare an interest.

I was married for 46 years to a wonderful husband who had many serious health conditions in the last 11 years of his life. They included diabetes, strokes, DVT in his leg, a bleed in his head, an embolism in his lung, Parkinson’s disease, a cancer tumour in his lower bowel and an open wound that had to be dressed twice a day. I therefore know only too well what support and help some disabled people need if they are to remain in their own home, which is the wish of most people.

I shall restrict my remarks on the Bill to the clauses dealing with health matters, and I hope that the Minister will listen to some of our pleas that the Bill gives us the opportunity to air. Clause 7 is entitled:

“Further duties of NHS bodies”,

and it mentions palliative care services. They are still very patchy across the country.

When my husband became ill with pneumonia, I had to deal with the out-of-hours doctor service. He started running a temperature, and I dealt with three different doctors, all 26 miles away. One came out on Saturday and prescribed an antibiotic. As my husband had difficulty swallowing, we had to chase from chemist to chemist to find one that had it in a liquid form. On Sunday, my husband was worse, and I telephoned again. It was hours before the doctor telephoned back; the out-of-hours vet service would have been much quicker. By the afternoon, my husband had to go to hospital, and he died in the A&E department of Harrogate General Hospital. For seriously disabled people, this must be improved. The NHS is very fragmented. I know it is better in some parts of the country, such as Cambridge where, I am told, seriously at-risk ill patients are put on a register so that the out-of-hours doctors know about them. This is something that PCTs could improve greatly. In my husband’s case, there was no way for the hospital to get his notes. I mention that as I want it improved so that other people do not to have to go through what I went through. My fear is that as PCTs cover such large areas, the service will get even less personalised and more fragmented.

Last week, I attended a conference on cancer where I heard about the hopeful development of community palliative care in Lincolnshire, but it is a drop in the ocean. Clause 5(1) states:

“It shall be the duty of each local authority and each NHS body in carrying out their functions to promote independent living for disabled persons”.

I bring to your Lordships the most worrying Department of Health proposals on Part IX of the Drug Tariff: cuts in patient services and reduced access to prescription products. As the president of the Spinal Injuries Association, I can say that this is a concern of many of our members, and of many people who have had or have cancer and have to use catheters and stomas. These are essential products. Specialist products allow NHS patients with complex conditions to lead a near-normal life and maintain their independence. Appliance users can continue to work and contribute to society. Access to advice via specialist nurses and telephone helplines is vital to support patients’ self-care, as promoted by the Government.

The Department of Health’s proposals will lead to the withdrawal of large numbers of specialist appliances. People who have used specialist products to live independent lives for many years will face distress and disruption if their prescribed product is withdrawn because of price cuts. The department proposes to place a cap on the number of specialist nurse visits and stoma customisation which will be funded. This is a very small service that can help so many, and to cut it is ridiculous. The services ensure that patients are provided with the right product, which is individually tailored. If this is halted, clinical complications or infections may arise with serious implications for patient health and NHS resources. The saving that the department is trying to make is a tiny proportion of the total NHS budget and the overall savings target, but the most vulnerable patients will suffer.

Patient groups, healthcare professionals and the industry have expressed serious concern about the impact of the department’s proposals. They urge the Government to ensure that their proposals do not lead to products being withdrawn or services cut back. Many of these products are provided to patients in their own homes by the home delivery service. That is a most useful advantage to everyone concerned. I ask the Minister to help some of the most disabled service users in this matter. The department’s plans are laid out in a review document that is out for consultation until the end of December—this month.

As many of our paralysed members get older, there are increasing difficulties in shoulder and wrist movements, with overuse. There are increasing difficulties with bladder and bowel and the skin gets thinner and more vulnerable. They need more help to continue to live independently.

Many disabled people are very much at risk when they have to be treated in hospital from picking up infections such as MRSA or Clostridium difficile. I personally know two people who have been in hospital in the past year and have both had C difficile and MRSA. One is the brother of one of your Lordships. He has had cancer and it is a miracle that he is still alive after having had MRSA and C difficile twice. Neither of those people is old.

The Bill is intended to allow disabled people to enjoy personal dignity. It should be everybody's aim to strive for this. When one hears of patients being treated roughly by nurses or care assistants as they are moved in agony while in hospital, one wonders whether the nurses know about TLC. When food is left and taken away because nobody has ensured that the patient is fed, when fluids are denied to a thirsty patient, when patients are left for hours in a soiled bed, when nurses talk over patients, where is the dignity? When nurses are more interested in planning their nightlife than talking to their patients, it is put down to the modern generation, but with more hands-on training and supervision by dedicated sisters, we could have better nurses.

Too many sisters have been submerged in administration, which could be done by ward clerks. Patients, especially disabled ones, should not have to suffer with swallowing difficulties. The discharge of disabled patients from hospital should be well planned, not left until the last minute. Perhaps the national framework for NHS continuing healthcare and NHS-funded nursing care will help in this matter.

The Bill encompasses such a diversity of people with all sorts of disability, and impairments. I am so pleased that it stresses choice as one of its priorities. Where there is choice, one is most likely to get a good standard of care and support. I am not sure that this will be easy to achieve in some rural areas, but there is a great deal to aim for. The existing system does not provide rights to portable support. If you move to a different part of the country, you have to start all over again and negotiate a new care package from scratch. As provision is so patchy across the country, with a postcode lottery still in place, I can see why that happens.

As I find that mental illness can be difficult and patients can be a danger to themselves and others, I ask the Minister: do people with mental health problems have no right to assessment or treatment and support for their mental health needs? A high proportion of mental health service users are denied an assessment for social care services unless they reach a high initial threshold of serious mental ill health. If they are denied an assessment, how can that be proved one way or the other? I do not understand that and I hope that the Minister will explain it.

The Bill is giving much food for thought. I hope that, whatever the life of the Bill will be, it has already shown that there is a great deal to do if improvements are to be made.

My Lords, for more than 25 years now, I have been actively campaigning for disabled people to have the right to independent living and I wish that I had the lung power to regale the House with stories of how independent living has transformed disabled people’s lives, from watching daytime TV in the front room to becoming active citizens participating in their communities, accessing jobs and, indeed, speaking in the House of Lords. For those noble Lords who would like to know more, please—for those who like browsing the internet—just tap in “independent living” and “disabled people”. They will be amazed at what they read. I have also had the honour of working alongside the highly esteemed noble Lord, Lord Ashley, for more years than I can remember. In fact, I am his disability shadow.

To participate fully in society as equal citizens, disabled people need their support to be safeguarded in a legislative infrastructure. The Bill provides such a mechanism. It is the perfect complement to the Disability Discrimination Act and the Government’s forthcoming independent living strategy.

I am a trustee of the National Centre for Independent Living, an organisation that I co-founded with Frances Hasler and which is committed to the principles of the provisions of the Bill. The organisation has amassed much evidence showing that the independent living support that I enjoy and need to participate in this Chamber is a right denied to many citizens. It is not a right so much as luck: in where you live; in who assesses you; in whether or not you get the information that tells you about your entitlements; and in who supports you to get what you want.

I recently had the great honour and privilege of chairing the expert panel on the Government’s independent living review. We advised the Government on how to realise the independent living aims of the 2005 Improving the Life Chances of Disabled People report. For nine months, we considered a range of measures that would help all government departments to develop strategies and projects to support independent living. We should not forget that independent living is not about eating, drinking and going to the toilet; it is about being supported to be an active, independent person in your community. People often forget that. It is not simply about social care but about everything the Government can offer to ensure that the public can contribute actively. The panel’s report will be available soon, I hope at the end of January. It is a good report and it certainly takes us in the right direction towards independent living.

However—and there is a “however”—although the expert panel gave much evidence and argued for legislative reform, the Government felt that other routes needed to be tried first. I remain convinced that the evidence demonstrates the need for legislative reform. The current legal framework does not provide disabled people with the tools that we need to embed independent living in mainstream public services or to offer redress—the most important thing—when it is denied us.

The Bill will provide the safeguards that we as disabled people need. It will also deliver significant results for other citizens, such as carers, who are mostly women but who include thousands of children, who are obliged to provide substantial support to families as a result of receiving inadequate levels of support or being denied it entirely. The Bill will further engender equality—caring undermines women’s opportunities. It will also allow the better use of public funds by cutting bureaucracy, by avoiding unnecessary spending in health services and on benefits, by securing greater returns from people in work and by prioritising substantial individual budgets. To be effective, individual budgets will require legislative reform to provide a single assessment process for joint funding streams. The Bill could deliver such a process.

The Government have outlined three goals for next year’s adult social care Green Paper. The first is to promote independence, well-being and control. The Bill goes to the heart of that objective and will support it. It supports and progresses the Government’s prioritisation of personalisation, choice and control. It also promotes the Government’s public service quality agenda by emphasising accessibility, flexibility and respect for service users. It will also complement the equalities public service agreement set by the Government. The PSA prioritises choice. Its performance framework contains the means to monitor and challenge progress, but not for individual redress. People will still be told that they cannot have assistance for a bath. It is no comfort to them to know that their council may get a less positive performance assessment as a result.

In closing, the Bill and the government agenda, including the independent living strategy, are complementary and vital to each other. I am convinced that the legislative reform of public service support is essential to ensure independent living for all disabled people. As someone who has been in the business for more than 25 years, I now know the route to disabled people’s emancipation, and it is Jack’s Bill.

My Lords, it is a privilege to take part in this debate. I welcome the Bill and congratulate most sincerely the noble Lord, Lord Ashley, on introducing it. It will empower disabled people in actions and decisions related to accommodation, care and payments, and will promote equality and human rights.

I congratulate the Government on the work that they are already doing in introducing the new social care concordat and the independent living strategy, which we hope will be available very soon. The new social care concordat demonstrates the concerted effort to improve individual choice and support for disabled and many older people in a joined-up way, really for the first time. The noble Lord’s Bill will ensure that the reforms are stronger and available sooner, with more guarantees that people’s needs will not be ignored.

Much in the Bill is very much needed. As the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, eloquently described, we must do something about the fact that a huge number of disabled adults still rely on care and support from a child or young person to the huge detriment of that young person’s needs and well-being. The recommendations in the social care concordat will enhance local autonomy. This is fine and very welcome, but we also have to recognise that lack of uniformity can create huge difficulties if a person seeking services lives in an area where services are of a low standard. National standards are essential to combat the lack of care so movingly described by the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell.

The concordat, while excellent in itself, as the noble Baronesses, Lady Masham and Lady Campbell, have said, offers no redress for an individual if his or her needs are not considered to be critical. Very often they are not met. This must change and I hope that the Government will look at the underlying philosophy which still tends to see low-level care as a short-term cost and, therefore, ignores early investment in preventive and lower-level care and support as unimportant. This should be seen as an investment which can prevent higher-level care, which is far more costly, later. This Bill would go some way to ensuring that this happens. The Government must also bear in mind that the concordat requires adequate investment in order to achieve their admirable goals, but a 1 per cent increase in resources in the next three years is recognised by Wanless and the Rowntree Foundation as inadequate when at least £2 billion to £3 billion is needed to achieve anything worth while.

Independence is an excellent aim, which is fine, but it is not for everyone an end in itself. We have to ask many people what independence is for. What is it in order to do? Why does one want independence? For most of us, living means full social participation, self-fulfilment and freedom of choice. Most adults of working age gain that mix of self-fulfilment and independence, financial and social, through work, usually through a combination of income and social capital. Disabled people are no different from anyone else in that regard. So I ask the Government how people will be informed of their rights, responsibilities and choices in terms of employment and benefits if the new personal capability, and now in addition it appears skills, hurdles that are implicit if the Government’s welfare reform aims are to be successfully negotiated. How will this Bill interface with the Welfare Reform Bill and the equality and human rights agenda, which are very important to many of us, as exemplified in the recent single equality legislation proposals, another point I should like the Government to clarify?

The Bill will ensure faster and stronger reform and guarantee to many individuals that their needs will no longer be ignored. These aspirations are surely worthy of our total support.

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Ashley, on persisting with this excellent Bill and on giving us a chance to debate the key disability issues of today. I pay tribute to the three noble Baronesses who have spoken before me for their wonderful campaigning work on these issues over the years. I should like to address issues in Part 4 of the Bill relating to accessible housing. I declare my interest as chair of the Hanover Housing Association, which provides housing and care for 19,000 older people and has 16 local care-and-repair home improvement agencies under its wing.

The issues of inaccessibility divide into two parts: accessibility for existing properties that need adapting to make them suitable for people with disability and mobility problems, and the building of new homes. If homes are inaccessible because of steps up to the front door, an upstairs loo or bathrooms that cannot cope with a wheelchair, people can become impoverished inside their homes, can be forced to move to expensive residential care or can languish in hospital unnecessarily when they want to be at home, while the hospitals need the beds.

The adaptation of existing properties to make them accessible and the building of new homes from the outset need to be treated separately. In relation to adaptations, I congratulate the Government on abolishing the pernicious means test for the disabled facilities grant and, just a few days ago, increasing the resources available for this grant by some 20 per cent. I hope that the ceiling on the cost of any adaptations, currently £25,000, which no longer covers major changes to a property, may be raised soon. Will the Government assist local authorities in overcoming the long delays currently experienced by those waiting for occupational therapists to assess their needs and for the bureaucratic machine to pay these mandatory grants for adaptations? Home improvement agencies and care-and-repair and staying-put schemes are doing great work in organising adaptations to existing homes. I hope that the Minister will be able to report soon on increased backing for these excellent local organisations.

New homes being built can be designed in ways that mean expensive adaptations later will not be necessary. In the final years of the 1990s, the then Minister for construction, Nick Raynsford, wisely and helpfully introduced new building regulations in response to the efforts of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and its partners which devised the lifetime homes standards for new housing. These revisions to Part M of the building regulations represented a huge step forward in making all new accommodation more accessible to those with disabilities, to young mothers with buggies, to teenagers with broken legs, to visiting grandparents with mobility problems and to the human race in all its many forms. It is far cheaper, and infinitely more satisfactory, to build homes that, with level thresholds, wider front doors, downstairs loos and the rest, are accessible from the day that they are built. We think that 3 million more homes will be built between now and 2020, and we need to ensure that they are all fully accessible.

In the years since 1999, when the building regulations were revised, two issues have needed to be addressed. First, these new controls did not go the whole way to introducing the full lifetime home standards and further work was needed to implement the remaining elements. Secondly, knowing the problems in the construction industry, it was necessary to ensure that these new regulations were complied with by every house builder. In terms of extending the regulations to encompass all 16 elements of the lifetime home standards, some progress has been made on several fronts over the past eight years. The Greater London Authority, the Welsh Assembly, the Northern Ireland Executive and a number of enlightened individual local authorities have incorporated into their planning policies the requirement to meet lifetime homes standards. The Government now hope, through guidance in their code for sustainable homes, to see these higher standards of accessibility adopted for all house building in the future. I hope that the Minister will update us on progress to that end.

Using the planning system to require certain standards before planning permission is granted is not as stringent an approach as using the building regulations, which involve building control inspectors visiting sites to make sure that these measures have been fully complied with. The Government’s Building Regulations Advisory Committee—BRAC—has now completed its work in creating a British standard for accessibility, incorporating an updated, polished version of the lifetime homes standards. I understand that this is now ready to go. I should be grateful if the Minister could tell the House whether this further improvement to Part M of the building regulations is now to be taken forward.

This leads me to my final point on new homes—the success of enforcement of the existing 1999 building regulations in relation to accessibility; and therefore later, I hope, the enforcement of enhanced regulations. In 2003 the Joseph Rowntree Foundation published research from Professor Imbrie, which concluded that,

“many developers and building control officers do not adequately understand the objectives of Part M of the Building Regulations relating to the accessibility of new housing. Indeed, the regulation is commonly regarded as ‘half-hearted’, and it is often poorly interpreted and variably enforced, leading to an unsatisfactory outcome for the design of new housing stock”.

After the report was published, I asked the Minister then responsible, the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, when Her Majesty’s Government intended to undertake a review of Part M of the building regulations, as revised in 1999. He replied:

“My Lords, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has recently commissioned research to evaluate the impact of the changes to Part M of the building regulations, which concerns the accessibility of all new homes and was introduced in 1999. The work is expected to begin before Christmas and to report in about two years’ time”.—[Official Report, 15/10/03; col. 934 .]

It is now four years since that statement. I hope the Government do not think that we have all forgotten the Minister’s very positive announcement in 2003. When will this review, now more than two years late, report so that we can then see what action may be needed to bring recalcitrant builders into line and ensure that these invaluable improvements in accessibility, secured by the Government, appear on the ground for the benefit of disabled people and for society at large?

I heartily commend the Bill and look forward to the Minister’s response.

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Ashley, on his persistence and I support the Bill in general. I again declare an interest as the father of a daughter with severe intellectual impairment. If I have a doubt about the Bill, it is that it does not appear sufficiently to spell out and protect the position of the family carers of people such as my daughter and the needs of people who are even less fortunate and who are more intellectually disabled than she is.

Noble Lords will be aware that there can be a good deal of tension between family carers and other carers. One of the roots of this tension seems to come from the many people and their representatives who are less handicapped than my daughter, who feel that their families are too controlling about their care and lifestyle. I and those whom I represent accept and respect their position entirely and we agree wholeheartedly that the conscious choice of those who are able to make such a choice should be fully met. But many thousands of people simply cannot make that choice. For those people, the views of their family carers, when they exist, should count very much more than the views of outside professionals unless there are clear and good reasons why that should not be so.

My Lords, the noble Lord’s point will be respected and discussed in Committee. We will do anything we can to meet that point.

My Lords, I am most grateful. I was going to propose that.

It is in this context that I should again reveal that my daughter, who is now 27, is very fortunate to live in a Rudolf Steiner Camphill community, one of many intentional communities around the country. These communities are very much in demand among the family carers of our most disabled people, although they are not always wholly popular with local authorities and social services. That is unfortunate, because these communities are very care-effective and also very cost-effective, saving around £50,000 per annum per person over normal community care. They also allow people such as my daughter to live far more independently than they could under any form of care in the wider community outside. As my daughter said to me recently, “You see, I can help other people in the village”, whereas there are occasions when it is clear that she feels something of a nuisance at home, however much we can do for her.

I hope that we can amend the Bill in Committee to give more encouragement and funding to family carers and to intentional communities. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, whose words I strongly support, I imagine that we will come back to the subject when we consider the Government’s new consultative document Valuing People Now. In the mean time, I would be grateful for any words of encouragement that the Minister can offer to the family carers of our most severely intellectually disabled people and to our intentional communities, which do such a wonderful job for our least fortunate people.

My Lords, I made the crack several years ago on a disability matter that the usual suspects were queueing up to speak again. The noble Lord, Lord Ashley, is probably the very distinguished head of that queue. The noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, comes in with me as a new member of the line-up. Her speech encapsulates why this Bill, or something very like it, is needed. It is not that the Government are ill intended or that the bodies involved do not want to do this; they just do not do it—they do not co-ordinate. When you ask the Government to co-ordinate anything, they say, “We are co-ordinating. We have a group of people who meet together, talk and try to bring things together”. Then something happens—but not very much—and sometimes the Government forget what happened when the people who were brought together are no longer there and have moved on. Whether they are Ministers or officials does not matter; the process goes on.

This is why most of us keep coming back and asking for a more solid structure, ultimately involving an Act of Parliament that brings everything together. We need something that says, “You shall do this”, not, “If you can, and it is your best intention, please do it now”. It should say, “You shall do this. There is a sanction if you do not. You have a duty to do it. Get on with it, please, now”.

The noble Baroness, Lady Chapman—

Lady Campbell.

My Lords, I am sorry. It comes from being a dyslexic, I am afraid. We make mistakes.

The noble Baroness pointed out that the lucky and the brilliant get through the current system; it is that simple. It may be better now than it was—as the noble Baroness said, let us try to get it right for a second time—but we have to go further. The Government will tell us, quite rightly, that they have made considerable steps forward. They have, but so they should. On this issue, every Government and every Parliament can say that they have done better than the preceding one. The counter to that is, “And so you should. You should learn from mistakes. You should make sure that you do not commit the errors of the past”.

The noble Lord, Lord Best, referred to new-build housing. It is much easier to incorporate the necessary facilities in new build and to get it right now because there will be no add-on costs. The London Underground system is a classic example. As the noble Lord, Lord Best, said, it has too many steps, which are inconvenient to everyone—a mother pushing a buggy or someone with an injured leg. A few years ago when I was on crutches for a few weeks, it was very much emphasised to me that the steps in the London Tube system are incredibly difficult for anyone with any form of movement impairment. Add a bag to the equation, and many Underground stations become almost impossible to get around.

The Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Ashley, calls for co-ordination of best practice leading to a situation where you have to do what is deemed to be best at the time. The comment of the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, about the best way forward for various groups within the disability community is an argument for setting up a framework to deal with this. The disability lobby is so multifaceted that you must effectively formalise informality; you must build in flexibility, but there must be an end point.

We must try to get this right. Every time we make a mistake, to come back to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Best, that effectively generates on-costs. If we do not provide the right support for carers, they will be taken out of economic activity. We all know this. It is absolutely accepted by everyone. If carers become economically active, that will help to balance the nation’s economy, as will getting more disabled people into work. The world of work is changing; often it involves not physical activity but mental activity. If you enhance the position of people with disabilities, many of them will be able to work and enhance the economy. There are savings to be made if there is investment up front.

There are great bureaucratic dragons to be slain with this Bill. If the Government can show us that they are doing that anyway and that there is some form of enforcement to ensure that it is happening, we will go away happy. I will take considerable convincing, however, because usually at this stage we hear about a series of committees. Unless there is a driving force behind the committees and these new liaison groups, I am worried. Unless we tell people to do things, we will have not the old postcode lottery but a whole new one, albeit involving different and larger areas.

I look forward to hearing what the Minister says in reply to this debate. The noble Lord, Lord Ashley, has shown the one true quality that anyone needs to change anything in Parliament: perseverance.

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Ashley, on his amazing tenacity in fighting for a better deal for disabled people all round.

My eyes were opened to the plight of disabled people when I was asked to chair a government committee of inquiry into services for disabled people some years ago. I found it difficult to believe that the services were in such a poor state. There was plenty of money but the management was fundamentally flawed. We made 49 recommendations to help disabled people, but the civil servants simply said, “We will bury your report”. I was astonished at their apparent lack of concern for disabled people. When we asked Prime Minister Thatcher to intervene, however, she soon straightened them out and almost all the recommendations were accepted apart from the vision for indoor/outdoor wheelchairs. That was implemented later, together with direct payments, for which we campaigned along with other noble Lords.

As the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, mentioned, when severely disabled people have to rely on carers who come each day at a time that suits the carer, their lives tend to be rather chaotic and disorganised. However, when disabled people themselves have direct payment, they can employ the carers and have them come at a time that is essential to them, to enable them to leave home early and go to work.

The recent announcement by the Government that they will extend direct payments and carry on their trials of individual budgets is certainly welcome. There are too many barriers preventing disabled people from accessing direct payments. The Disability Rights Commission recently emphasised that a subjective judgment made by local authority staff that a person lacks the competence to manage direct payments can preclude those payments, and there are too many restrictions on how they can be used. That is a polite way of saying that there are too many little bureaucrats sitting behind desks pontificating about subjects about which they know little.

For instance, a young lady with a severe heart condition went to her GP for a repeat prescription. The GP said to her, “Mary, you’re really quite severely disabled”. “No I’m not”, she said, “I don’t recognise disability”. The GP said, “I’m telling you, my girl, you are severely disabled. You can’t walk up a hill and you’re pretty blue. You need, and are entitled to, a car, and you will get one”. She reluctantly agreed to that, but she encountered ridicule and disbelief on three separate occasions when she was told by a clerk sitting behind a desk, “You’re not disabled. You don’t need a car”. She had not even asked for the car. She was so angry that she nearly told them exactly what they could do with it. What sort of procedures are in place to minimise that kind of discrimination?

Disabled people tend to conceal their disabilities when they can. For instance, that particular girl, Mary, used to get really quite angry when she held out her hand in a shop or to collect a paper and the other person would say, “Ooh, aren’t you blue?”. She learnt to squeeze her hand while she was waiting so that, when she held it out, it was white rather than blue. Disabled people do not like to be different from the rest of the population.

As my right honourable friend the leader of the Opposition has said, the Conservative Party welcomes the principles underlying the Bill. We are pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Ashley, has again introduced the subject, enabling us to discuss it again in detail. The Conservative Party is committed to introducing individual budgets so that people can take care of their own needs. Individual budgets would allow people to commission healthcare and social care services jointly for themselves, because they know better what they need.

Prime Minister Thatcher was always very supportive of respite care, emphasising what a great contribution carers made and how we should do much more to support them. We are exploring means to give more support to carers, including through the tax and benefit system. Noble Lords may not be aware that it was Mrs Thatcher who emphasised the importance of disabled people by splitting the old Department of Health and Social Security into its two present component parts. She also changed the title “Minister for the Disabled”—disabled people do not like being called “the disabled”—to “Minister for Disabled People”. She said, however, “They’ll want to change the notepaper”, and they were allowed to use up the existing notepaper first.

The provision of services for disabled people is uneven across the country, as the noble Baronesses, Lady Masham and Lady Campbell, mentioned. How do the Government plan to deal with that? There seems to be no system in place at the moment to cover a disabled person who moves to a different part of the country. They often have to start from scratch to renegotiate a new care package from a variety of different sources. The Bill is designed to ensure that they have a right to this to avoid the present confusion and frustration.

How will the Bill improve the provision of accessible information and advice and ensure that the comprehensive assessment of a disabled person’s needs will be effective across all local authorities and NHS bodies equally? The new concordat, which was published this week, is certainly welcome, but it seems to contain no means to ensure that individual disabled people can challenge local service provision if it is inadequate. Does the Minister have any estimate of the cost of the provisions in the Bill?

I have always been very impressed by how much so many disabled people contribute to society. They enrich it and are an inspiration to us all. A severely disabled girl with liver disease, rickets and kidney failure could not find a job when she left school. A secretarial job was created for her at Guy’s Hospital, and she soon proved to be one of the best secretaries that we had. Moreover, she insisted on being dialysed three times a week at night, so she took no time off work. The effect on the rest of the department was very impressive, because, suddenly, no one else took any time off work—how could they? She later started to go downhill, but was given a kidney and liver transplant, which was a great success. She took on a new lease of life. She went into the church; when she gets up to preach, everyone listens to what she has to say, because she knows what she is talking about. A few years later, she got married. What an amazing transformation. What courage.

We have friends who adopted a Chinese boy of 10, who was born without eyes and thrown on the rubbish tip soon after birth. He was rescued and taken to an orphanage, but was neglected there for years. However, after adoption, he was surrounded by love and attention and, within two years, this almost uncontrollable boy had improved so much that he was able to go skiing.

There are many examples in this House of amazing, cheerful triumphs over adversity. What an inspiration and a great investment are so many disabled people. However, if altruism is not enough to encourage us to strive to improve the life of disabled people, a touch of realism might do, because half of us will be disabled to a greater or lesser extent before we die. We need to declare an interest in more senses than one.

My Lords, I once again pay tribute to my extraordinary noble friend Lord Ashley and celebrate his unceasing efforts over many years in furthering the interests of disabled people and his many achievements in the field. I am proud that this amazing, tenacious person really is my noble friend. He is a shining example of someone who has used the democratic system to bring about profound social change and increase social justice. Last week, I was speaking on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. I assured all noble Lords present that the Government are firmly against cloning in every shape or form but, when it comes to my noble friend Lord Ashley, I think that I would make an exception.

In laying this Bill, my noble friend has provided another excellent opportunity for your Lordships’ House to debate the crucial issues around what independent living means for disabled people and how we can ensure that we enable them to have full choice, control and empowerment over their lives. I welcome this further opportunity to set out the progress that this Government have made in addressing these fundamental issues. To the noble Lord, Lord Addington, I say that, yes, we have achieved much, but he was right that it is the duty of every Government to achieve more.

The debate around independent living rightly continues to be one of the liveliest and most informed in the disability community. As my noble friend Lord Ashley has argued, this debate is not simply about services that disabled people access; it is about the kind of society we believe that we ought to have in this country. It is about changing the thrust of the debate from the historic stance of providing a one-size-fits-all solution to one of enabling disabled people to live autonomous lives, enjoying the same choices, freedoms, dignity and control over their lives that the rest of society takes as given.

When I spoke a few months ago, I emphasised that the Government supported the principles underpinning my noble friend’s Bill, but that we did not believe that a legislative solution to delivering equality and inclusion for disabled people was necessary or desirable. Our position has not changed.

We wholeheartedly agree that we no longer want to see public policy or services developed centrally and imposed on disabled people on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. We want disabled people to have choice and control over their lives and the support that they need. We want to see local strategies to commission services in response to locally assessed needs and desires. We want to see disabled people involved in the design of policy and commissioning of services. One of the major themes of today’s debate was bureaucracy, the amount of which encountered by disabled people is quite appalling. We must do something about that, as the noble Lord, Lord McColl, said. To me, addressing bureaucracy seems to be quite a simple problem. Clearly, it is not—I am sure that I shall have a ton of bricks down on my head—and we need to address it. Some of it seems to be due to managerial problems.

I welcome the opportunity today to outline how the Government are tackling the inequalities that disabled people face in their everyday lives and the work that is being taken forward to enable disabled people to have the opportunity to live independently. Perhaps I may begin by outlining the progress that has been made with the Government’s independent living review. Your Lordships will remember that we set this cross-government review in train in early autumn last year in response to the recommendations of the strategy document, Improving the Life Chances of Disabled People. This review, led by the Office for Disability Issues, has benefited enormously from the invaluable contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton, whose record in furthering the rights of disabled people speaks for itself. We are extremely fortunate that she is a Member of your Lordships’ House and that she is also now chair of the disability committee of the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

I feel rather nervous about discussing the review in the noble Baroness’s presence, given that she as chair of the review panel of external experts is far more immersed in the detail than I can ever hope to be. I hope that she will forgive me if I represent the work of the review rather less well than she already has done.

The review, which we see as a model for future working in partnership with service users, was rooted in the premise that independent living is about disabled people having choice and control over the support that they need to go about their daily lives. The review takes a life-course approach, from young people in transition to adulthood, and takes a step beyond the original Improving the Life Chances of Disabled People strategy in explicitly including the needs and wishes of older disabled people. When the review is published, as the noble Baroness rightly said, in January, it will set out a five-year strategy to improve opportunities for disabled people to live independently, including much needed new investment in housing.

The strategy will clearly outline how the Government will achieve their policy commitments, identifying what difference those policies are intended to make, and how they will be measured and monitored. The new strategy for independent living will help deliver better joined-up delivery across government, and will promote a greater understanding of the principles of independent living.

I must pay credit to the noble Baroness and the rest of the external advisory panel for their efforts in contributing to this review. While independent living is one of the most interesting social policy debates, it is also one of the most complex, and the panel played a vital role in challenging officials leading the review to pull out all the stops. As you would expect, the review generated a lively debate and many ideas. In fact, one real strength of the review is the way in which it has been conducted. The review has been based not just on discussion between a few government departments and local authorities, but on the principle of co-production, involving disabled people at every stage and bringing the views, thinking and experience of independent living experts into the heart of government.

These principles of control, choice and empowerment are also fundamental to the Department of Health’s White Paper, Our Health, Our Care, Our Say. I have had the opportunity before of outlining the work that the Department of Health is taking forward to deliver greater choice and control and personalisation of care, not least through piloting individual budgets. I take the opportunity to highlight the recent Comprehensive Spending Review announcement that local authority funding would increase by £2.6 billion by 2010-11. In addition, direct funding from the department for social care for older people and support services for carers will increase by £190 million to £1.5 billion by 2010. This additional funding will support the delivery of the vision set out in Our Health, Our Care, Our Say through personalised budgets; provision of advocacy and information services; increased focus on preventive services to support people to live independently; and support for 3,000 people with learning difficulties to leave NHS campus accommodation and be supported to live independently within the community. I think that that answers some of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch.

I am sure that noble Lords welcome Putting People First: A Shared Vision and Commitment to the Transformation of Adult Social Care, which we announced earlier this week. This really is about transforming services and people’s lives. The noble Lord, Lord McColl, asked what would happen in the context of that new policy about challenges to the amount of money that people were awarded. I imagine that the situation will not change from the present situation, but I shall come back to the noble Lord in writing.

The noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, spoke of the need for greater investment in low-level social care to prevent more expensive care later. I hope that this will be dealt with in the context of the new policy, but as she will know we also have a Green Paper coming out next year on the funding of social care.

I draw noble Lords’ attention to an announcement, made by my noble friend Lady Andrews earlier this week, of £4.9 billion funding for the Supporting People programme over the next three years. This funding will help more than 1 million vulnerable people each year, including victims of domestic violence, teenage parents, older people and those with mental health problems, enabling them to live independently in their accommodation. Of course, I hope that it will also improve the lives of disabled people.

We should always start with the people who need support. One of the greatest changes in social care in recent years is recognising and acknowledging that people who use services can help shape those services. In Control has led the way for many. Expectations are high, and we need to make sure that the right support is available. Empowering people to manage their own care can be beneficial, not only for the individual but also for government through cost-effectiveness. The work on user-led organisations, direct payments, individual budgets, along with In Control, is showing that people can be both creative and empowered to arrange support that is right for them, as the noble Lord, Lord McColl, pointed out. The Office for Disability Issues and the Department of Health are not alone in driving forward action to support disabled people to live independent lives.

As a Government, we have taken forward a comprehensive civil rights framework to lay the foundation for equality for disabled people. Over the past 10 years, we have significantly improved and extended rights for disabled people under the Disability Discrimination Act. These improvements have ensured that a further 1 million employers and 7 million more jobs are now covered by the Act. In addition, through the Disability Discrimination Act 2005, we met our commitment to introducing a comprehensive set of enforceable civil rights for disabled people. The disability equality duty requires all public bodies to anticipate the needs of disabled service users, employees and potential employees. The duty will make sure that it is no longer acceptable, if it ever was, to wait until a disabled person complains before taking action.

The noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, asked about a single integrated complaints procedure across health and social care. We have recently completed the consultation Making Experiences Count, which fulfils the commitment for a single complaints system across health and social care. It will go much further and propose a new approach that will make the experience of making a complaint easier, more user-friendly, co-operative and much more responsive to people’s needs, involving independents where required. A vital element is that health and social care services should learn routinely from the complaints feeding into service improvement.

Like my noble friend Lord Ashley, I am under no illusion that we still have a fair way to go before all disabled people are empowered to participate fully in society. The Government are not complacent, and we are determined to deliver real change not just in the lives of disabled people themselves, but in the way in which society reacts to disability. I have set out a brief description of what we are doing, but I shall highlight key steps along the path to delivering that change.

We clearly set out our commitment to delivering equality for disabled people almost three years ago in our White Paper, Improving the Life Chances of Disabled People. As a key step in driving action to make that commitment a reality, we launched the Office for Disability Issues two years ago. Just over a year ago we launched Equality 2025, an independent advisory group of disabled people, to advise Ministers and government departments on disability equality aspects of policy development. At the earliest opportunity the Minister for Disabled People signed for the UK the new UN Convention on the rights of disabled people. I am assured by my honourable friend the Minister that we will ratify that convention by the end of 2008.

Many questions were posed and noble Lords must forgive me if I miss any out. I shall come back to noble Lords in writing and we shall of course have an opportunity to explore many more of the issues in Committee. Many noble Lords raised the issue of carers. This Government have done a very fine job in improving the lives of many carers, who are of course central to the lives of many people with disabilities in this country. We could not function as a society without carers. We have announced the national carers strategy review, a new review of carers, which focuses in part on the issue of young carers. The current situation is of course absolutely abhorrent and, while it is not possible to prevent children or young people from wanting to help and support their disabled relative, services and support should be in place to prevent them being depended on inappropriately. We must and will address that in the new carers strategy.

My noble friend rightly said that we must begin discussions on all the issues encapsulated in his Bill. I hope that one discussion will be in the very near future with my noble friend the Leader of the House, who will lead in the House on the new equalities Bill. I know that she would certainly value his advice on disability issues in that very important new Bill.

The noble Baroness, Lady Masham, rightly drew our attention to many shortcomings in the National Health Service. I shall get back to her in writing on some of the issues; clearly the problems experienced by her husband were and are unacceptable. The noble Baroness is correct that some services are patchy in some areas: in some areas they are excellent and in others there is huge room for improvement. That is precisely why my noble friend Lord Darzi is undertaking his review.

On palliative care, I am grateful for the examples that the noble Baroness cited. I also draw attention to a very fine “hospice at home” programme in my own PCT in Gloucestershire, which is being run in conjunction with Sue Ryder Care. That provides an excellent service which I hope will be replicated throughout the country.

Of course we must give greater attention to tender loving care and dignity. We have, as noble Lords will know, a Dignity in Care campaign, and we have to ensure that it brings about results. The noble Baroness drew to our attention the problems of assessing people with mental health problems. We agree about the importance of assessment and treatment, but we believe that the best way forward is through measures to support and develop best practice on the ground. The Government's role is to set priorities and standards for the NHS but it is best for those assessments and the requirements for those assessments to be met on the ground.

The noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, spoke about disabled people and employment. We are working with employees and employers to disseminate best practice in health and safety at work and in absence management and recruitment and retention policies. We are working with health professionals to disseminate best practice in vocational rehabilitation, providing support for employment advisers. We also have pilots ensuring that there are employment advisers in GP surgeries. The Department for Work and Pensions published a consultation on 3 September to consider options to reform disability employment programmes such as Work Step. The DWP wants to ensure that the individual's requirements are properly supported. The consultation runs until March 2008 and I urge noble Lords to respond to it should they know of any examples.

On better and earlier advice on employment, we are introducing a new gateway to benefits and are transforming the current assessment process within the gateway so that it provides professional assessment of an individual’s eligibility for financial support based on their functional capacity. It identifies those who are capable of taking part in work-related activity and the support and interventions required to help them get back to work. It identifies people who are so limited by their illness or disability that it would be unreasonable to require them to undertake any form of work-related activity in the foreseeable future.

The noble Lord, Lord McColl, drew our attention to the difficulties encountered by disabled people who move from one place in the country where they have a care package tailored to their needs to another where they have to go through the assessment procedure. I will come back to him on that issue. If we are not addressing it, it will have to be addressed. It is a problem that disabled people should not have to encounter.

The noble Lord, Lord Best, raised many housing issues, some of which I shall return to in Committee. I regret that I cannot update him with information on building regulations. As he will know, we recently announced increases in the disabled facilities grant. We will increase it by £25 million for 2008-09, a significant 20 per cent increase. The Government have also announced plans to strengthen home improvement agencies, the locally based not-for-profit organisations which help home owners and tenants renting private housing to repair and maintain their homes. We have also announced a new three-year contract for a national co-ordinating body for HIAs which will support the delivery of the forthcoming National Strategy for Housing in an Ageing Society, providing ongoing support for HIAs and giving the sector a voice in government.

On the lifetime home standard and housing for people with disability, the Government have decided to take forward lifetime homes, at least in the first instance, through a code for sustainable homes. The Government consider the code to be extremely important. Its aim is to give developers a non-regulatory means of improving the sustainability of buildings and to become the single national standard that all developers will subscribe to and consumers demand. Putting that in the code is, we believe, a faster way of getting the standard out to developers; making it part of the building regulations would take far longer. Nor does putting it in the code rule out making lifetime homes part of the regulatory base in the long run. This is an issue which government will continue to keep under close review.

The noble Lord, Lord Addington, raised the very important issue of transport and the difficulties encountered by so many disabled people. Of course the London underground presents specific problems, and those problems must be addressed. However, I understand why it takes so long. Nevertheless, we have made huge improvements on bus transport, even getting rid of the much loved Routemasters in order to ensure that people with disabilities can travel on buses. I would also draw the noble Lord’s attention to the fact that, just last week, Transport for London won an independent living transport award for making London buses so accessible.

I have been speaking for an awfully long time, so will come back to noble Lords on any other issues. In conclusion, I repeat that I welcome the principles underpinning the Bill and again congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Ashley, on giving the House an opportunity to discuss this very important issue. However, I also have to emphasise that the Government are not convinced of the need for legislation of this nature although of course we recognise the right of people with disabilities to be emancipated—in the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell. We believe that there would be major cost implications in implementing all that is proposed, although I firmly believe that the work which the Government have set in train in publishing and responding to the challenges of the life chances White Paper, in particular the plans for a five-year strategy on independent living, means that the goals that we all desire can be delivered without recourse to legislation. I know of no person more determined than my noble friend Lord Ashley; so despite what the Government say, I am sure that one day his Bill will be enacted.

My Lords, it has been an excellent debate and some remarkably perceptive speeches have been made. I think that, having heard the speeches of noble Lords, the whole House will now be far better informed on issues of disability. I am very grateful to all those who took part in this marvellous debate, and there is obviously more to come. I thank also those who made personal comments about my work.

I appreciate the comments of my noble friend the Minister, but one that I did not appreciate was that dreadful phrase, “We support the principles underlying the Bill”. When the noble Lord, Lord McColl, echoed the phrase, I knew that we were sunk. It is a phrase that I want never to hear again, because it is a method of escaping responsibility. We simply have to grasp the nettle of this subject. The Minister paid no regard to my comment about the massive savings—£30 billion plus £30 billion. The Bill would save £60 billion. Figures have been produced by the various independent agencies, so I hope that I can soon persuade my noble friend to think again. I must say that the Government are active on the issues of disability and have done a great deal. But the best thing they can do now is to satisfy all the speakers in today’s debate by supporting this comprehensive, all-embracing Bill.

On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the whole House.

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.

I greatly admire the tenacity of the noble Lord, Lord Ashley of Stoke, and feel very honoured to follow him. The subject of his Bill, and of this Bill, merit debate in your Lordships' House. However, I suffer from a problem of understanding and comprehension. Later, I shall address remarks to the Minister. He should understand that although I speak today with audacity I do not intend my remarks to be taken personally and I make no criticism of him. Neither do I intend any asperity of speech in accordance with the 1626 rules, or whatever they were. But there is a problem. I must wrap my mind around this question of powers of entry, search, seizure and surveillance. It was first introduced to me when I worked in the Midland Bank group exactly 31 years ago. We in the banking world were concerned about our duty to our customers. We had a duty of care, to protect our customers and to know them. We were worried that legislation existed which gave government the right, through various bodies or public organisations, to enter people’s homes, take papers and possibly prejudice the responsibilities and relationship that a bank had with its customers.

Through the Committee of London Clearing Bankers we consulted the then Government, who more or less said, “You don’t have to worry, all public officials in this field have a responsibility and they know their role”. We found that it was difficult to determine how many Acts and how many regulations gave power to whom to do what. I have great regard for the House of Commons. In June 1976, Mr David Price asked a whole series of Questions about which Ministers had powers to order searches and seizures. I will not quote it now but I shall place all the relevant information in the Library. There were a few bright Ministers in the Labour Government in those days before they crossed the Floor of the House. Dame Shirley Williams was one of the Ministers who gave the most comprehensive Answers.

We found that there were exactly 150 Acts or regulations. The idea was that we would pressure the Government to do something about that. The Government did not. Because I happened to be the only one who sloped off for a gin and tonic too early in the afternoon and therefore was made to work weekends, I was asked whether I would draft a Private Member’s Bill. I did so but I did not know my way round here very well; I had been here for only 13 years. I did not know about the Public Bill Office. I thought that you had to do it all yourself. So we found two retired parliamentary draftsmen who lived down in Salcombe, where I used to sail, who very kindly helped me to draft the Protection of Privacy Bill. We never did very much about it but it enabled us to monitor what was happening.

Since those 150 Acts in 1976, over the past 30 years a further 262 Acts and statutory instruments have been introduced by governments. This is not an attack on any one Government: all governments have the same responsibility. I thought it was important that we should know which Acts and statutory instruments gave powers and to whom, so I tabled a series of Parliamentary Questions that were almost the same as those tabled by Mr David Price in June 1976. The Government failed dismally. They did not know the answers, but they were not prepared to say that. We drip fed a few people. The House of Lords Library is a source of almost everything. It introduced me to Professor Richard Stone, who wrote, The Law of Entry, Search, and Seizure. I obtained a copy of it and put a tick beside an extract on Defra because it had more powers of entry than anybody else. Defra told me to look at chapter 8 of Professor Stone’s book. I was then fortunate enough to be able to recruit Professor Stone, but we had already gone back into the early days of the National Council for Civil Liberties. Back in 1976 it had a very bright chairman, a certain Patricia Hewitt, who wrote a book called, The Information Gatherers, which set out the problems. It asked why people should be allowed to go into other people’s homes and take documents without permission or a court order and to whom they were accountable.

With the help of Professor Stone, Liberty and others, after having asked these questions, in 2005 I tabled the Powers of Entry Bill. It contained a schedule inserted by others as I wanted to introduce all sorts of legislation that they said was inappropriate. My favourite was the Protection of Bulls in Service Act. If you overworked a bull, that had some impact on breeding and the regulations and you might wear it out. My grandfather and others always used only one bull but these days everybody uses lots. They excluded a lot of the earlier Bills—for example, the Truck Act 1874—but that does not matter. We produced the list. The idea was that it should not be debated. The Government did not really respond. Later I introduced the new Bill and sent round the same questions. The current Clerk of the Parliaments and I drafted a simple question to ask the Government which Ministers had which powers of entry. With true naval brevity, through semaphore and morse, the noble Lord, Lord West of Spithead, said that no Ministers had any such powers. We laughed. We thought that was strange and that perhaps the noble Lord did not know what his powers, or the powers of government, were in that regard. I address the Minister in a personal capacity but being an able bodied seaman and having left the Navy just before he joined, I have a great respect for someone of his standing and status.

So my problem now is how do we get the Government to act? It may not be necessary to push a Private Member’s Bill through, but I follow the old-fashioned rules. As soon as it was drafted I prepared a brief and wrote to the leaders of the various parties and to the Bishops’ Benches. I also wrote to the Home Secretary, the noble Lord, Lord West, and others and gave all the information that I had. I then thought that I would come here today to see whether I could start something moving. I apologise for the fact that I have to quote. At the same time the Centre for Policy Studies started to do some work. Suddenly I received a phone call at home, saying, “It’s Harry Snoop here”. It wasn’t, actually, it was Harry Snook. I tried to find out who he was but he was calling from a mobile phone. In fact, he is a very bright young barrister who produced for the CPS, Crossing the Threshold, which listed 266 powers of entry. Professor Stone made a few comments in its introduction, of which I should like to read just three. He wrote:

“Under English law, the citizen’s home has traditionally been regarded as a privileged space. The courts have insisted that servants of the state cannot enter a private home without the occupier’s permission unless a specific law authorises them to do so”.

The document continues:

“A number of these powers originate with European Union directives and regulations, rather than with an Act of Parliament passed by the UK’s elected legislators”.

So we can blame the EU if the Government have failed. The document further states:

“As a result of the proliferation and variety of entry powers, a citizen cannot realistically be aware of the circumstances in which his home may be entered by state officials without his consent, or what rights he has in such circumstances”.

There is a conflict with Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which effectively says that there are overriding considerations whereby the Human Rights Act may not necessarily be applied. I am moving into territory that I really do not understand but these considerations are national security, public safety, economic well-being of the country, prevention of crime or disorder, protection of health or morality and protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

Here, we already have a conflict between existing legislation or regulations, human rights and the EU. I am not sure where we go on that. The difficulty above all else is that people have a right to know what the legislation is. Hence, I produced the schedule that lists all the Acts. Since the Minister was unable to answer—except in the certain Nelsonian way in which he put his telescope to the blind eye—I wrote him a letter and provided the list of all the Acts in alphabetical and date order. I left two boxes on the left and asked him to tick which ministry was responsible for which Act and which was the Secretary of State. If he did not know, he could put “DK”. I did not ask him his ethnic origins or all those questions that go in government questionnaires. I am sure that he will respond with gusto.

That is a very worrying exercise, because in the mean time, since 1976, when it concerned only public officials, there has been a lot of privatisation and the powers may have been transferred to individuals. The Bill says, “Look, you should not really go into people’s homes, on to their land, with or without buildings, into their property or offices and seize papers and take them away and do things with them without permission or letting them know beforehand and proving who you are”.

We wanted to say originally that you should not do this at all without a court order. Then we came to the question of homeland security. I thought that homeland security meant protecting people in their own homes. That seemed far more appropriate as the key issue. Since the noble Lord is the Minister responsible for homeland security, I want to ask him how he can protect us in our own homes. It is not just the powers of entry that cause the problem; it is the fear that is often associated with a knock on the door by people who you do not know, or when you see someone walking around the garden perhaps to see that your precious Leylandii hedge is not too high or whether you may by chance have slaughtered an animal without sending it to an abattoir. I am not saying that there is abuse of this, but the thought was that in Schedule 1 there would be a list of the Acts and in Schedule 2 there would be what I wanted to call a code of conduct, but the gang—sorry, the team—said that I must call it a code of practice. I tend to think that a code of practice is a bit tougher than a code of conduct.

The context was that no one should enter anyone’s property without letting them know beforehand. Of course, there must be exclusions. We took out from the nearly 400 Acts those relating to the powers of the police and those relating to the powers of the security and intelligence services, and that number dropped to 155. That may or may not be the right thing to do. In general, the police behave properly and many officials behave properly. The officials in the various bodies do not know what their powers are. The idea was that you should give notice in advance and that you should not go into people’s property except between 8 am and 6 pm, or go into their offices or places of business—such as a bed and breakfast—except when they are open. The people who go in should produce a form of identity; maybe they could use the new form of identity card with biometric data, iris scans, a recognisable photograph and all that. With their proof of identity, they should also take the rules and regulations under the powers that they had. If they took documents or materials away, they should confirm that. Those documents and materials should be stored in an appropriate way and with full recognition of the need for security. That is really what it is about.

Then I thought, “Is it not odd that as soon as we have done this and the Government seem not to want to co-operate, the Prime Minister has announced that he was going to instruct the Home Secretary to look at 266 or 250 powers of entry which effectively come straight out of Harry Snook’s Crossing the Threshold?”. I detect a willingness by the Government to do something, and I would rather like to help. I do not wish to be appointed a specialist adviser, but I willingly give them all my intellectual property free of charge.

I now turn to some of the more interesting points. I suggested to the Minister that he would not mind if I repeated the questions, and he could answer them by putting the answers in the Library. After this debate, I will place in the Library my brief, without some of the light-hearted remarks, and copies of the laws of entry and of Crossing the Threshold, because they make fun reading.

Will the Minister please find a way to answer the following questions? In what circumstances can officials of each government department and of public bodies answerable to each Secretary of State enter and search the homes and business premises of United Kingdom citizens? In each case, what is their statutory power? Which Acts set out in Schedule 1 to the Powers of Entry etc. Bill permit officials, from which government department and which bodies answerable to the Secretary of State responsible for that government department or public body, to enter and search the homes and business premises of United Kingdom citizens? Where and how are the records and documentation seized by officials of government departments and public officials enforcing powers of entry, search, seizure and surveillance under prevailing legislation stored? When and how are they disposed of?

We come to surveillance. Once more, I ask the same question: how many public space closed circuit television cameras are in the United Kingdom? How and by whom is the information gathered and retained? Because we have many private bodies with powers of search and entry, how many closed circuit television cameras surveying public walkways or places in the United Kingdom are under the control of the private sector? How many of those CCTV cameras are registered with the Information Commissioner?

This is where I end, on a slightly lighter note. I have tremendous regard for the Royal Navy, and I have a great regard for the noble admiral, if I can call him that. On Trafalgar Day, I asked him what powers of seizure the Royal Navy had over British flag vessels. Then I suddenly realised last night that this Bill relates to the United Kingdom, not only to one area. I panicked for a moment, because when I went up to my naval board, I was asked, “How many balls does a rear admiral have?”. That relates to the fact that admirals, rear admirals and vice admirals have the cross of St George, and I suddenly thought, “Maybe it is a bit too English”. A rear admiral has two balls, a vice admiral has one ball, but an admiral of the fleet has no balls and, more than that, his flag moves from being the flag of St George to the union flag. As a representative of the union, and as an independent unionist Peer, I hope that I can ask whether the Minister will, in true Christmas spirit, respond and please give some encouragement. I commend the Bill to the House.

Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Selsdon.)

My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of the noble Lord and of his fascinating and entertaining introduction. I speak as an ordinary citizen who values individual freedom and is suspicious of the seemingly endless advances of red tape and regulation. As the noble Lord states in his background information paper and has confirmed again this morning, the Bill has been carefully researched over a considerable period, and it is introduced in good faith.

I have not been involved in the development of the Bill, and I read it for the first time only recently. I can only say that I was unaware of the extent of the powers that exist. I do not see how anyone could fail to be amazed by the list of 155 Acts of Parliament set out in Schedule 1 to the Bill. Those Acts contain powers of entry or authorise the making of regulations containing such powers. It is an awesome list.

The aim of the Bill is to establish a common code of practice that brings the multiple excuses and procedures for entry into private property under one heading. The main risk is that the proposed code becomes so complicated that it is self-defeating. The challenge is to make the code clear and simple enough that it does not become yet another layer of bureaucracy. The proposed code of practice set out in Schedule 2 achieves that. As I have said, a great deal of research and thought has gone into the production of the Bill. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, and Professor Stone, on their work. I am in full agreement with the objectives of the Bill, and I wish it well on its journey through Parliament.

My Lords, I, too, support my noble friend Lord Selsdon and congratulate him, not only on his enterprise and on working so hard and so long on the Bill, but on introducing it today in such an amusing manner. It is not at all necessary for me to take up too much of your Lordships’ time—I will be brief—in repeating the cogent arguments in favour of the Bill. Like the noble Lord, Lord Cobbold, I was horrified when I discovered the huge number of bodies that have the right of entry into our homes, often with the application of severe force, and the condign penalties should we dare to question the need or manner of their doing so.

I am also outstanding—I beg noble Lords’ pardon; I am not outstanding but astounded—that so many of those rights of entry merely relate to administrative and not very urgent matters, which in the case of a dispute with a householder could be simply resolved in another way. I would like to describe one such case. In a holiday home that I own in the country, one of the utilities threatened me with such action because it had experienced difficulty in reading my gas meter, because I was never there when its meter man chose to come. No, it could not call on my neighbour who had the key, as it could call only at the address where the meter was situated. No, it could not simply open the garage door, which would be left unlocked for it, as the householder or his representative had to be present. But yes, it could break my door down if I did not handle the matter in its way.

I spent 20 years as a magistrate. On many occasions, I was called on by the police at my home at extraordinary hours of the day or weekend and asked to sign a search warrant. It was never a case of, “All right, officer, where would you like me to sign?”. In accordance with the strict training that I had received, the policeman had to take the oath solemnly, then tell me in detail why the warrant was needed and what they hoped to find, and—even more importantly—to explain why the matter was so urgent that I had to deal with it there and then, without the concurrence of a full Bench of my colleagues and the advice, if I felt I needed it, of my learned clerk.

In many cases covered by the Bill, the rights of entry can be granted on the say-so of a public official or government department, sometimes as the result of some EU directive, as the noble Lord mentioned. A householder can do little or nothing at the time of entry when faced with an official, often backed by the police, who will threaten arrest for obstruction or disorderly conduct if he protests too vigorously inside his own home. He can do little or nothing to prevent irrelevant material being carted off in black bin bags. There is little hope of getting it back in a timely manner before it is lost by the department, or somehow mysteriously finds its way into the hands of one of the tabloids.

Recent events entitle us to say that the public, with very good reason, have absolutely no reason to trust the Government to protect individuals’ privacy. The authority, by which I mean sometimes a minor functionary in some department or other, is judge, jury and executioner on the question of what entry is needed and how it is exercised. Rights of entry and seizure should be exercisable only after a warrant is authorised by a separate and impartial authority, not on the mere say-so of the person seeking the power.

A year ago the Prime Minister, then still the Chancellor of the Exchequer, promised a “bonfire of regulations”. According to reports in the press on Tuesday, not only has not a single bureaucratic burden been lifted or amended but, on the contrary, the list continues to grow by 14 new regulations every day. The Bill will not reduce that torrent of regulations, but at least it will fire a shot over the Government's bows as to how they exercise the powers that they are taking for themselves.

The Government should ensure that the Bill gets parliamentary time to enable it to pass into law. I hope that the Prime Minister will continue in the path of rightly shedding his control-freak image and assist the British people to have less reason to fear, if not the midnight knock on the door, the peremptory demand to have their homes ransacked by—the gentlemen in the Box will have to forgive me—some civil servant.

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, on the Bill, which I wholeheartedly support. As one has come to expect, he has researched the matter with the utmost thoroughness and drafted the Bill with the greatest care and precision.

I was brought up in an era when it was taken for granted that an Englishman’s home was his castle—we pitied the poor foreigner, for whom that was not believed to be the case—but times change, too often for the worse. A thoughtful writer, Allison Pearson, who it is fair to say was broadly sympathetic towards new Labour until fairly recently, wrote in the Daily Mail two days ago that:

“The once-great thing about Britain was that it always left you alone ... Now, we are among the most spied-upon people in the world”.

It has recently been revealed that the United Kingdom has more CCTV cameras than the whole of the rest of Europe lumped together. How does this country rank in terms of official intrusion into private property?

Continental bureaucrats are traditionally regarded as authoritarian, pernickety and horrendously slow in their dealings with their frustrated citizens. On the other hand, they are prepared to bend or ignore the rules—particularly in southern Europe—to protect national or regional interests. I very much doubt that their Governments allow them as extensive powers of entry as is the case in Britain. For one thing, you burst in unannounced on a suspicious French peasant toting his rusty 12-bore at your peril. Admittedly, that is to some extent informed guesswork, so let us go back to the details of the Bill.

Without doubt the most welcome and useful clause is Clause 6, which restricts the times within which compulsory entry can take place other than in exceptional circumstances. Most people will not realistically have the time or inclination to study the Bill in detail, should it become law, but the fact that no official will be entitled to hammer on your door before eight o’clock in the morning is something that everyone can easily grasp and welcome. One can only wish that that restriction could be extended to the police, though one can understand why it cannot be. One suspects that 6 am raids on the homes of non-violent men and women suspected of relatively minor white-collar offences have more to do with an eagerness to get into the first editions of the evening papers, or on to lunchtime television or “The World at One”, than with any genuine operational imperative. One wishes that similar constraints could be imposed on the Revenue and Customs, which, for accidental historical reasons, has even more powers than the police. That is essentially because it was granted its powers roughly 200 years earlier, in more autocratic times. However, that may be for another day, unless we can somehow slip it into the Bill, which I doubt.

Earlier, I deplored the extent to which an Englishman’s home was no longer his castle. Interestingly, the Scots and the Northern Irish are rather better off. The National Council for Civil Liberties, now known as Liberty, revealed a few years ago that the powers of compulsory entry on to private property were no less than 57 per cent fewer in Scotland and 41.5 per cent fewer in Northern Ireland than in England and Wales.

This Bill is quite modest. It is far from revolutionary given that as drafted it does not seek to repeal a single power of entry, merely to make them less disturbing and disrupting to the citizen or, as I prefer to call him, subject. That being the case, the Bill deserves solid support from all quarters of your Lordships’ House.

My Lords, I, too, strongly support my noble friend Lord Selsdon. He has done an enormous amount of work on this Bill, and it is work that very much needed to be done.

It is interesting that the Minister who has been selected to respond is the noble Lord, Lord West, for whom we all have not only huge respect but great hope as a new entrant into the Whitehall jungle. At ministerial level, he may be able to do a lot. It is a little surprising that a Home Office Minister should be selected to reply to the Bill, given that it excludes Home Office responsibilities—the police and security services and all that—from its provisions. That exemption is well founded. On the other hand, I feel that it is curious that there should be firm rules for the police on entering property that do not apply to other officials. The rules are centred on the need for a warrant. Frankly, I would have thought that, if it is good enough for the police to have to obtain a warrant, that requirement should be good enough for anyone else. My noble friend Lady Miller described the careful way in which magistrates assess applications for warrants. Apart from anything else, having to get a warrant makes an official, policeman or anyone else think twice or three times and consider more carefully whether or not it is appropriate and necessary to effect this power of entry.

Of course there will be occasions when entry must be made in an emergency at any time of day or night by people other than the police. When I discussed this with my wife, she mentioned the importance of being concerned about the abuse of children. That would be another exemption, certainly in relation to the hours, and perhaps a warrant might not even be required. Clause 6 limits the hours during which powers of entry could be used. I hope that when we discuss this in Committee one of changes might be that anyone covered by the Bill who seeks entry outside the prescribed hours of, I think, 6 am to 8 pm should be required to get a warrant. That would be a simple and valuable change.

My noble friend talked about the extent to which the Government simply do not have the information that one might expect them to have about all this. That is astonishing. It strikes me as slack management in Whitehall. It is increasingly clear that the Government do not really have a grip on Whitehall in terms of either efficiency or legislation. That is particularly important these days when the House of Commons no longer scrutinises legislation properly. One of the worst changes ever made by this Government was to introduce automatic guillotines on every Bill. In my day in the press lobby, when I wrote about politics in Britain, if a Bill was running into difficulties one wrote that the Government might have to obtain a guillotine and one talked about their particular difficulties. Now the guillotine is automatic and the legislation is not properly considered. That is an aspect of slack management. It is an important point of which the Government should be aware.

This also relates to information that one would have thought the Government should have. Totally by chance, just before I came into the Chamber, I picked up a Written Answer from the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, to a Question that I asked on the number of drivers currently disqualified from driving. This is a quotation from his Answer:

“It is not possible for the information on driving disqualifications held on the police national computer to calculate the number of people currently disqualified from driving”.

That is astonishing. It is just an example of the lack of efficient, effective management. You cannot manage a business or a Government without proper information and my noble friend has been clear in drawing our attention to the huge gaps in the obvious information that is needed.

It might have been more appropriate for a Treasury Minister to have answered on this Bill. I point out to the Minister that the backdrop to our discussion is a serious worsening of economic outlook and certainly a looming cash crisis for the Chancellor. What is needed is less government, fewer busybodies and fewer thoughtless forms of enforcement, which ties in with this Bill. There are many wildly overstaffed enforcement departments of local authorities and quangos. Many interesting examples are given in the book Crossing the Threshold by Harry Snook, from which I enjoyed reading an extract.

My Lords, I am sympathetic to the noble Lord’s line of argument, but would he comment on an apparent contradiction? I am a little more sympathetic to the Home Office than the noble Lord is. I put down a Question about how many people who had speeding notices were prosecuted or, to put it the other way, not prosecuted because they were driving with false plates and so on. The Answer was that this information is not collected centrally but is down to local authorities. We have to balance this problem of so-called “overregulation” with the fact that, as the noble Lord is worried about, Whitehall is not capable of collecting information centrally. Perhaps he would think about that contradiction.

My Lords, of course the information should be collected. To have proper management you need information, because then you see what you need to do and what you do not need to do. A great deal of this Bill is about what is not needed to be done.

Talking about swollen agencies, I have a wonderful example, which happened at my home in Suffolk. Two people from the Environment Agency appeared in a very comfortable motor car. They had stopped because they spied on our farm a pile of brick rubble, which was to be used to make up farm tracks. They spent half an hour haranguing someone who worked for us, saying that this was an unauthorised rubbish dump. Those people should not have been cruising around looking for trivia. If you have clear information, you then focus on what you need to do. In the private sector you focus on where you can make a profit. In the public sector the focus should be on where the citizen needs your help.

I do not want to detain your Lordships for longer, but I would like to say that I hope very much that this Bill will be taken seriously by the Government, that we will have time to debate it fully and that it will reach the statute book in some form or another.

My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps I might correct him for the record. The Bill stipulates that entry into someone’s home should take place only between 8 am and 6 pm on weekdays, not the much less agreeable time span of 6 am to 8 pm that he imagined.

Thank you, my Lords. I noted that.

My Lords, with the permission of the House, I rise to speak in the gap. The views that the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, has just expressed are consistent with his general sympathy for the introduction of national identity cards, which, equally, are about information available to the state.

I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, on introducing this Bill. I had no intention of speaking today because I thought that the Bill would be taken later in the afternoon and I did not expect to be here, so my comments will be brief.

I particularly welcome the fact that the Bill is realistic in its objectives in the sense that it excludes intelligence, police and HM Revenue and Customs, because, if there were any public concern about the contents of the Bill, it would be that the services provided in those areas might be compromised in some way. They will not be as a result of the Bill.

I also welcome the Bill because it establishes the principle of records being kept of all occasions when these powers are being used. This information is not generally available, and the provisions in paragraph 33 of Schedule 2, and those in paragraph 34 on the wider availability of the information gleaned under paragraph 33, are welcome to those of us who believe in the widest possible application of freedom of information.

I also welcome paragraph 6 of Schedule 2, which requires that a copy of the code must be carried by all those exercising the powers to which it applies and that it must be made available to the occupier of any premises entered. Like the noble Lord, Lord Cobbold, I was astonished to read the substantial list of legislation that provides for potential entry by people under warrant or whatever. I did not know that the powers were available on such a scale in such a wide variety of conditions. Every citizen in the land should know that they, as individuals, have access to the code and should be sure and satisfied that the conduct of a person applying the code is proper under the law.

As I said, I welcome the Bill. I hope that some way can be found to take the provisions forward. There are one or two little areas where I have a slight reservation but I am sure that they can be dealt with at a later stage.

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, on the introduction of the Bill and assure him of full support from these Benches as it progresses, subject only to improvements to its form that we hope to be able to make.

The noble Lord wondered whether he should be presenting to your Lordships a code of conduct or a code of practice. Whichever you call it, the nature of a code is that it offers guidance rather than imposes requirements. Therefore, there is a certain amount of latitude in the practical application of that code. I shall come back to that theme in a moment.

I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, because he has obviously persuaded the Prime Minister to his way of thinking, as the PM’s speech on liberty on 25 October 2007 to the University of Westminster incorporates many of the noble Lord’s ideas. That speech, if I may use an appropriate sentiment for the Christmas season, appeared to us on these Benches in this way: those who have dwelt in darkness have seen a great light. The Prime Minister said in that speech that he wanted to work together with other political parties and that he was going to start,

“immediately to make changes in our constitution and laws to safeguard and extend the liberties of our citizens”.

He specifically referred to,

“respecting privacy in the home, new rights against arbitrary intrusion”,

and said:

“The advancement of individual liberty depends upon the protection from arbitrary interference of the person and private property and, above all, the home”.

He also announced that the Home Office was working with the Association of Chief Police Officers to see whether they could bring together,

“all existing police powers of entry into a single understandable code”.

However, he went on to refer to the powers of entry that many other public authorities have. He told us that,

“the Home Secretary will establish and coordinate a wider review of all other powers of entry”.

I should like to ask the Minister whether this work has started. If it has not started, when will it start, and what is the programme for its completion?

The Prime Minister said that any change would be accompanied by guidance on how those powers should be exercised—the exact point made by the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, about the production of this code—and he talked about the rights that members of the public have,

“to take action if those expectations are not met”.

That comes to the nub of my mild criticism of the Bill, as drafted by the noble Lord, because it does not make it particularly clear what the legal effect of failure to comply with the code will be. You cannot stop the proceedings that are in hand for a judicial review to be brought in the administrative court, so what happens if the code is breached? Nothing in the Bill says that it is a criminal offence to break any particular part of this code. Indeed, that is not what codes are about; as I said at the beginning, it is a question of guidance rather than the imposition of responsibilities.

I think that the first thing the Bill should have is a statement that the code is admissible in criminal, administrative or civil proceedings. It is very important that the code enacted by the Bill should be freely available for comment in any proceedings that may be brought. If proceedings are brought against the person whose property is entered for the imposition of penalties under whatever legislation it may be, he should be entitled to refer to the code in court and say, “Well, they were in breach of this or that other provision of the code and therefore any penalty that is imposed upon me for refusing entry and so on should be mitigated to a considerable extent”.

However, the code should be admissible if, for example, the person seeking to exercise a power of entry commits a criminal offence. What sort of criminal offences do I have in mind? Under the Public Order Act 1986, for example, Section 3 concerns affray, which is defined as the use or threat of unlawful violence. Section 4A(1) of the same Act says that it is an offence to harass, alarm or distress a person, or indeed to threaten to do so using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour or disorderly behaviour, thereby causing the person concerned or, indeed, another person—perhaps a resident inside the premises—harassment, alarm or distress. So it should be admissible to control the actions of a person who is exercising a power of entry.

There is also the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, which states that it is a criminal offence if a person pursues a course of conduct which amounts to the harassment of another. There are further provisions in the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, to which this code could be relevant. So, for criminal proceedings, whether brought against the person whose home is entered or in relation to the way in which the power is exercised, obviously the code should be something to which the court may pay attention. Similarly, I said that administrative action was unlikely, but if a case were brought judicially to review the conduct of a person seeking entry or the administrative authority behind him, again there should be an ability to refer to the court.

Then there are actions in tort. When Englishmen had castles in Tudor times, actions for forcible entry were very common. The most famous one is that of Fortescue v Stonor in 1532 where there was forcible entry of property with 30 men on one side and 80 on the other. One of Lord Fortescue’s men was killed by a crossbow bullet. Things have moved on a little since Tudor times, but the civil action for trespass is still alive and kicking in our civil courts, and there should be the ability to refer to this code in any action that may be brought.

I shall be anecdotal, if I may. I was interested in the actions of the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, as a magistrate in questioning a policeman when he wants a warrant signed; asking why it is so urgent and what it is about. The noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, referred to that safeguard as well. I recall once being in Hong Kong having successfully judicially reviewed the action of a magistrate who had simply signed a warrant without even seeing the policeman who brought it. He was kind enough to invite me to dinner after our successful case. While at dinner, a knock came at the door and a young man was standing there with a warrant in his hand. Mine host, the magistrate, turned to me and said, “Now, you listen to this. What’s it all about? Why do you need it urgently? All right, I’ll sign it”. He turned to me and asked, “Is that all right?”. I said, “Well, he was in plain clothes, you didn’t know him and you didn’t ask him to identify himself”. I was surprised when he reached for my throat to shake me as a result, but he had not gone through the procedure entirely correctly.

That indicates the safeguards to which the noble Baroness referred, and how very much we value our right of privacy, our right to remain in our homes without any interference unless it is properly authorised. The code proposed here for the way in which these powers of entry should be exercised is an excellent step in the right direction. I hope that the Bill gets its Second Reading and we will co-operate in moving it on from there.

My Lords, like other noble Lords, I fully support the Bill. It is clear that the noble Lord has done a great service both to Parliament and the country by tabling this Private Member’s Bill today. It is truly alarming that it takes an individual Member of this House to bring together all the legislation under which various government departments can require or force entry to private or commercial premises.

Like the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, I have experience as a magistrate in having to consider the eligibility of a request by police for a warrant. In the case of the vast number of Acts listed, it is not a requirement that a magistrate should be involved, so there is no independent overview of what is being done in the Government’s name. There is simply a right ‘or a putative right’ depending on whether regulations have actually been made authorising such action. As the noble Lord, Lord Monson, said, most British people even now have a belief that their homes are their castles, or, as was said, “a privileged space”, and that those who come into them do so only with the person’s agreement. I guarantee that if we told any ordinary citizen—I include the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, not as an ordinary citizen but as an informed legislator, and he would not be able to answer this—that there were more than 100 Acts of Parliament, allowing officials of various government departments or agencies to demand entry, they would not believe it. They would be even less impressed if you told them that there are statutory powers where the Government appear to be unable to identify which is the host department. Over time, the names and responsibilities of government departments change, but that should not mean that information as important as this gets lost in the transition.

It is even more concerning that there appears to be a complete lack of either interest or competence in government to even keep a watching brief on what legislation gives these pretty draconian powers. As the noble Lord pointed out, the Home Office, which perhaps should be the guardian of our rights, is so disinterested that it does not appear to keep a note of where these powers lie. As the noble Lord also rightly said, where Parliament gives the power of entry in legislation, there should be a code of conduct in force as to how and when such action should be carried out. The noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, gave us a clear indication of what should be attached to that.

Should there not also be proper accountability in government for the monitoring of the use of these powers, which government put into being, and should they not have ownership of them? It is just too cavalier for this to be left in the air. Valid and good reasons can always be given—and are—for reducing the rights of citizens, it is always for “their good” or “their protection” to fight crime and prevent terror. They are all persuasive arguments and, as each piece of legislation is passed, they will no doubt have been considered and debated. I am certain that few Members of Parliament or of this House will know of, and therefore take into account, the myriad other powers that are floating about, to which other legislation will just add. It is reasonably fair to say that more or less every footmark we make in our daily lives is marked by some authority or another, whether it is myriad CCTV cameras in the street, in shops, at airports on motorways, and so on. We accept that now as a way of life, but we still need to be able to return home in the reasonable expectation that no one can just barge their way in.

The noble Lord has really done a great service by bringing all this information together. It is extraordinary that it is he who has had to ferret it out. I hope and expect that this House will give this Bill a fair reading today and that there will be some legislative agreement in both Houses that this is a very good way of starting the bonfire that we hope to see of such regulations.

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, on securing a slot for the Second Reading of his Bill and, in doing so, instituting this debate on the important issue of powers of entry. As a former naval person, he does not need to apologise for speaking with audacity. Naval persons are meant to speak with audacity, and I understand that he always does. I am delighted that he has not changed that today.

This is an important issue, and the noble Lord’s work on it is commendable and deserves the praise of all noble Lords. I am also most impressed by his knowledge of naval flags, but will not go into detail as to my distinctive pennant. I also thank him for acknowledging how bright Labour Ministers are and for offering his labour free of charge.

I know that this is an issue of continuing interest both to the noble Lord, as he explained, and to all Members of this House. That has been shown by the valuable contributions to the debate from all those speaking today. The issue of those who are authorised to exercise the powers of entry and when they may do so is already regulated by Parliament through individual statutes which grant these powers.

It should be stressed that all the individual powers which the noble Lord raises in Schedule 1 to the Bill have been subject to the full scrutiny of Parliament. In addition, Section 67(9) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 requires that persons other than police officers who are charged with the duty of investigating offences or charging offenders shall, in the discharge of that duty, have regard to any relevant provision of a code. In this case, the relevant PACE code is code B: the code of practice for searches of premises and seizure of property.

Chapter 6 of the code sets out considerations of the time of searches, communications with the owner or occupier including provision of a notice of powers and rights, and the conduct of searches. The code applies a degree of discretion to take account of operational requirements. For example, in terms of the time of searches, paragraph 5.2 indicates that:

“Searches must be made at a reasonable hour unless this might frustrate the purpose of the search”.

The noble Lord’s Bill removes that operational discretion and instead provides that no entry shall take place on a bank holiday or public holiday and that entry shall take place only between 8 am and 6 pm between Mondays and Fridays and, for business premises only, at any other time when the business is open. Therefore, the Bill does not simply seek to consolidate the existing powers. Instead, it seeks to set a prescribed limit on the times when entry may take place, the maximum number of persons permitted to enter premises, the production of documents and the seizure of documents.

The role of the investigating or enforcement officer is not so precise. The objectives of the noble Lord’s Bill are laudable but, as Parliament has identified in the passing of individual statutes, there are occasions on which discrete powers and the exercise of those powers are required to deal with specific operational situations. The noble Lord, Lord Monson, referred to Clause 6 and time but, for example, colleagues in weights and measures advise that activities that might lead to fraudulent practice are often conducted outside of normal business hours, such as fraudulently preparing documents, adjusting weighing or measuring equipment, meter manufacture or preparing short-measure packages.

However, the Government—and certainly this Minister—have great sympathy with the intention behind the noble Lord’s Bill. As the Prime Minister indicated in his speech on liberty made on 25 October, there is the need for additional protections for the liberties and rights of the citizen, and that one of the strongest guarantees is a clear understanding of what these rights are. That is more difficult with the very existence of hundreds of laws.

The Prime Minister added that the Home Secretary is working with the Association of Chief Police Officers to examine, in the name of clarity and the greatest possible protection for the individual, the scope for bringing together in a single understandable code all existing police powers of entry. He went on to say that,

“besides the police, many other public authorities covering areas like public health, animal welfare, health and safety, and customs and excise, also have powers of entry. So, alongside the review of police powers, the Home Secretary will establish and co-ordinate a wider review of all other powers of entry”.

The key objectives of the review are, first, to produce a comprehensive list of powers of entry, inspection, search and seizure to provide clarity for police, investigating agencies and, more importantly, the public; secondly, to develop a statutory framework for all existing powers and scrutiny criteria for all proposed new powers; thirdly, to enable development of public-use information material to raise awareness of businesses and individuals of their rights and expectations and what to do if those expectations are not met. This work is being taken forward in conjunction with the review of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. Reference to powers of entry and whether there should be a discrete framework of powers for all agencies was included in the PACE consultation paper issued in March 2007. In response, the Bar Council indicated that:

“We consider it desirable that the powers of all those charged with investigating crime, preserving order, transporting offenders etc could be contained in one accessible piece of legislation”.

The PACE review is due to complete its final stage of consultation in spring 2008. It is intended that by then we can produce proposals around powers of entry for non-police agencies, including options on a single statutory framework, safeguards for and rights of the public and, importantly, a review of the existing powers and whether they remain necessary and proportionate. The last element is a key aspect of the review and one which the noble Lord had not taken into account in determining the contents of the Bill.

I hope that Members of this House, including the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, appreciate that the aim of such a review is not simply to consolidate existing legislation, but to raise awareness and understanding of what can be done and by whom and what redress the owner of the business or the occupier of the premises has if those exercising the power do not comply with their statutory function. That point was raised by a number of speakers.

I shall try to address some of the detailed questions. If I miss any, I shall respond in writing, and there will an opportunity to discuss this further in Committee. The noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, raised the lack of detailed knowledge of how many powers of entry and enactments there are. It is surprising that we have not had a better view in the past. That point was also touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford. We now know that there are 680 powers of entry contained in 323 enactments. As the noble Lord pointed out, when the Mitchell review was carried out in 1980, it identified 700 different powers but concluded that there might be more and was unable to provide a complete list. I am glad to say that we have the information now but considering the matter was being looked at in 1980, that is not impressive.

When I realised that there were 680 powers of entry and 323 enactments, I was amazed. I only became aware of the figures when I was preparing for this debate. The noble Baronesses, Lady Miller of Hendon and Lady Hanham, the noble Lord, Lord Cobbold, and my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours were all surprised and amazed. Indeed, the House in general was surprised and amazed. It is clear that something needs to be done about it, and I hope that noble Lords can tell from what I have said that something is being done about it.

The noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, raised a number of detailed questions, and I shall respond to them in writing, where I can, and place a copy in the Library of the House. I do not think he would expect or want me to try to respond now or we would be here until tonight, if I could manage to do so. The noble Baroness, Lady Miller, mentioned a bonfire of regulations, and I agree with her view that we do not seem to have moved as fast as we should have on this. I have no doubt that we need to reduce and rationalise the amount of legislation in this country. I will try to achieve that in my post, and I know that the feeling in the Government is that we must do something about this and must start making it happen.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, for his hopes for me. I hope that he did not feel that he got second best by getting a Home Office Minister rather than a Minister from another department. I think my remarks have covered the points he made. The balance between knowledge, the data we gather and how we analyse them, and freedom is interesting and difficult. My noble friend Lord Lea of Crondall pointed that out, as did my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours when he mentioned ID cards. This is a difficult issue because good data are necessary to administer and control, but people in Britain instinctively dislike data-gathering because we feel we are individuals and we do not like people intruding in our lives. I hope we will get the difficult balance right. I think we have probably got it right, but we always have to be very sensitive to it.

The noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, mentioned the Prime Minister’s speech. Well before this debate, I discussed with the Prime Minister many of the issues that he, the noble Lord and I feel strongly about. That discussion did not take place in darkness as the noble Lord said. The depth of my knowledge of English history is not such that I can refer to a Tudor incident—Fortescue v Stonor—but I was very interested to hear about it. I hope there will be no crossbow deaths in future.

Finally, to answer the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, the Home Office is certainly not disinterested in this; it is very focused on it. I mentioned the important work that is going on. Again, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, for the work that he has done, which has helped dramatically.

I hope that I have answered most of the points raised. As I said, there is a degree of support for the direction of the Bill, but there are also substantial areas of work that require to be completed. Once we have completed those tasks, the Government intend to put the matters before the public through consultation to seek their views, and those of stakeholders and practitioners. That is the most appropriate way forward.

I acknowledge the level of interest and considerable effort that the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, has given to the matter, as I have mentioned several times. If he would find it helpful, I would be very happy to arrange for him to meet with officials once work has been completed on identifying the full list of powers, the relevant officials who may exercise them and the associated protections and safeguards in place for the public.

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to those who were kind enough to support this initiative. Like all initiatives, this is only the beginning. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord West, for doing an Admiral West. There was a slightly schizophrenic aspect: when he was reading the civil brief, it did not make sense at all; when he spoke as himself, he made a lot of sense.

Just to give the Home Office a bit of guidance, I refer to the reply to a Written Question by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland. It states:

“A record of all powers of entry is not maintained centrally. In July 1983 the Prime Minister agreed that the Home Office, together with the then Scottish Home and Health Department and Northern Ireland Office should take responsibility for scrutinising proposals to create or re-enact powers of entry within their home jurisdiction”.—[Official Report, 23/11/05; col. WA 219.]

That Question was answered in the same way by all other government departments.

As I said, I thank everyone who spoke and I will follow the old-fashioned rule—I have even brought a pen in and I am trying to do joined-up writing, because I was told when I first came to this House by Earl Home, “My dear chap, we can’t type very well, so therefore we write. If you haven’t got joined-up writing, it doesn’t matter; it is a sign of lack of consistency”.

I remind the Minister that this place, the House of Lords, is pretty good. The Clerk of the Parliaments is in this House. The Public Bill Office, which has done so much for me, has so much knowledge, and the Library here is better. There are occasions when certain Bills, even if they are Private Bills—because all the Bills that come to us are Public Bills—might start in this place.

It is a monumental task. I may get the quote wrong, but as Lord Birkett said, “You know, when you are dealing with government departments and all the different bodies of state, it makes you feel like a rather strange mongrel dog confronted with an ever-continuing line of lamp posts and wondering if you have enough power to get to the end”.

I feel that I must shut up now. I would like to take matters further. I take up the Minister's suggestion of meeting with officials; I have a great regard for them. As he knows well, the school that brought me up has more officials in government than any other. I commend the Bill to the House.

On Question, Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

House adjourned at 1.04 pm.