I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

With this, it will be convenient to discuss the following:

I welcome Ministers to the Front Bench. Much work has gone into the Bill, both in Committee and elsewhere, and I thank hon. Members on both sides of the House for that. I hope that with a bit of common sense and tidiness we can produce a Bill that will in due course obtain its Third Reading and thus do a great deal for the disabled, their carers and their families.

New clause 12 is important and is based on the discussion that we have had. I move it in the knowledge that time is perhaps not on our side because of the many issues that we must discuss. If possible, I shall speak for no more than five minutes on each issue. Indeed, if that was the pattern for the day, I for one would not complain. I know that hon. Members have strong views on many of the issues and I appreciate the fact that so many hon. Members have stayed for this debate on a Friday. But it is important to try to achieve our ends before 2.30 pm in order to facilitate the Bill's Third Reading.

The Government conducted a consultation exercise. It is only fair to point out that the response to that and to the Government's consultative documents was overwhelmingly in favour of the Bill and against the Government's proposals. Of course, that might be expected on the part of organisations of and for disabled people which had been closely involved in drafting the Bill and in giving their assistance. But I am sure that the Government were surprised by the strength of support for key clauses from health authorities, professional bodies and the local authority associations.

In Committee, I said that I would make up my own mind on amendments for the Report stage following the responses received. The new clauses and amendments that I have tabled reflect that view. I acknowledge that the Government's amendments represent a modest improvement on the position in the consultation paper, but they are still not quite good enough and do not go as far as the Bill's sponsors would like. That is why I have tabled various new clauses and amendments.

As I have said throughout the passage of the Bill, there are certain key principles in the Bill, to which the House gave an unopposed Second Reading on 17 January, which must be retained if the Bill is to have any meaning. The first concerns new clause 12, which finds the Government on very weak ground. The Government new clause 7 merely retains a procedure for notification by the social services to the education department that a child is disabled at 14 plus. There is a unanimous view among those responsible for social services that an assessment can and should be undertaken by them before the child leaves full-time education.

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I shall quote two responses which are important in their own right but which also encapsulate many of the views expressed in response to the Government's documents. The Association of County Councils said about the new clause:

"This probably is the area where the Association has least difficulty with the proposals in the Bill itself…The Association has recently responded favourably to the notion of 'shared care' for children with special educational needs, and it seems logical for this to be a relationship which extends into adulthood. The Association's main difficulty relates simply to the number of formal notifications required."

The Association of Directors of Social Services said:

"Joint assessment at this stage involves collaborative forward planning which is highly desirable at the critical point in the life of the young person to whom the support and familiarity of the educational environment are lost, and where continuity of service availability is, in conseqence, especally important."

New clause 12 is the next logical step after the Education Act 1981. I have read the responses carefully, as have my hon. Friends and my advisers have spent considerable time with the officials of the ACC and Association of Metropolitan Authorities in an effort to meet their concerns. I hope that the Government will recognise the concessions that I have made in reducing what they describe as the bureaucracy and the number of contacts between authorities. The proposed time-scale for notification has been reduced in the new clause from 12 months before leaving school to nine months. That means the beginning of a child's last year at school. The social services are given six months rather than three in which to undertake the assessment.

Furthermore clause 3(3) which requires further reports from education authorities to social service departments has been completely dropped. I believe that the associations are now happy with the clause, and they appear to accept that the resource implications are minimal. I estimate that the average social service department may have to undertake no more than 20 assessments a year as a result of the clause, and many of the children may already be receiving services. The clause will ensure that the major change in their lives and the period of great trauma for their families will be properly planned and prepared.

The Minister will doubtless say that my new clause is defective. However, he may have had second thoughts on rereading it. I admit that we had difficulty in drafting the provisions in relation to people leaving full-time education at 19, when technically they may no longer be children. But this small group of young people in special colleges of further education is vital, as the Minister will appreciate from the BBC programme in which he appeared yesterday. Most of these colleges are run by charities with sponsoring from education departments or, occasionally, the social services, and in those circumstances it is unfortunately too easy for them to be ignored by local authorities until they arrive back full time with their parents at 19. If the House accepts the new clause, I hope that the Minister will assist in preparing any technical amendments that may be needed in the other place.

Finally, I must refer briefly to new clauses 2 and 3. New clause 2 is the Scottish equivalent of new clause 7. In the time available I have not been able to draft an equivalent to new clause 12. If new clause 12 is accepted, I hope that the Government will assist in its extension to Scotland when the matter is debated in the other place. New clause 3, which stands in the name of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr. MacKay), is a small improvement which I am happy to include in the Bill without debate.

In that spirit, I commend the new clause.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) on the way in which he has brought the Bill through its Committee stage and on the amount of work that he has put in, in detailed consultation on the necessary amendments and new clauses. He had good fortune in coming first in the ballot and has introduced a most welcome Bill.

Even if the resources that the Government are prepared to devote are fewer than had perhaps been hoped for, the hon. Gentleman has still done extremely well to get the Government's backing which, indeed, we hope will materialise today. I have heard the figure of £25 million being quoted as the cost of resources agreed, and for a private Member's Bill to secure that amount of backing must be a matter of pride for the hon. Gentleman.

I also congratulate the Government on having found resources to help make this Bill possible, even if not at the level hoped for. It is all in a good cause. As the Prime Minister said yesterday, the Government have a record of increasing expenditure for the chronically sick and disabled, and various measures have meant substantial increases in expenditure, to a total of £4·5 million for the chronically sick and disabled.

I support new clause 12, as moved by the hon. Member for Monklands, West. Without it, all we are doing is looking at a paper chase. It is most important that assessments are made. Whenever disabled people come out of hospital at any stage of their life, an assessment is necessary, particularly in the case of younger children. About 1,000 children are still in long-stay mental hospitals. Plans are desperately needed for placing those children in the community.

I ask the Minister to give special attention to the need to provide sufficient back-up and after care. If families are to provide adoptive or foster homes for children who are severely handicapped, they need to know that sufficient back-up care is available to help them in their task. We fostered a boy nearly three years ago; it is his 11th birthday today. Even if the £100 million requested was a bit much, it is a welcome birthday present of £25 million that the Minister has given to him and people in a similar situation. I commend the clause to the House and hope that it meets with approval.

The Opposition support new clause 12. On new clause 2, the Scottish equivalent of new clause 7, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) will speak briefly as the debate proceeds. I think it will be well if all of us can take as our principal text for debates on this humane and much needed Bill a statement of Professor Mittler. Few people anywhere have done more than he has to help severely handicapped children and their families. He is a former adviser of the Secretary of State for Social Services. Writing to the right hon. Gentleman on 7 April, Professor Mittler said:

"To let this Bill fall or be talked out would be unforgivable."

That is my view and it is endorsed by professional opinion, and by all the voluntary organisations that the Government have consulted on the Bill. What it requires from both sides of the House today is, first, brevity, and, secondly, a resolve to ensure that, whatever differences may exist, a Bill as strong and viable as possible must emerge from our debates.

New clause 12 is but a modest step forward about which there has been full consultation with the AMA and the ACC, which are not concerned with the expenditure implications. In Standing Committee, even to mention the word resources, was like swearing in church. I hope it will be found less reprehensible here on the Floor of the House. As I say, the new clause is modest in its effects. I hope very much that the House will approve it unanimously.

I intervene briefly to say that I was glad to hear the comment of the hon. Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnham), because he has direct personal experience of the problems of disability. However, I would be out of order in following him on the general question of what this Government have accomplished, as compared with the previous Government. That is not what we should be discussing today; we should discuss only this Bill and, at present, the new clause, which I commend. We disagree strongly on the record of this Government as compared with the previous one.

On this Bill, I expect no basic disagreement; I hope we are working together in this case.

I hope that new clause 12 will be accepted because, without the assessment, disabled children leaving school will be left in a vacuum at the most important time of their lives. The case for new clause 12 is overwhelming. I was sorry indeed to see new clause 7 presented by the Government. If the Minister would accept new clause 12, I can assure him he would be doing something for which legislation should not really be required. It should be automatic for disabled children to be assessed when they leave school. But we do need legislation for what should be automatic, so I hope that the Minister will accept new clause 12 as an imperative necessity.

I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke), who has carried this Bill forward with great skill and a constructive attitude that augurs extremely well for the chances of getting it on the statute book. I share his hope that the Bill will be given a Third reading today, and I acknowledge the way in which he has responded to the points I made on behalf of the Government at Second reading, during Committee, in the process of consultation, and on the the many occasions on which we have discussed between us the best way to proceed. I shall quickly explain the Government's position in relation to the clause in the Bill, the new clause proposed by the Government, and the new clause proposed by the hon. Gentleman.

The provisions of the Bill as drafted would require local education authorities to record, on any statement of special education need made under the Education Act 1981 in respect of a child aged 13-plus—at which age there is a statutory reassessment of need—whether the child is, in the opinion of the social services department, a disabled person. If so, and if the young person or his representative agrees, the Social Services department is to be notified not later than 12 months before the expected date of leaving full-time education. The Social Services department is to be notified again three months before the anticipated leaving date, and given details of further education and training which would, in the view of the local education authority, be appropriate for him or her.

On receipt of this last notification, social services departments would be required to carry out a full assessment of the young person's needs. The Government accept the need for close liaison between LEAs and SSDs. However, focusing on the mandatory reassessment age of 13-plus means that a number of children assessed or reassessed between 12½ and 13½ would be excluded. This is a technical difficulty associated with the original clause. Recording information about disability on the statement kept by the LEA would be inappropriate, as it would have no direct relevance to the child's educational needs. The elaborate procedures for passing information from LEAs to SSDs would place a burden on LEAs.

For those reasons, the Government have put forward their amendment to new clause 7. That would remove the proposed duties on LEAs to pass on specific information to SSDs about disabled children and on the SSDs to assess the needs of disabled school leavers. Instead of that, the LEAs would be required to seek advice from the SSD about whether the child is disabled in his or her 15th year, either as part of the mandatory reassessment or the first annual review of the statement, whichever is the sooner; to obtain such advice from the SSD in respect of a child over 14 being assessed for the first time; and to seek a further opinion in respect of children whose mental and physical condition has changed and for whom revised advice may be appropriate. The procedure should certainly secure better liaison between LEAs and SSDs at a time more likely to provide information relevant to the child's needs on leaving full-time education.

New clause 12 follows the basic structure of the Government's proposed new clause 7, but in addition would require—the hon. Gentleman lays great stress on this—local education authorities to inform social services departments of the cessation of full-time education nine months before the presumed date. From my consultations with the Department of Education and Science experts, perhaps eight months would be a more administratively sensible point. However, this is a highly technical matter which can easily be resolved later. The new clause would also require, where such information is received by a social services department, an assessment of need to be undertaken within six months.

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There are a number of problems with the proposed new clause which to some extent, have been shown in the comments we have received from the ACC. The ACC broadly agrees that new clause 12 is a satisfactory replacement for new clause 3, but would prefer the determination of disability and the assessment to be rolled into a single requirement in order to reduce the administrative burden on LEAs. That seems to be a sensible proposition.

The ACC suggests that if that approach commends itself to the House, an appropriate amendment can be tabled at a later stage, and I agree. To set the general spirit of co-operation and constructive work which, I hope, will animate all our proceedings today, I shall not press new clause 7. I shall accept new clause 12 on the basis that we shall need to have further discussions. I hope that the hon. Member for Monklands, West and his advisers will join local authorities in considering the technical matters. Far be it from me to trespass on Scottish territory, but as I understand it, new clause 2 is the equivalent, for Scotland, of new clause 7. I imagine that my hon. Friend the Minister with responsibility for health in Scotland will take a similar view, and will not go ahead with new clause 2. Equally, that matter will have to be considered.

rose—

Order. Is the hon. Gentleman seeking to address the House again?

The Minister with typical generosity has given way. In the interests of making progress with the Bill, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you may wish me to say that the Minister's comments are extremely helpful. He accepts the principle of new clause 12 which, as hon. Members will agree, represents considerable progress. He made valid administrative points which I accept, and I agree that further consultation will be necessary. I am delighted to accept the representations and views expressed by the Minister.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I shall draw my remarks to a close because we have a great deal of work to do. I hope that I have made it absolutely clear that the Government do not intend to seek to delay the Bill by procedural devices. Providing the spirit that has animated these early exchanges, and, indeed, private conversations, continues, I see no reason why we should not make good progress, and send the Bill to another place later this afternoon.

I made it clear to the hon. Gentleman in my letter, in which I set out the series of Government amendments following the consultation exercise, that the consultation exercise had shown the resource implications of the Government's proposals to be rather greater than had been anticipated, and that it would be necessary to use the commencement order procedures in the Bill to activate those parts of the Bill when the resources are available to meet them. Indeed, it is on that basis that the LEAs have been giving their views. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnham) may have misunderstood the position, that the present public expenditure arrangements do not include provisions for the Bill. That has been recognised by my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Hannam) whose work in his leading role in the all-party disablement group is well known to the House. If I recall rightly, on the Tuesday before Easter he raised that specific point at Question Time, and I responded by saying that it would be necessary to behave in that way regarding resources.

Today we are dealing with the legislative provision, and the resources question is separate. We will follow the normal procedures of the House, if today we concentrate on the legislative provision, although one can never be unmindful of the resource implications.

Have the Government been able to quantify the savings that would result from a reduction in crisis interventions, and also from a reduction in the number of people in institutional care, if the provisions can be made to work properly? Costs can be incurred at a level of £19,000 a year in looking after a handicapped child in an institution.

Order. I hope that we can confine our remarks to the new clause.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, you almost take the words from my mouth. Perhaps I should merely reiterate your wise advice. My hon. Friend tempts me to debate the very areas which I have just said seem inappropriate for me to deal with. All the resource implications, both on the plus and the minus sides, will need to be examined much more carefully as a result of our work today, what happens in another place, and when the legislation as now envisaged is enacted. However, I felt it necessary to make the resource point which I had set out in my letter to the hon. Member for Monklands, West, copies of which were sent to all Committee members. There was no secret about it.

My right hon. Friend referred to our hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Hannam). Is he aware that our hon. Friend was extremely anxious to be present but had an unavoidable appointment elsewhere?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and I had intended to say that, because our hon. Friend made that point to me. I know how active he has been in discussions about the Bill, and what a constructive attitude he has adopted. It is only because of a most pressing engagement in his constituency that he is unable to be present.

Having served on the Committee, I intervene briefly to welcome the attitude of my right hon. Friend the Minister to the new clause. I was a little worried that he might allow the resource implications to override his better judgment and so feel unable to support new clause 12. It is a great relief to many Conservative Members, as well as Labour Members, that he has given his support.

I wish to tempt providence a tiny bit by mentioning resources. When the Bill is passed, I hope that my right hon. Friend will make every effort to find the necessary resources. I am slightly anxious especially about the new clause. Once it has been recognised that it is necessary for the steps to be taken, it would be wrong for the Government unnecessarily to delay their implementation. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister will note that that view is expressed from the Conservative Benches and not by the Opposition.

I completely accept what my right hon. Friend said about the administrative details. I will not examine his comments in great detail, but I know that much discussion has taken place among those who are much better qualified than I on the precise wording of new clause 12 to obtain the necessary support for those who come out of full time local education systems and to ensure a continuing care programme. I believe that some minor adjustments will be necessary. However, I completely welcome the new clause and wish the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) every success with the remainder of his Bill.

I should like to say a few words about new clauses 2 and 3. In the light of the comment of my right hon. Friend the Minister for Health about new clause 7, what I shall say about new clause 2 will be a great deal less than it might otherwise have been.

New clause 2 would have had substantially the same effect in Scotland as new clause 7 has for England and Wales. Clause 3 of the Bill as originally drafted, was based upon legislation that applies to England and Wales. The Bill simply sought to apply that to Scotland without amendment. However, the legislation on special educational needs differs substantially between England and Wales on the one hand and Scotland on the other. A separate provision is therefore required if that part of the Bill is to be applied in Scotland.

New clause 2 would have paralleled new clause 7, but, as my right hon. Friend has explained, the Government have decided not to move new clause 7 but to agree to new clause 12. In the light of that, I will not move new clause 2 but I shall have to arrange for a parallel provision to be introduced in another place to ensure that there is some application to Scotland, and that that is equivalent to new clause 12 as new clause 2 would have been for new clause 7. The House must fully understand that I shall not move new clause 2 but I shall arrange in another place, for a parallel provision to be moved to the new clause accepted by my right hon. Friend.

Before the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland concludes his speech, will he accept that I welcome his comments as warmly as I welcomed the comments of his right hon. Friend earlier?

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that comment.

I should like to say a few words about new clause 3 as I know that the House wants to make progress. The provisions of the Education (Scotland) Act 1980, as amended, deal with children with special educational needs and are generally effective. However, improvements can always be made in the light of experience, and the Bill provides the opportunity to make four minor but not unimportant changes. That is the purpose of new clause 3.

The first proposal in subsection (2) is simple. It seeks to amend section 4 of the Education (Scotland) Act 1980 so that the child guidance service should in future be called the regional or island authority psychological service. The reason for that is that the benefits of the service are not confined to children. Child guidance clinics are also attended by young persons up to the age of 19 and the definition of those clinics as child guidance clinics can put 17, 18 and 19-year-olds off the idea of attending such clinics.

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Subsection (3) and the amendments that we propose to section 61 of the 1980 Act set out the elements of the examination and assessment of a child which must be undertaken before that child may be recorded as having special educational needs. There are three elements there. First, there must be a medical examination, secondly there must be a psychological examination and finally a report must be made by a teacher who has been involved in the education of the child. We intend to replace the need for three reports with a single process of observation assessment which must include educational, psychological and medical components. The purpose of that is to bring the legislation into line with the best current professional practice where it is accepted that children are best observed over a period and in the classroom rather than assessed on the basis of separate examinations. Although the proposal is unavoidably a lengthier process, it provides for a much more complete picture of the child and the child's needs. That will strengthen the legislation, not weaken it.

The amendments contained in subsection (4) concern the appointment of the named person. The named person is someone appointed by the education authority under section 62 of the 1980 Act to whom parents of children may go for advice and information about the child's special educational needs. The concept of the named person is a good one. However, that provision has been a source of irritation in cases where parents are capable of looking after the best interests of a child. In such circumstances the parents may resent the statutory imposition of an outsider in their family affairs.

I have some sympathy with that point of view and I can understand such feelings. I therefore propose that in future parents should be given the opportunity to tell an education authority that they do not wish to have a person appointed to assist them. I envisage that in the majority of cases the appointment of the named person will continue to be appropriate. The amendment provides for those cases where it is not. It will be necessary for parents explicitly to opt out of the appointment of a named person.

I should now like to consider the correction of an anomoly in section 63(1) of the 1980 Act where a right is given to parents to appeal against the decision to record their child, against the terms of the record, against the nominated school and against the refusal of a placing request. There is, however, no right of appeal against an authority's decision not to record a child. That is unjust because it denies a right of appeal against the action of an authority which in effect may deny a child the very considerable benefits that can flow from the recording a special educational need. That position should be corrected. Such a right of appeal already exists in England and Wales and by inserting a new subsection (aa) into section 63 by the amendment contained in subsection (5), Scottish parents will be given a similar right.

The amendment proposed in subsection (6) to section 64 of the 1980 Act is a technical amendment. It follows from the amendment of section 63(1).

I apologise for speaking at length, but I thought it appropriate to explain the series of amendments arising from our decision that some reform was needed of the law on educational provision for children with special needs. I hope that the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) and the House will agree to accept the new clause.

I reassure the House that there is no question of the Scottish team on the Opposition Front Bench doing a double act throughout the day with my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris). Indeed, there is only one other point of importance to Scotland in which I might like to intervene later in the proceedings.

I shall speak briefly as we wish to expedite the business and so make progress. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) on his considerable success today and on the promotion of this important Bill. I thought that the Minister had a slight edge in his voice when he thanked my hon. Friend for his intervention. I suspect that that is a compliment to the tenacity, persistence and the cutting edge of the representations and lobbying that have been carried out. There has been a suggestion of a dragging of feet and a reluctance in the Scottish Office over taking the open and generous view that the Bill deserves. I am delighted that new clause 2 is not being moved and that new clause 12 is accepted in principle by the Scottish Office and by the Minister's colleagues south of the Border. That represents an important change of heart by the Government which the Opposition greatly welcome.

I should like to make a point that has universal application to the Scottish Office. There are clearly resource implications in new clause 12, however it may be redrafted and tied up in administrative terms. The Opposition welcome that, as the resources will be put to an important use and will be most helpful. However, we hope that the Government will be prepared to live constructively with such resource implications and recognise that they cannot be accepted at the expense of other social work services or services for the disabled. I hope that that will be borne in mind when the strange alchemy of the rate support grant for Scotland is finalised in future.

However, I believe that the Government have made a sensible concession to sound common sense and to the experience of many people who have had practical experience of such work.

In connection with new clause 3, I intend to follow the admirable brevity of my hon. Friend the Member for Monklands, West and note that it has been read most adequately into the record by the Minister, who suffers from the delusion that people read his speeches. I simply say that the Opposition welcome that new clause.

I had hoped to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, before my right hon. Friend the Minister for Health and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland made their speeches. I am glad that I did not, because I can be briefer than I would have been.

I warmly welcome the response of the Minister for Health in accepting the new clause. It shows the constructive spirit which has informed the negotiations between the Bill's sponsor and the Minister. I congratulate the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) and my right hon. Friend on their progress. I welcome the new clause also because it will help the group of young people who have suffered in the past.

I know from my experience that many youngsters who have been given special education and made great progress physically and mentally and to whom considerable resources have been devoted have often dropped out of the system on leaving school. Considerable distress has been caused to their families by the reversal in their progress. To a great extent, the professional and other efforts made while those children were at school have been wasted. The new clause will ensure that the progress made at the school is not lost.

I did not serve on the Committee, but I have a great interest in the Bill. I join those hon. Members who have congratulated the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) on introducing the Bill. I follow the comments of my hon. Friends the Members for Upminster (Sir N. Bonsor) and for Suffolk, South (Mr. Yeo) in emphasising to my right hon. Friend the Minister for Health that those of us who may from time to time take a slightly parsimonious attitude to Government matters are anxious that all the resources needed should be found to fulfil the agreed measures behind this important Bill.

I add my voice to those of other Conservative Members who give their support in seeking the resources needed to fulfil the Bill's excellent objectives. I hope that my right hon. Friend will use that message as he sees fit.

I am advised that there probably need not be any delay in implementing the new clause. I hope that its provisions will apply soon.

To avoid doubt in this complicated group of measures, I point out that new clause 12 will be accepted by me and, I hope, my colleagues. New clauses 2 and 7 will not be moved. New clause 3 will be moved and, I hope, accepted. Amendment No. 3 will be moved and I hope, accepted.

I, too, should like to congratulate the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) on introducing the Bill. I thank my right hon. Friend the Minister for Health for accepting new clause 12, because it will fill a gap faced by parents of children in this position.

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

With this it will be convenient to take the following: New clause 6—Persons discharged from hospital—

New clause 11 deals with an extremely important aspect—the problem of persons leaving hospital. Our objective is to require assessment before discharge from hospital for people who have received in-patient treatment for mental disorder for at least six months. We pursued that matter in Committee. The new clause attempts to reflect some of the responses we received.

Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that, in bringing forward the new clause, he has answered most of the criticisms of those worried by bureaucracy and has retained the core of the argument about assessment? This is a good compromise on which we can all build for the future.

We have tried to do that while conceding the vital principle of arranging for proper assessment before hospital discharge.

I have dropped the 28-day requirement of the original Bill in a further attempt to meet the Government's concerns. I have accepted, with great regret and reluctance, the exclusion of people who have totalled six months' treatment in a year but whose period in hospital has not been continuous. To me, it seems axiomatic that those caught in the revolving door syndrome need the best possible assessment because the support they have had has obviously proved inadequate. If the House accepts the clause, I hope that the Department will suggest to authorities that they can extend the procedures required by the Bill to other patients at their discretion. I am sure that they would wish to do so. There is no substitute for good example, and best practice has its own appeal.

Of course, the authorities are concerned about costs—not so much the cost of assessments, which I think will be on average only one or two a week for each health authority, but the cost of providing community care for mentally ill people where practically nothing exists at present. Ministers have been proclaiming the priority of mental illness for more than 10 years and much of the specific funding from the Department has gone to this sector.

I must admit that, from the publicity Ministers have obtained, I thought that the sums involved were significantly greater than those revealed in a reply to me last Wednesday when the Minister said that the group which causes most concern, the adult mentally ill, had received only £5 million, with another £6 million in the pipeline. Even so, it is difficult to know whether the Department has obtained value for money, and one reason is that authorities are operating in a legislative vacuum. The Mental Health Act 1983 failed to pay more than lip service to the key liaison between authorities over discharge.

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On Second Reading I said that the Bill would need to be phased, in consultation with the authorities. The Minister has said that he will not bring parts of the Bill into effect without the necessary resources. I shall refer to that matter generally on Third Reading. Again I am trying hard to accommodate the Minister's position. Where we may differ is in our estimates of the cost and the priority which should be given to disabled people, not in relation to other recipients of the health and social services but other areas of Government expenditure.

On new clause 11, I am fully prepared for implementation to be delayed slightly longer than other clauses in the Bill in order to allow adequate preparation. Of course there is nothing to stop authorities setting up the procedures in advance of a firm target date which I hope will be not later than the financial year 1988–89. However, I think it is right to allow sufficient time for plans for the necessary services to be developed in those areas where the mentally ill are offered next to nothing at present.

This would allow for two full cycles of rate support grant settlement negotiations as well as allocation from joint finance, and so on. I must repeat, however, that I expect the clause to save money in the medium term by significantly reducing hospital readmissions and enabling many ex-patients to achieve eventually stable lives in the community with a minimum of statutory support. The social impact of this change would be immeasurable and immensely worth while. For that reason, we who support the Bill see it as one of our leading priorities and we hope that the Minister for Health will respond in that light.

New clause 14 goes a little further in some ways than new clause 11. However, it covers substantially the same ground and it is motivated by the basic conviction that by itself notification will be insufficient in the circumstances which face us. The new clause proposes that individual care plans should be implemented for all the mentally ill and mentally handicapped people who are discharged from hospitals into the community. This was a key recommendation of the Social Services Committee's report on community care. A considerable amount of evidence was given to the Committee—both formal evidence and during visits that were made throughout the country and abroad—to the effect that detailed thought must be given to the arrangements that are made for patients when they are discharged from hospital. The Committee said that the evidence:

"highlights that sometimes dismal lack of co-operation between the many professions involved in care and treatment of mentally ill people. Evidence was also received of instances where the families of the patients were never informed of their relative's discharge. Insufficient effort would seem to be devoted on occasions to tracking a discharged patient. What is needed is a positive determination to improve the practice on discharges. Parliament laid down, in section 117 of the Mental Health Act 1983, a duty of after-care for detained patients. There is no reason now why a similar regime should not apply to all mental patients, whether statutory or not."

That is the kernel of the argument in new clause 14. The success of community care for the mentally ill and the mentally handicapped and the development of new and enlightened policies is vital for us all. There is enormous evidence that the very principle would have a curative effect on many individuals. Therefore, it is important that it should work.

New clause 11 and new clause 14 seek to help the Government to ensure that the community care policy works. It will work only if adequate arrangements are made for those who are discharged from our large institutions. There should be a wide range of opportunities that are geared to the particular needs of each person on discharge. A small, institutionalised form of asylum may be needed, or hospitals, or houses with varying levels of staff support, or a return to the family, or a number of other possibilities.

The clause seeks to provide individual arrangements for those who are discharged, including medical treatment and, where appropriate, day care facilities and accommodation. The clause puts the onus on the responsible medical officer. He is responsible for the oversight of a patient's treatment while he is in hospital. He seems, therefore, to be the right person to have that co-ordinating responsibility.

The new clause says:

"No disabled person shall be discharged from hospital until a care plan has been adopted."

The medical officer would have a duty to liaise with other parts of the health authority and also with the local authority, the relevant voluntary organisation and so on.

New clause 14 would not result in significant open-ended cost implications. The clause provides that people would stay in hospital until appropriate community facilities were available. It tries to deal with the revolving door problem—with those whom the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) called "yo-yo" patients. There is no care strategy for them. They may not be long-term inpatients; they keep going into and coming out of hospital. Care planning needs to take that group of people into account.

The wording of the new clause may not be entirely ideal, but when making arrangements for discharge it is necessary that this group should be included. Therefore I urge my right hon. Friend to accept either new clause 11 or new clause 14. It is vital that our community care policies for the mentally ill and the mentally handicapped should work. If they fail, public confidence may be lost and that would lead to pressure to put the policy into reverse. That would not be in the interests of the Government or of the mentally ill and the mentally handicapped. By accepting one or other of these amendments the Government will, I hope, help to buttress a successful policy.

I agree substantially with what the hon. Member for Halifax (Mr. Galley) has just said. New clause 11 contains the words

"not less than 6 months."

That is merely a guideline. Discharge from long-term hospitals is usually after a much longer period than that. It would be a form of refined cruelty if people who had been in hospital for long periods were to be discharged without their needs having been assessed. This goes to the nub of the matter.

I am certain that the Minister will accept this new clause. It is a wise move. If we are to pursue the policy of bringing these people back into the community, it is, as I said earlier, a form of refined cruelty not to make an assessment of their needs and to provide for those needs. Therefore, I ask both Ministers to accept either new clause 11 or new clause 14. That would make a success of the concept of bringing these people back into the community where they rightly belong.

I understand why my right hon. Friend should be anxious about the resource implications of what is required. The provisions that have already been made are severely inadequate. However, this is a further example of the tangled web that my right hon. Friend has inherited, for which he is not responsible. He is faced with the difficulty of one pocket of public expenditure suddenly being expected to acept a cost that hitherto has been borne by another pocket of public expenditure. We have to look closely at the extension of joint funding arrangements to enable one element of the caring services to accept a cost which is being saved by another element of the caring services.

Many of the cost implications tend to be exaggerated because, in the past, we have not been sufficiently imaginative to consider alternative ways of handling some of these problems. Many mentally ill patients require, as much as anything, the maintenance of a regular contact with a caring person. Such a person does not need to be highly skilled. The administration of such a service through the local authorities is enormously expensive, no matter how careful the local authority may be in its spending. The administrative costs and the costs of running headquarters are high.

The Community Service Volunteers has helped to sponsor the creation, in Sunderland, of a home help co-operative. It is an imaginative scheme, which should be used on a wider scale. A group of women have set themselves up as a co-operative to provide home help care. They are paid local authority rates but, as they have no overheads, the service costs considerably less than if it were provided directly through the local authority. I believe that there is scope for providing such imaginative support ad I hope that it will be extended. I am aware that the scheme has the support of my right hon. Friend's Department as well as other Government Departments.

It is an imaginative scheme and, if adopted, the cost of providing care in the community, which many patients need to prevent them from going back through the revolving door, could be cut to a point where the anxieties of my right hon. Friend could be minimised.

I add my name to the long list of people in the House and in the country who have paid tribute to the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke). He has presented the Bill with characteristic style and detail. On behalf of my colleagues, I support the points which have already been made on new clause 11.

There has been a great deal of public comment—the Minister has also commented on it—on the anxiety concerning resources. It is critical to remember that this new clause concerns assessment and the potential for net savings on existing hospital facilities from a proper assessment of what could and should be made available in the community for patients when they have been discharged.

The new clause should be considered in the context of saving health authority and local authority expenditure in the long term. The demands of patients must be adequately met and there must be proper planning. The hon. Member for Monklands, West sketched out the feasibility of a possible two-year time scale, and that is a sensible plan.

It is important to stress to the Minister that we are all aware that too often community care has been based on the revolving door syndrome. Too often state provision has been inadequate and back-up facilities have not existed in the community. There are genuine difficulties in the community. There is a cycle of hospital admission, discharge and readmission. Anything which helps to overcome that appalling and distressing cycle is surely to be warmly supported. I hope that the Minister will give his warm support to the new clause.

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in support of new clause 14 which has been explained adequately by my hon. Friend the Member for Halfax (Mr. Galley). I am encouraged by the present atmosphere of general support in the House for the Bill, suitably amended, reaching the statute book. It is a credit to the House and the way in which we approach such a subject.

Recently there was an excellent series of articles in The Times by Marjorie Wallace describing the problems which affect many families whose children become mentally ill. When my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax presented new clause 14 he was considering such cases. Youngsters in a family may be fine and fit for many years but, in their teens, or perhaps later, when they go to university, there is a sudden onset of mental illness which may result in the young person going to hospital. What happens then?

All to often—this process has been described in many articles and papers, so I will not go into detail—these young people are discharged from hospital and are returned to their families. There are often appalling, distressing scenes and the young person may leave the family and become a vagrant. He may return to hospital and be discharged again. The community care, which we all support, does not materialise.

10.45 am

A young person with this type of disability does not know what he wants. He may want to be discharged from hospital but it may not be the right time. For this reason, new clause 14 is pertinent to the problem. There is a great deal of hidden distress in Britain because of that problem.

I strongly emphasise the need for the Government and my right hon. Friend to consider seriously what has been said on new clause 11 and especially new clause 14. I hope that my hon. Friends and Opposition Members will do all that they can to support the principle behind the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax. We must support principles which are designed to help people, especially young people, in distress.

I commend new clause 11 and the way in which my hon. Friend the Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) presented it. He did so in the constructive spirit which has animated the debate. I hope that the Minister will feel able to respond to that.

I do not know whether the Minister or other hon. Members have been in hospital. I have a few times and, after a couple of weeks, I have felt disorientated. Of the 15,000 mentally handicapped people who leave hospital, more than 10,000 have been in hospital for two years. One cannot expect them to leave hospital without being in distress; to help them they must be given assessment and resources.

I take issue with my hon. Friend the Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones). To impose such bad conditions on those people is not refined cruelty but unrefined cruelty. If the clause is accepted—I am sure the Minister will find it constructive—it will help people who ought to be receiving help under existing legislation.

If the Minister can accept the clause, it will be appreciated, and will save him money. It costs £12,000 to keep a person in hospital. The Minister, by accepting the clause, would help the House, himself and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. No one can be more constructive than that.

I should like to add my name to the long list of the those who have congratulated the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) on introducing a Bill which will undoubtedly mark significant progress in treatment of and care for, especially, the mentally handicapped. I am most grateful to him for that.

Like many of my colleagues, I accept the need for provision for the assessment of patients who leave hospital after a long stay. It is essential that we go further than the hon. Member for Monklands, West has proposed. May I offer the hon. Gentleman a small warning not to be too prescriptive about the method of assessment? I know from constituency experience that the health authority must often take the lead when providing assessment. That function is usually performed by the authority in which the patient is to live, but it would often be more appropriate if the sending authority did the assessment.

I represent part of the county of Avon—if one accepts that the county of Avon exists—which has for years accepted patients from many parts of the country. It is not known until shortly before they are discharged whether patients still have family connections in those parts of the country from which they came.

As patients leave hospital—there has been a substantial drop in the number of patients in one hospital in my constituency during the past year—the local authority finds itself dealing with not one or five local authorities but nearer 50. That puts a tremendous burden on the health authority in ensuring that patients are provided for unless those other authorities give substantial help. Even then, there is an enormous burden on hospital administration.

A couple who have recently been discharged from a mental hospital are attempting to negotiate with a health authority in the south of England for their brother to stay with them permanently. The difficulties have fallen almost entirely on the local authority because of the distances involved. It has been unable to do much planning of the care that the discharged patient will receive.

I am anxious that we should not, by making prescriptions in the Bill, debar the appropriate method or organisation of assessment from being pursued in what will inevitably be a large number of individual cases with peculiar requirements. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister can say to what extent the many forms of assessment currently practised can be encouraged in the Bill.

I should like to add my voice to those who have supported my hon. Friend the Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke), whose restrained marshalling of arguments is such a valuable contribution.

I have a major mental hospital in my constituency and I have had contacts with it, although not as many as I would have hoped. I was a head teacher in the area, and it is amazing how one knows what is going on in families when there is mental illness. If families try to look after a sick person and do not receive support, that person will have to go back to hospital depressed and ill once again. It is morally indefensible to let people out of hospital without proper assessment and support. As the hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye (Mr. Kennedy) said, the melancholy process of coming out of hospital and going back in must be more costly.

My hon. Friend has raised such a fundamental issue that the Bill must go through, especially in view of the large number of the ill and compassionate people who are watching the events in the House today.

I too would like to speak briefly on this group of new clauses and the amendment concerning hospital discharge, which has been a matter of considerable concern to many of us, especially those of us who have been involved with administering services in major cities, which have tended to attract people who have been discharged, whether voluntarily or against their will.

I am sorry that I have not been able to take part in debates on the Bill or in the Committee but, like several hon. Members present, those of us who take an interest have been removed from public life, as it were, to serve on the Social Security Bill. I look forward to seeing an end to that as well.

I welcome the thrust of the Bill and greatly hope to see it on the statute book, preferably as soon as possible, but those who are a little cautious have genuine reasons for our concern. Neither the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) nor anyone else should imply that we do not care. It is all too easy to write tough legislation, put it on the statute book and then wonder why it is unworkable. It is all too easy to create statutory obligations for local authorities without a thought to the resources that they have to find, and then puzzle about the long list of statutory obligations that local authorities do not carry out. Good will just is not enough.

I am one of those who had to administer previous legislation which had those glaring faults. I think especially of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970. To make it all work these cautions should be taken into account. A step-by-step approach is more likely to achieve the desired objectives.

I should like to put on record my unconditional admiration of all concerned, especially with regard to the efforts that they have made behind the scenes and in Committee to come to some agreement. I hope from the bottom of my heart that we can achieve our objective today without dividing the House and that we can reach a unanimous view on what we are trying to do. How nice that would be.

New clause 6 is a great practical improvement on the original clause 4. The hon. Member for Monklands, West has said which of the restrictive elements in that clause he has been willing to remove. The 28 days element would have made life just about impossible for everyone in local authorities who tried to administer it.

The Bill that emerged from Committee emphasised social services departments, and so did the hon. Member for Monklands, West when he introduced this debate. It is important that housing should be included because the first thing that a person needs on discharge from hospital is somewhere to live. In that respect, new clauses 11 and 6 are major improvements, because they speak of the local authority rather than just of the local authority social services department. There are local authority departments for whom disabled people may be a much lower priority, who ought to be involved. I am glad that the new clauses make that point.

The hon. Gentleman also said that notifying the social services department is a waste of paper. I understand that he was quoting some of the representations that have been made on the Bill. Surely that is not so. For many of the years in the 1970s we in Birmingham were bedevilled by people on the streets. They had been discharged from hospitals all over the country, especially Scotland, given a train ticket to Birmingham and, in one or two cases, the address of a lodging house, and sent on their way. The local authority, which wanted to assist, was bedevilled by not knowing how many people there were in that position or where they came from.

The organisation which took the view that it was a waste of paper was saying, in effect, that notification was exclusively a waste of paper and was not meaningful in the absense of full assessment, which is what the new clause seeks to achieve.

I take that point. I would merely say that we do not have any notification at present. Local authorities which have good will, and which in many cases could find the resources to assist, find it extremely difficult to undertake any sort of planning when they do not know with whom they may be dealing. In the cases to which I have referred, people were literally picked out of dustbins. We had no idea from where they came and we were in ignorance of their background. Frequently, they were incapable of giving us that information. That made it extremely difficult to make any sort of arrangements for them. There was no liaison. My judgment at that time was that the health authorities and the hospitals concerned were willing to avoid liaison. They felt that they had done their duty and were content to send people on their way. That was wrong.

I shall direct a few remarks to my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mr. Galley) and comment on the excellent way in which he introduced new clause 14. My hon. Friend said that notification is not enough, and that is right. However, as long as we do not have notification, we should welcome moves in that direction. I suspect that if my right hon. Friend the Minister for Health had introduced a small Bill containing all the clauses that he is keen to support this morning, we would all have welcomed it as an example of some progress being made in helping the disabled.

I am worried about new clause 14—my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax knows that I have the greatest sympathy for it, having served with him on the Select Committee on Social Services—because of the power that is proposed within it and the command that is given over resources. I suspect that we shall end up by taking power out of the hands of elected representatives, where it should remain.

As the clause stands, an enormous amount of effort could be put into writing perfection into all care plans and producing exactly what would be required for every year of discharge of a disabled person's lifetime, only to find that resources are not available to do what is required. Alternatively, the committees involved might direct priorities elsewhere. When I had responsibilities for these matters in Birmingham, I can remember being asked on one occasion whether I would be prepared to release resources for much favoured plans to help redevelop the centre of the city to save it from dereliction. I took the view that those plans were rather more important than other considerations. We hoped to maintain the rate basis of the city and so produce resources in future to assist the disabled and everyone else we wanted to help. If we write perfection into all care plans, they may end up on the shelf, in common with much other planning. The law would be complied with, but that would not be good enough. That would not be sufficient.

When a local authority knows that a person is coming out of hospital, the planning process should start. We should write into law the liaison that should take place between the authorities concerned. That is the bedrock of getting any decent discharge plan going. That is the sine quo non. Unfortunately, that is not set out in the law, The Bill, with wise amendments, will give considerable assistance to the disabled and I hope that we shall see it make progress today.

I rise to endorse new clause 11 from the Opposition Front Bench. I am pleased to do so because it is an important new clause which merits the support of right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House.

Ministers in successive Governments have for years pressed for joint planning and joint assessment of residents who are being considered for planned discharge from hospital. That being so, and in the light of the successful use of joint funding and other resource allocation changes to facilitate such collaboration, it is surely untenable to object to procedures which require hospitals to give reasonable notice to the local authority—so that timely and proper assessment can take place—when they propose to discharge a patient.

I have known many cases where people have had to be swiftly readmitted to hospital because there was no knowledge by the local authority of their discharge from hospital. That can be costly as well as inhumane. My hon. Friend the Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) was eminently right to say that there could be savings in the medium term. There will be cost implications in the short term entirely due to the poor level of services for the mentally ill at present. In many authorities the level of services, as I am sure the Minister for Health will agree, is regrettably very low indeed.

There is an important gap that the clause seeks to fill and it deserves the support of both sides of the House. I hope that we shall not have to divide to ensure that the clause is added to the Bill.

We have had a useful short debate in which many helpful suggestions have been made, some of which have gone rather wider than the legislative detail that is before us. Perhaps it would not be appropriate for me to respond to many of these suggestions, and I am not sure that I would be able to do so without considerably more research. I can assure those who have contributed to the debate that their contributions will be considered carefully, including their suggestions that certain ideas should be more widely adopted.

I welcome the general support that has emerged from this short debate for the broad thrust of the community care concept of moving people, wherever appropriate, out of institutional care into the more dignified, the more human and the more—

Therapeutic?

Yes—therapeutic atmosphere. That is the word that I was after. It is a move that improves their own physical standards. One sees remarkable improvements in people as a result of moving them from institutions into the community. That is in no way to criticise those who contribute to the running of our large institutions. I would not wish to do other than pay tribute to them. I do not believe that in commending community care we are seeking to deny the great dedication that comes from the majority of those who work in the institutions.

Give 'em the money, Barney.

I think that it will be useful for the record to make it clear that clause 4 as it stands would place a duty on hospital managers to inform the relevant social services department of the date of discharge—at least 28 days in advance—of any person who had received treatment for mental disorder as an inpatient for periods totalling six months or more in the preceding 12 months period. Notification would be subject to the patient's consent. Social services departments, on receipt of this information, would undertake an assessment of that person's needs within 28 days.

These provisions arouse concern within the Government although the intention behind the clause was very much in line with their general philosophy of community care, which the Government have been promoting in various ways. It seeks to enshrine in legislation what is already accepted good practice. But it would introduce procedures that are unnecessarily prescriptive and would cause problems in practice. It would place the responsibility for assessment of patients about to be discharged from psychiatric hospitals in all cases on social services departments. It is right that social services should contribute to assessments, but hospital authorities with current responsibility for the patient should normally be in the lead. There would be great difficulties if the hospital authorities were not very much involved.

A minimum period of 28 days for notifying social services of a patient's discharge would, as my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie) said, impose unacceptable administrative constraint on both health and local authorities. The formula for adding up periods of short-term care in hospital would cause problems. It is not uncommon for people with mental disorder to spend frequent short spells as inpatients. The notification process could be triggered off unnecessarily at frequent intervals.

The Government's new clause 6 would require hospital managers, unless the patient objects, to inform the appropriate local authority—social services department, or, in the case of people under 19, local authority—of the expected date of discharge of an inpatient who had been receiving treatment for a mental disorder for a continuous period of at least six months, as soon as it is reasonably practicable to do so. It would require hospital managers, in the case of a mental health review tribunal directing the immediate discharge of such a patient, to inform the local authority that discharge had taken place, provided the patient does not object.

There are two alternatives to the Government's new clause 6. I shall briefly deal with new clause 14 proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mr. Galley). The new clause would require the responsible medical officer to prepare a care plan before discharge for any person who had

"received medical treatment for mental disorder as an in-patient for a period, of or periods totalling not less than, six months in the preceding twelve months or on a regular basis over two years."

The care plan would have to be prepared in consultation with other health authority officers, the local family practitioner committee, the local authority and relevant voluntary organisations. No disabled person could be discharged from hospital until a care plan had been adopted. The new clause further provides for a statement of the care plan to be provided to the disabled person or his authorised representative and for representations about the content of the care plan to be made to the responsible medical officer.

It is not clear from the clause as drafted precisely what is meant by a care plan, although I took note of the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax and the support given to him by my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North (Mr. Thompson). Presumably, as I understand it, it would be a detailed programme tailor-made to the individual person and designed with particular treatment objectives in mind. However, the production of a plan is only the first step, as all of us realise. As a plan, it means very little. The treatments or activities have to be delivered, the results monitored and the plan updated to take account of the success or failure and the need to set new goals. The whole process is resource-intensive. Even at the level which may be envisaged by my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax of producing a statement of the main elements of care which will be provided in the community, it has to be said that people's needs change and are particularly likely to change after discharge from hospital into a new environment. Those were the very points made by the right hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley). A detailed plan produced before discharge could be of short-lived validity. It could also introduce inflexibility whereas the authorities responsible for the care of the mentally disordered person after discharge should be sensitive to changes in the person's needs and react accordingly. The machinery envisaged is rather bureaucratic.

The provision that no disabled person shall be discharged from hospital until a care plan has been adopted would conflict with the right of voluntary patients to discharge themselves whenever they like, and with the implementation of a decision of a mental health review tribunal to order an immediate discharge. Therefore, there are technical problems and other difficulties associated with the clause as drafted and suggested by my hon. Friend.

11.15 am

In his comments my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax made it clear that if he could not have new clause 14 he would like new clause 11 rather than the Government's new clause 6. Therefore, I shall deal with new clause 11 which has been proposed by the promoter of the Bill. It follows the basic structure of the Government's proposed new clause 6. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) for building upon that. It would certainly avoid some of the objectionable features of clause 4, which I have pointed out to the House. In particular, the 28-day minimum period for notification disappears as does the formula for adding up periods of short term care in hospital. New clause 11 would place a duty upon hospital managers, when someone is being discharged from hospital after having received continuous treatment as an inpatient for a continuous period of at least six months, to make arrangements with the relevant local authority for an assessment of the patient's needs. The assessment would have to be made before the date of discharge except in the case of patients who are discharged immediately by a mental health review tribunal, in which case the arrangements would have to be made as soon as is practicable.

There are some difficulties with this clause. I would be less than frank with the House if I did not acknowledge that. It fails to make clear what the extent and the duty would be of hospital managers when a local authority failed to participate in the arrangements for an assessment. What will happen if the local authorities social services department is unco-operative? That is not clear in the present formulation. Clearly, hospital authorities have no power to direct local authorities to participate in the assessment of needs.

Similarly, the clause fails to make clear what responsibility, if any, would fall on a local education authority in respect of persons under 19 years of age as they have no responsibility for welfare enactments within the terms of the Bill. I am advised that, in any event, those under 19 years of age in hospital would have already been the subject of a statement of special education needs as provided for under the new clauses we have just discussed and new clause 12, which we have accepted. In other words, there is a technical problem. By requiring hospital managers to make arrangements for an assessment it would give them a wider responsibility than would be placed on them under the Government's new clause 6. That is the thrust of what the hon. Member for Monklands, West is doing in commending his new clause to the House.

I am very sympathetic and I want to respond positively and constructively to what the hon. Gentleman and both sides of the House have put to me. I believe that there will need to be some further discussion with the local authorities, and especially with the health authorities because there is a new provision for them. Therefore, in the time available it has not been possible to have the proper level of consultation required.

It has been acknowledged that there are resource implications for this. I have noted the, I hope not optimistic, comments about the initial savings which are available, if not in the short term, at least in the medium and long term. I suppose, having once been a Treasury Minister, one has a certain training to recognise that jam tomorrow is something which never quite seems to come, whereas costs today are very much always on one's desk. I do not want to be unduly controversial on this matter. I have made the Government's position on resources absolutely clear. If this leads to a reduction of duplication, of course, it is something which all of us welcome because, whatever our arguments across the Floor of the House on the amount of resources that ought to be and can be made available, we will all agree that the resources which are available should be used effectively and efficiently to help the individuals concerned. Therefore, I certainly do not oppose the adoption of the new clause proposed by the promoter of the Bill. In those circumstances, I would not propose to move new clause 6.

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

New clause 1 clarifies the position of mentally disordered persons in Scotland in relation to local authority duties under sections 1 and 2 (1) of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970.

My inquiries into the working of the present chronically sick and disabled persons legislation in Scotland suggested that local authorities did not all regard the duty to provide services in cases of evident need as applying equally to the mentally disordered and those suffering from physical or sensory disability. I thought it appropriate to use the present legislative opportunity to clarify the position. Therefore, in Committee I offered to seek, in the consultations that we had decided to undertake, the views of local authority and other interests on whether the term "disabled persons" in the Scottish application of the present Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act should be defined to include mental disability. That was welcomed by the Bill's sponsors and the Committee in general.

The views expressed on that proposal were generally supportive. The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities felt that clarification was desirable for the avoidance of doubt, although, I am happy to record, it felt that any such doubt was likely to be comparatively uncommon. That favourable view was echoed by other bodies, mainly those representing persons suffering from mental disorder.

The provision that I have tabled accordingly takes the form of a replacement for the provision of section 1(1) of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons (Scotland) Act 1972, which originally applied sections 1 and 2 of the 1970 Act to Scotland, but did not make specific reference to persons suffering from mental disorder. To that extent, in future the law in Scotland will be the same as that already applying in England and Wales, where it is clear from th terms of section 29 of the National Assistance Act 1948 as amended that local authority duties under that provision and hence under the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Acts extend to persons suffering from mental disorder.

I hope that with that explanation of what the new clause does, it will be acceptable to the House and the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke), who I am sure is as keen as I am that the provisions should be clearly understood in Scotland by the local authorities as applying to people with mental disorders.

I should make it clear that my position has not changed at all on this matter. I recognise that the new clause is a technical correction. I am sure that the Minister will accept that description. I would not wish to oppose it. For the convenience of the House, I suggest that we accept the hon. Gentleman's proposals.

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

With this it will be convenient to take amendment No. 9.

New clause 4 is a purely technical clarification. This is the interpretation clause. It has been necessary to make those changes. I hope that there will be no difficulty in the House accepting new clause 4.

Amendment No. 9 deletes clause 9. Again, that is a purely technical deletion, as part of the intentions for applying part I of the Bill to Scotland by way of the appropriate references to Scotland in each clause as necessary. In Committee, an undertaking was given that the substantive provisions of the Bill as finally amended

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

With this it will be convenient to take amendments Nos. 2, 6 and 7.

The provisions in clauses 2, 6 and 7 as drafted extend the responsibilities placed on local authorities to assess the needs of a disabled person for specific social services under section 2 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970 by requiring them to ensure that all relevant needs are considered, to supply the disabled person or representative with all the information used in making the assessment unless given to the authority in confidence, to allow the disabled person or representative to give their views before decisions are taken, to provide a written record of the assessment and to make appropriate referrals to other authorities, provided the disabled person or representative agrees.

The provisions require local authorities to provide an interpreter at their expense if requested by anyone involved in the assessment process if direct communication with the disabled person is not possible because of disability or inadequate command of English.

Clauses 6 and 7 set out more elaborate procedures to be followed by local authorities when assessing the needs of disabled persons under clauses 3, 4 and 5—children with special educational needs, mentally disabled people discharged from hospital and disabled people looked after by informal carers.

I shall not weary the House with a detailed commentary on clauses 6 and 7, because the intention of the Government's new clause 9 is to replace those clauses. The Government accept the underlying principle that disabled people should be given the right to a reasoned decision about the social services to which they are entitled and to make representations about them to the local authority.

As a councillor on a social work committee, I visited mentally retarded patients who were in the care of the committee but were living with a family, sometimes on isolated farms and in isolated communities. Will the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that such people will be offered the same facilities as people in the care of local authorities?

I should need to look at the precise implications. Equality of treatment seldom exists between local authorities, or even between different people. However, I shall look at that point.

I was dealing with the provisions of the new clause. I said that the clauses that the Government are seeking to replace contain, in the Government's view, over-rigid and bureucratic constraints upon the way in which local authorities discharge their functions. In some instances, they could delay the provision of services to disabled people. In particular, the Government are concerned that social services departments are required to assess the need for services which they have no duty to provide.

The proposed formula governing access to information would over-simplify a complex issue. Detailed guidance on disclosure of personal social services information has already been given to local authorities. The administrative cost of such a detailed assessment process and the demand for additional service provision would have substantial implications for local authority expenditure. We were sustained in that view by some of the comments received from the local authority associations.

Local authorities are already under a duty, under the Race Relations Act 1976, to make appropriate arrangements with a view to securing that their various functions are carried out with due regard to the need to promote equality of opportunity and good relations between persons of different racial groups. In appropriate circumstances, they will be required to provide interpretation services for people who cannot communicate in English. The foreign language problem is therefore dealt with in other ways. In this clause we are dealing with communication problems that arise from disability.

The effect of the Government's new clause will be to require local authorities, when assessing a disabled person's need for social services, to provide an opportunity for the disabled person, or his representative, to make representations on the need for social services, as they perceive them, and, if requested by the disabled person or his representative, to provide a written statement that outlines the services they intend to provide, to give an explanation of the basis upon which the assessment has been made; to provide an opportunity for the disabled person or his representative to make further representations within a reasonable period about particular needs; to consider such further representations and to inform the disabled person or his representative of the outcome and the reasons for the decision; and to provide appropriate interpretation services for disabled people, or their representatives, who are unable to communicate normally because of disability. We propose with new clause 10 to amend in the same way the provisions governing interpreters in that part of the Bill which relates to carers.

This important clause also has considerable resource implications, particularly for local authorities. Apart from that, they will need time in which to gear themselves up for undertaking the assessments that are provided for in the new clause. Therefore, in all honesty I must place on record the fact that the resource and administrative implications will have to be taken into account by the Government when they introduce the commencement orders for these measures.

I commend the new clause to the House.

I hope, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that the House was listening very carefully a few moments ago when your predecessor in the Chair said that we have a long way to go before we dispose of the Bill. Accordingly, therefore, I shall cut down what would have been a half-hour speech to one of 30 seconds. Clause 6, which provides for interpreters, is inadequate. It says that local authorities will provide interpreters if they are necessary.

Local authorities are good, bad, and indifferent. The bad and the indifferent ones will not provide interpreters. That is a matter of very great significance to deaf people. It is not a matter of words but of what is meant by what is said. Deaf people know what they require. I hope that this clause will be reconsidered and amended in another place.

I welcome the news of my right hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley), and I share his worries about the time factor. As my right hon. Friend is chairman of the all-party group, which has given enormous support to the Bill, for which we are all grateful, we must take on board the important point that my right hon. Friend has made.

We are grateful to the Government for the progress that has been made on the issue of assessment. It would be churlish to say otherwise. New clause 9 is comprehensive and greatly improves the services which disabled people will receive. We have not got all that we wanted and there are some details which need examining. That is especially true of interpretation, which my right hon. Friend has mentioned. It appears that a disabled person can be excluded as he is unlikely to be able to communicate with the authorities. Overall I am pleased with the Government's response. If this new clause is approved we shall have made considerable progress.

As with new clause 8, conventional wisdom on this side of the House regarding new clause 9 is that the Government are giving 80 per cent. of what was proposed in the original Bill. We accept what is offered.

To put it another way, it is rather like demolishing what we thought was a very desirable residence and replacing it with a rather less attractive residence. Nevertheless needs must and we accept the Government's proposition.

With this it will be convenient to take amendment (a), at end add

'and shall determine the need of that other person for support and assistance in providing the care required to enable the disabled person to remain living at home.'

and Government amendment No. 5.

I am conscious that in presenting new clause 10 I am in the odd position as Minister with responsibility for the disabled of taking part, for the first time, in the proceedings.

The House will understand if I use the words used earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie) that I too have been removed from public life by the proceedings of the Social Security Bill upstairs. I am not quite sure whether I would regard that as being removed from public life, but it certainly is as obscure as it is strenuous. There will be those in the House who feel that a Minister for Social Security who has been through the last two months of argument, especially on severe weather, would welcome a period of obscurity. In some ways that is true.

I express my regret to the House that I have been unable to take part in the earlier proceedings. I had a conflicting engagement this morning, also of great importance to disabled people. I attended a conference on the McColl report on the artificial limb and appliance service. I notice that the hon. Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones) appears not to have heard about that. It was organised in Kensington by Therapy Weekly. I spent an hour and a quarter at the conference this morning.

I would like to take an opportunity to pay my own tribute to the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) and other hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) who have played an important part in presenting the proposals. The hon. Gentlemen have played a constructive part in working with the Government to reach the present position.

Albeit in his absence, I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Minister for Health who, because of my absence and other commitments, has taken a special interest in the Bill. He has played a skillful and constructive part, along with the Opposition Members. I only hope that my own interest which I can assure but not prove, but which has been expressed behind the scenes, has been helpful and constructive.

The House will be aware that the Government strongly support the principle which inspired the original clause presented by the hon. Member for Monklands, West which is clause 5 in the Bill as it stands. The same principle underlines the Government's new clause 10 which is intended to replace clause 5.

We recognise the vital role of informal carers in providing support for disabled people who live in the community. We have tried to reflect that in a variety of ways recently, including the important work being done in and through the Department's social work service, now the social services inspectorate. For example, we have mounted a variety of studies and seminars, in which I have taken part occasionally, to draw much greater attention to the needs of informal carers and to encourage those engaged in the provision of services to take more account of those needs in their services.

Despite that, we did not feel, as my right hon. Friend will have explained earlier, that clause 5 was acceptable in view of the open-ended statutory obligation it imposed on local authorities and of the potentially large implications for them and for resources going well beyond those already represented by other parts of the Bill. We therefore propose to replace clause 5 with new clause 10, which would require social services departments, when assessing the needs of a disabled person in receipt of a substantial amount of regular care from any person other than an employee of the statutory services, to have regard to the carer's ability to continue to provide that care.

Although that provision is in several respects more limited than the hon. Member for Monklands, West would have wished, it goes further in one respect. Following the consultatio exercise, we concluded that it would be impracticable to restrict the definition of carer to people in the same household as the disabled person, so new clause 10 extends the definition of carer to include any person who provides a substantial amount of regular informal care. I hope that that modification is thought sensible.

I should like to say something about amendment (a) and the starred amendment (b), which has been tabled by the hon. Member for Caernarfon but has not been selected. Apart from a minor technical objection, which I shall not go into, we are anxious that amendment (a) would virtually restore the open-ended commitment which we felt unable to accept in the original clause. I know that the hon. Member for Monklands, West doubts whether the interpretation of his amendment is correct but I am sure that he recognises that, in the letter circulated to all of us today by the Association of County Councils, it says that new clause 10 is probably all that is possible. It also says that it is anxious about the additional resource consequences which would be reflected if the amendment were incorporated.

It is with some regret that I cannot advise the House to accept amendment (a). If the hon. Gentleman and the House are ready to accept my advice, I shall re-examine new clause 10 to see whether there is any way in which we can modify our proposal to help meet the hon. Gentleman's concern. That is not a commitment beyond a genuine commitment to examine the matter. I shall also consider amendment (b), which would extend the new clause fairly generally to clarify the anxiety that underlies both amendments.

We must accept that a balance has to be found between taking what I regard as a valuable step forward in new clause 10 to recognise the needs of carers more by doing so in an Act of Parliament and writing into the Bill a provision with potential resource implications which might mean considerable deferment of the time when it is possible to bring the provision into effect under the commencement order procedure.

12.45 pm

We must ensure proper recognition of the need to consider the position of carers. My concern is such that I would rather have a clause that we can hope to bring into effect reasonably quickly than one which while it might represent a world to which we hope to be able to move in due course, might delay introducing effective legislation that recognises the problems that face carers.

If the House is willing to accept the new clause in the spirit in which it has been tabled, it would be one of the Bill's provisions that we could hope to bring into effect at an early stage.

Again, I shall attempt to be brief, although the issue which is raised by the new clause is an extremely important one and invites a much longer debate than time allows.

My amendment sought to emphasise that our aim should be to enable disabled persons to remain living at home. That was the purpose of the amendment that was moved in Committee with universal approval by my right hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley).

The second purpose of the amendment is to confirm that an assessment of a disabled person's needs could be demanded by the carer. Circular 12/70 of the DHSS implies that a local authority must assess all disabled persons whether or not they want to be assessed. That is 100 per cent. automatic assessment. That does not happen and delays between requests for assessment and assessment are often long. I believe that the existing law needs clarification, and it is not my purpose to extend it. There has been some misunderstanding about the amendment.

The Minister has said—I am sure after great thought—that there is a technical objection to the amendment, and I must consider that seriously, which I do. I take on board that he has said that he will re-examine these matters, including the amendment of the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley), which has not been selected. When the Minister has an opportunity to carry out that re-examination, I ask him to take into account the discussions that we had in Committee and the representations that we have received from many professional bodies and voluntary organisations as well as individuals in response to the document on resources which was produced by the Government. I hope that we can take up that issue again on Third Reading.

I am certain that the group which is making the greatest contribution towards coping with the problems faced by the disabled and saving the Treasury the most money is that which is formed by carers. That said, the Minister is right when he says that it would be wrong if Parliament, in undertaking a serious review of the disabled, took a decision which had not been properly considered. I would not want to take that risk. The problem is too important to allow that to happen and carers deserve much more consideration than a hasty decision. Without withdrawing one iota from the commitment of the sponsors of the Bill towards carers, I do not propose to press my amendment.

There would be tremendous medium and long-term savings in looking after carers a great deal better than at present. A horrifying proportion of carers are more than 60 years of age and many of them are suffering from a wide variety of potential or existing disabilities because of the pressure under which they live. More than anything else they need some form of respite care and, even as far as the Government have gone, that is a very important step.

I should like to make a point similar to the one I made earlier. I believe that there is enormous scope far beyond anything that the Government have so far admitted, for using those currently unemployed, especially young people, through the community programme and other ways to provide the respite for carers that we are talking about and support for handicapped people in their own homes. It has been estimated that more than 2 million handicapped people are looked after at home and the opportunities for using the community programme are colossal. The experience of community service volunteers with the independent living scheme is an indicator in one direction and its experience of placing more than 2,000 young people every year at a cost of £300 per head a year in this way is a clear sign of what can be done. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister, who knows so much about this subject will urge the Paymaster General, who says that in his experience the scope does not exist, to look at the possibility of setting up in his own Department, in conjuction with the community programme, the kind of national scheme which would give carers the support they need. If he does not provide that support, he will land the Health Service with a colossal bill because it will break down.

I shall be brief for obvious reasons, because I have been exhorting other people to be brief.

The position of carers is extremely important, as the Minister has said today and on other occasions. Although it is not possible to go as far in the Bill as we had originally hoped, I trust that we can consider whether new clause 10 can be more finely tuned to achieve the objectives referred to by the Minister. I thank the Minister for his willingness to respond.

Amendment (b) is starred, so we cannot take it on board today. However, perhaps between now and the Bill's consideration in another place it will be possible to see the difference between amendment (a) and amendment (b). Amendment (a) refers to determining

"the needs of that other person"

and amendment (b) refers to

"whether by making available additional services, the provision of that care may be maintained."'

There is a difference in that it does not bring in an additional assessment procedure, but tries to help the Government to achieve their objective of giving support to enable a disabled person to remain in the community. As a responsibility for assessment of disabled person already exists, all we are doing is extending the Government's clause to provide that the local authorities, in assessing that need, shall also have regard to

"whether by making additional services available, the provision of that care may be maintained."

That is a compromise between amendment (a) and where the Government start. It may give an opportunity to achieve our aim—in other words, to provide services to help disabled people to remain in the community without bringing about an additional bureaucracy of any sort or additional assessment procedures which may consume resources. At the same time, we should be able to direct services to where there has been maximum impact and by doing that avoid the additional public cost of people having to go into institutional care which is unacceptable for social reasons. There may be room for consideration along those lines in another place, and if the Minister will ensure that we will be grateful.

The clause draws attention to the great job done by carers and the massive cost involved in the provisions to give them adequate help. I have been happy to support new clauses 11 and 12, but the cost aspect has caused concern. I note that the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) has said that he will not press his proposal.

My hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Hannam) would have liked to speak on this clause if he was here. He has asked me to apologise for his absence. I understand that the Prime Minister is visiting his constituency to look at new facilities for the disabled, and that is why he felt unable to be here today. He has asked me to add his congratulations to those already given to the hon. Member for Monklands, West on his work in introducing the Bill and on the Government's warm and positive response to the spirit of it and their backing of the need for resources.

I should like to mention again to my hon. Friend the Minister the points made by the Association of County Councils in a letter that I received today. The ACC cautioned that if a Act is put on the statute book but not implemented, that can lead to considerable difficulties. The ACC refers to the fact that

"the proviso of deferring implementation until those resources are available has proved problematic in the past. The Children Act 1975, for example, was implemented piecemeal over more than 10 years which contributed in no small measure to the current confusions and complexities of child care law. The Government should accept the need to discuss with those responsible for giving effect to the Bill a proper programme of implementation fully resourced at each stage."

I am sure that the hon. Member for Monklands, West in putting forward the compromises that he has, will expect to see the Bill implemented to a proper timetable as soon as it is on the statute book.

Some hon. Members have buzz words and buzz expressions. My right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris) always argues that where one sees a disabled person, one sees a disabled family. Amendment (a) goes to the heart of the matter. The carer is absolutely essential, and often is part of the family.

I have a buzz word in the House. When I talk about disability I always talk about "slice by slice". I am a great salami expert. We have had two slices of salami today. I hope, from what the Minister said, that there is a slight chance that he has got the knife over another small slice and will move a little further towards helping us. Even the Americans, in the latest report on independence, produced by the Council for the Handicapped, made that very point.

I make this one plea to the Minister. He and I have talked often about the use of advanced technology to allow disabled people and their families to have some form of independent living. We are making considerable progress, but when we talk about the mentally handicapped and the mentally ill, it is not so easy to provide what is needed in the way of environmental controllers to give that independence. Therefore, the carer becomes more important than ever and is of deep consequence and significance for the family.

I hope that the Minister will think carefully about his half promise. If he made it a firm promise, I should be happy.

The caring issue particularly interests and concerns me. Of all the things in the Bill, what attracted me in particular was the opportunity at long last to have this recognised in legislation. At first we did not know what form the recognition would take. However, it is important that there is some recognition of the role and contribution of informal carers, and of local authorities having to take those people into account in their planning, services and so on.

As there appears to be further compromise going on between the promoter of the Bill, the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke), and the Minister, which is welcome, I hope that once the measure becomes law the Government will, in the spirit of the Bill and their own clause, take further opportunities to try to encourage local authorities to enter into voluntary agreements with carers on the provision that can be made available to them. I accept that there are revenue stipulations. There is an enormous amount to be done.

I echo what the hon. Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones) has said, that we have many highly charged political debates in the Chamber about the future of the welfare state. We all agree that if it were not for the informal, and often unnoticed and insufficiently supported, caring sector in our community, the welfare state would be in a state of crisis and collapse. Therefore, anything that gives legislative recognition to the position of carers, as the new clause does, is welcome.

I felt slightly worried until, a few moments ago, my hon. Friend the Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones) made his standard salami speech, and I know now that we are back on course and having a normal debate on disability.

The Minister must have felt uncomfortable when speaking about new clause 10, because he is aware of the problem of carers. Some time ago, in chilly Westminster Hall, he received a deputation, which I led, of appallingly disabled people and their carers. He listened sympathetically, and the case was put vividly by those carers whose lives have been devastated.

Some Members who have spoken today have got the costs all wrong, as have the Government, because costs will be saved by helping carers. If a carer cannot cope, both the disabled person and the carer will go into hospital and the cost will become astronomic. This is a saving measure, and a humanitarian one. It is a cliché to say that we cannot afford to do anything, but it is true. We cannot afford not to help carers. Carers are an exploited section of our community. They save the Government, not just the DHSS, billions of pounds. I hope that carers will be helped because they deserve to be and because they will help the Government. I am glad that the Minister will reconsider the issue.

The Minister said that he would look at new clause 10 to see whether it could be strengthened. It can be strengthened. Our view is that new clause 10 merely reflects existing local authority practice. I understand that that is also the view of the Association of County Councils. We hope that the Minister's review of what he is proposing will proceed urgently and that there will be more official understanding than we have seen so far of the vital importance—I use the word "vital" in its literal sense—of recognising the centrality of the role played by carers of disabled people.

We are extremely reluctant to see any dilution of the Bill's provisions on this important matter. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) said, if the carer breaks down, then two people can find themselves in institutions. It is both self-defeating and inhumane not to help the carer where that can vouchsafe the independence of the disabled person. Our fundamental concern is not to delay the proceedings on the Bill and thus, although reluctantly, we accept what the Minister has said.

The hon. Member For Exeter (Mr. Hannam) played an important part in the discussions on this matter in Committee. We appreciate why he cannot be with us today, and I join in the compliments that have been paid to his tireless efforts in support of the Bill.

I warmly endorse what has been said about my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Hannam) who has played an important and constructive part in our debates. I intervene again to make sure that I cannot later be accused of having misled the House. I am conscious, as the House knows, of the needs and problems of carers, and I am anxious to advance in a number of ways the extent to which we recognise and meet those needs throughout the variety of our provisions and not just those covered by the Bill.

In fairness to all, I must make it clear that in what I said about looking again at amendment (a), tabled by the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke), and amendment (b) tabled by the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley), I do not wish to suggest that I see an opportunity greatly to widen the scope of the Government's new clause in a form that would have substantial resource implications. As I understood the hon. Member for Monklands, West, he did not feel that his amendment had those implications. If it could be shown that his interpretation of the amendment was right and that ours was wrong, or that we could make some other change that would help to meet anxieties, I would be willing to look at that. But I cannot give a commitment to conduct an extensive review of new clause 10 in a way that would give the impression that we would greatly extend and expand its scope in terms of its resource implications. I would not like to mislead anyone about that.

The Minister referred to the possible interpretations of my amendment and undertook to reconsider it. Will that be in time for the Government's views to be considered by the other place?

If I could see any way of achieving a satisfactory compromise between the different interpretations of the hon. Gentleman's amendment, I would hope that it might be done in time for the debate in the other place. However, I do not wish to leave any room for doubt. I do not believe it is possible for the Government to recommend amendments in the other place that will clearly greatly increase still further the Bill's resource implications. In so far as we are talking about amendments that make the purpose of new clause 10 clearer, I certainly undertake to look at them. But I cannot undertake to incorporate or recommend amendments that would increase still further the Bill's resource implications.

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

With this it will be convenient to take Government amendment No. 8.

I should like to give my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) on his excellent Bill. I am aware that time is short, and as I wish to see the Bill make progress, I shall be as brief as possible.

The new clause strengthens the Bill by providing better legal rights for the disabled. It comes via NETWORK, the law and advisory centre for the handicapped and their families, which does valuable work in supplying desperately needed legal assistance to many of the disabled and their families, including some of my constituents. Indeed, I welcome the decision announced this week to award it a central Government grant.

The new clause is the opposite of Government amendment No. 8, which continues the current restrictions on a disabled person making an application to the court under section 2 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act. My new clause gives any person a direct right to make an application to the court. It also gives the court power to make declarations on whether existing arrangements are reasonable in order to meet the needs of the disabled person, and on what arrangements the local authority should make for him.

The court will also have the power to award damages if the local authority has failed to make reasonable provision and if it has refused to assess a disabled person's need. The new clause ensures that local authorities carry out their duties to the disabled as, if they do not do so, they could face the sanctions of the court. It is clearly not right that Parliament's stated aim to achieve better conditions for the disabled should not be fully accessible, through the courts, to disabled individuals. Yet that is the case now, particularly as under the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act, long delays in exercising ministerial or local authority powers to take a case to court can deny rights.

The new clause seeks to tackle that, and to provide full access to the court. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris) said in Committee, we are not seeking new rights but the better enforcement of existing rights. Indeed, as I know that he wants to say a word on this important issue, I shall sit down.

My hon. Friend the Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) was eminently correct to say that we are seeking not new rights for disabled people but the better enforcement of existing rights for which Parliament has already given its sanction and made provision. It will be argued that at present disabled people can go to the Secretary of State for Social Services with a request that he should use his default powers if they believe that they are being unjustly treated by local authorities. Yet there has been unconscionable delay in the handling of complaints from the Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation, as from other organisations. It is now widely felt that procedures could be speeded up in a way that would help more disabled people to achieve the benefits made for them by the House of Commons.

In this regard, I must make it clear that a mandatory duty already exists under the 1970 Act to assess the needs of disabled people. Financial factors are legally an irrelevant criterion in the assessment of needs; if need is accepted there is a mandatory duty to make the arrangements required. It may still come as a surprise to some, in both town and county halls, that the rights of disabled people are that strong under the law as it now stands.

I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton does not wish to press his amendment to a division. He is extremely conscious, as I am, of the need to proceed quickly to Third reading. However, I hope that the Minister, in replying, will accept that there is now a compelling need to speed up the process of dealing with the complaints of disabled people, more especially when they are supported by organisations that Members on both sides of the House respect.

In the light of what has been said by the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) and the right hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris), I hope it will not be discourteous if I do not rehearse at length the details of the Government's argument that led us to wish to delete present clause 8, thus leading us to resist new clause 13. I will comment briefly on what the right hon. Member for Wythenshawe said about default inquiries under section 36 of the National Assistance Act 1948. I undertake to consider at greater length than the two minutes I have had so far what he has said. He will know that a number of applications have been made under that section of the 1948 Act and inquiries made, but as yet no default order has been made by a Secretary of State of any political colour. It is important to recognise that in several cases the inquiries that have been initiated by the relevant Minister and the Department have led to a change of policy, at least for the individual concerned, even though in other cases it has been found that the authority had in fact met its duty.

I realise that sometimes criticism is made of the time taken to make such inquiries, but I have to recognise that the first stage in such an inquiry is necessarily to seek the comments and response of the local authority concerned. In itself, that can often take some time. I certainly hope that these matters will be dealt with expeditiously. I note the criticism that the right hon. Gentleman has made and I shall certainly take it into account in considering whether there is any action I can take at present that would help to ease anxieties.

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

I beg to move amendment No. 10, in page 8, line 4, leave out from '1970,' to end of line 7 and insert—

(a) for "any other of those services" there shall be "any other service provided by the authority (whether under any such arrangements or not)"; and

(b) at the end there shall be inserted "and of any service provided by any other authority or organisation which in the opinion of the authority is so relevant and of which particulars are in the authority's possession.".'.

The background to the amendment is that by amending section 1(2)(b) of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970, clause 10 of the Bill will require local authorities to inform a recipient of services under that Act, and of other services provided by the authority, Government Department, public body or voluntary organisation which are considered relevant to that person's needs. They already have a duty to provide information about services provided under the 1970 Act.

I need hardly say that the Government are sympathetic to the objectives of the clause. However, we have reservations on two points. First, to place a statutory requirement on local authorities to obtain information from a number of other agencies on the services available could represent a substantial additional administrative burden, which would be difficult in itself. Secondly, the clause as drafted appears to take no account of the problems which could arise for a local authority given that proposed statutory commitment, if the information that it needed was not provided by the other organisations from whom it would necessarily need to obtain it. Therefore, we propose to amend clause 10 so that local authorities will be required to provide information about other services provided by the same authority, and about other services provided by other organisations which the local authority considers relevant and information about which is available to it. I hope that the House will think that that is a reasonable compromise and a helpful advance.

I beg to move amendment No. 11, in page 8, line 13 after 'people', insert

'or of people with special knowledge of such disablement'.

This is a minor amendment, but I have noted the concern expressed to me privately by the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) about its effect. The principle behind clause 11 is that some disabled people cannot readily speak and act for themselves. When such a disabled person cannot act in any consultative capacity, it seems reasonable to allow people with special knowledge of that particular disability to do so. On that basis it does not seem unreasonable to extend the principle of consultation, as well as the appointments from groups of people with special knowledge, when disabled persons cannot speak for themselves. That is a minor matter, but I note that the hon. Gentleman is a little worried about the amendment and suggests that it would be better to consider it in another place. Therefore, I certainly do not wish to press it.

In the light of that, rather than taking up time expressing my reservations about the amendment—although I must say that in our view it would be technically inoperative, apart from anything else—I shall accept with good grace my hon. Friend's decision not to press the amendment.

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

I beg to move amendment No. 13, in page 8, line 27, leave out clause 13.

The clause, which was added in Committee, would require the Secretary of State to lay before each House of Parliament annually such information as he had obtained from local authorities on the operation of the Education Act 1981 in respect of disabled people. The Government believe that this aditional requirement is unnecessary since the Secretary of State already has sufficient powers under section 92 of the Education Act 1944 to obtain any information that he requires from local education authorities. Moreover, statistical information about special education provision is already published in a document called "Statistics of Education: Schools". To impose this additional requirement would be an unnecessary additional load for both central and local Government. Therefore, I hope that the House will accept our amendment to delete clause 13.

I beg to move amendment No. 14, in page 8, line 31, leave out clause 14.

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 18.

By amending the Town and Country Planning Act 1971 and the Local Government Act 1985, clause 14 would require planning authorities in the development plan process to do three things: first, to give special consideration to the needs of disabled people; secondly, to take appropriate measures to improve the physical environment for disabled people; and, thirdly, to provide disabled people with adequate information and opportunities to make representations about local and structure plans. Planning authorities would also be required to have regard to the relevant provisions of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act and of building regulations about access for disabled people when considering applications for certain types of development.

The Government accept that planning authorities should have regard to the needs of disabled people in carrying out their duties, but clause 14 seeks to introduce an inappropriate level of detail into the legislation, especially given that the existing legislation already provides, in more general terms, for local planning authorities to have regard to the needs of disabled people where appropriate, to give adequate publicity to their proposals for structure and local plans, and not least to have regard to the relevant provisions of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act. It would be inappropriate to require local planning authorities when considering planning applications to have regard to building regulations, which are a separate procedure.

Amendment No. 14 would omit clause 14 from the Bill. Amendment No. 18 is consequential to amendment No. 14. If it transpires that the attention of planning authorities needs to be directed more closely to the needs of disabled people, that could be done in the form of guidance from the Department of the Environment. I understand that my colleagues there are considering whether such guidance might be helpful.

Can the Minister give me an undertaking that he and his colleagues will consider seriously the possibility of guidelines drawing to the attention of local authorities the benefits that have been provided in areas that have tried that approach? There have been positive benefits for disabled people. It does not matter how it is done, provided that the objectives are achieved and the needs of disabled people are taken into account at all opportunities in the work of the authorities within the confines of structure planning.

I have the greatest sympathy with the hon. Gentleman's comments and I shall draw them to the attention of my colleagues at the Department of the Environment, who have more than shown their good faith in this connection during the past year or 18 months with the important changes that have been made to building regulations to improve the extent to which new buildings, especially those to which the public have access, take better account of the needs for access of disabled people. They have made some important progress in that area in the past year, and I have no doubt that my colleagues will be more than happy to do anything that they believe will genuinely help.

I beg to move amendment No. 15, in page 9, line 36, leave out Clause 16.

I share the anxiety expressed by hon. Members on both sides of the House that effective joint planning arrangements should operate in Scotland and that there should be participation by the voluntary organisations. That was one feature of the new planning arrangements which we introduced a year ago. They have been implemented by health boards and local authorities, and progress has been achieved. It would not be wise to abandon what has been done and brand the arrangements as a failure without allowing reasonable time for the important results that we are seeking to secure to emerge fully.

Another point of concern is that the detailed statutory arrangements in clause 16 would apply only to the disabled, not to the full range of priority groups to which the existing joint planning arrangements are fully directed. Clearly, one main group about which we are worried is the elderly, and it is important that, as at present, the joint planning committees should cover them as well as the disabled groups specified in the Bill.

I am well aware of the strong views of voluntary bodies that joint planning in Scotland should have a statutory basis. Other interests must be considered. I am convinced that the present voluntary arrangements can work. Statutory prescription and the creation of a bureaucratic structure are not substitutes for willingness, freely expressed, to work together. There is no difference between the Bill's sponsor and myself on the merits of joint planning committees although he takes a more pessimistic view of the likelihood of success of my circular last year. Time has still to show which of us is right.

I am receiving encouraging reports from health boards. There is a great deal of activity, and reports are at various stages of preparation. It has been put to me that I should take the opportunity of this legislation to give the Secretary of State powers to ensure these results. Clause 16 does that by prescribing a range of matters in detail. I have been reluctant to go along with that method. In Committee, the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) described my right hon. Friend and I as Mr. Nice and Mr. Nasty, from some television programme, and could not decide who was who. I wish to add to his inability to decide by showing a certain flexibility. I hope that I can go some way towards meeting the hon. Gentleman's genuine aim to give joint planning statutory backing. I should like my circular and the voluntary approach to produce the goods we both want.

I would be prepared to seek statutory powers to enable my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to prescribe for joint planning committees and their activities. These powers would not need to be brought into operation if the current arrangements prove successful. If it is decided that the voluntary route is not proving satisfactory, my right hon. Friend will be able to enforce the arrangements laid down in the circular and any other desirable aspects that he chooses to include in the regulations. Health boards and local authorities would therefore have to carry out the aims to which my circular addressed itself.

If the House agrees to delete clause 16, I shall ensure that either a suitable extension to clause 15 or a separate new clause is brought forward in another place. In addition, it will be necessary to deal with the exclusion of the elderly—the hon. Member for Monklands, West very much appreciates this point—by amending the long title for this specific purpose. I hope that those two points are acceptable to the hon. Gentleman.

I welcome the speech of the Under-Secretary of State. None of us is looking for complaints. Despite what was said in Committee about Mr. Nice and Mr. Nasty, I shall reserve my judgment until I see what happens on Third Reading.

There has been a good, well-informed debate in Scotland on joint planning, and I am glad that the Under-Secretary of State appears to have listened to it. Judging by his last few sentences, we are well on the way towards convincing him that the time for joint planning of a voluntary nature in Scotland is fast disappearing. No one has disputed the success of joint planning in England and Wales, given the statutory backing there. I believe that the objective, which the Under-Secretary of State and I share, of seeking successful joint planning would be better met by the type of statutory support which the hon. Gentleman led me to believe was possible when the matter is considered in the other place. This is so important a matter that the health boards alone are not always the best bodies to take the final decision without the kind of consultation that takes place in England and Wales with those involved in social services, housing and the voluntary organisations which know so much about these problems. It is very much in the interests of democratic policy formulation in Scotland that their views should be taken into account.

I am delighted that the Minister appears to accept the main thrust of the representations that were made to him and to his Department when the consultative document was published. We have made considerable progress. I was delighted when the Minister mentioned a full range of priorities, including the elderly. Our goal was not so ambitious. However, it is splendid if the Minister intends to go that far. We welcome it. When this matter goes to another place, the debates that we have had on these issues will do nothing but good. In that spirit, I thank the Minister.

It is accepted on all sides of the House that this has been a useful and helpful day. Although we have not got everything that we wanted from the Scottish Office, the Minister has gone some way towards meeting our wishes. He said that he is flexible. I thought I heard the joints creaking a little but undoubtedly he has made an effort and we are grateful to him. I am delighted that the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson) is present for the debate. It shows the efficiency of the Welsh Nationalists' whipping arrangements. The hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) should be congratulated.

This is an important matter. I do not want to labour the issue by making a lengthy speech. However, considerable anxiety has been expressed in Scotland about the apparent lack of the kind of leadership over joint planning that has been shown south of the Border by the Department of Health and Social Security and the Welsh Office. It is felt that there has been an absence of concerted action across Scotland and an absence of the kind of consultation that involves voluntary groups—those who do so much valuable work for the disabled, the handicapped and the elderly—in a general and significant way. Clause 16 was added to the Bill in Committee in order to remedy that lack.

Depite the Minister's confidence about the way in which voluntary arrangements have been developed, although joint consultative committees are mandatory in England and Wales, Scotland has been left only with the National Health Service (Scotland) Act 1978 which contains the hope that health boards and local authorities will co-operate. However, it does not contain a statutory duty or provide for the kind of structured framework in which consultation takes place in other parts of the country.

The Scottish Office circular of 24 April 1985 has been widely seen to be inadequate by everybody, except the Minister. Paragraph 6 says:

"These plans"—

these are the joint plans—

"would in the first instance be for the guidance of the health board and the local authorities concerned; they need not be formally submitted to the Secretary of State, and will not require his approval, although it would be helpful if copies were sent to him."

That is a pretty "peelie wall" approach by the Minister. Representations have been made to me that there has been a certain slippage in expectations when measured against the expectations aroused by that circular.

I put down various written Questions which were very helpfully answered by the Minister in anticipation of this debate. On the preparation of plans, he was able to say that only Shetland and Orkney health boards had prepared the plans requested and that health boards were not required formally to submit copies of their plans to the Secretary of State. However, Shetland health board has sent a copy of its plan, which covers all four priority groups, to the Scottish Home and Health Department. All credit to Shetland, and all credit to Orkney. However, the Minister has been unable to say anything about the rest of Scotland. Important though the islands are, a great deal of Scotland lies outside Orkney and Shetland.

That underlines the point that I am making. The Minister said in another answer that the Government have no reason to believe that the joint planning and liaison committees are not following the guidance set out in the April 1985 circular. The Minister may not have any reason to believe that they are not but neither is he in a position to say that they are. That is a weakness in an area in which there has been, over a period of time, a good deal of anxiety about the lack of progress and lack of involvement especially of the voluntary groups.

In the last minutes of the Report stage I do not wish to be churlish about the Minister's efforts. I have read the reports on the debate in Committee on 5 February 1986. Acceptance of new clause 12 was urged by my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson). I read the speech of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary and he appeared to be a little bit complacent about what was happening. He discussed the circular which gave the whole process a fresh impetus. He went on to say:

"We risk penalising local authorities and health boards which have made real progress, and we risk delaying worthwhile processes which we have worked long and hard to promote."

The Minister now seeks to remove that clause. Later on in the speech the Minister said:

"I hope that the Committee will not put the clock back," [Official Report, Standing Committee C; 5 February 1986, c. 50.]

That raised a lot of hackles among the voluntary groups. It came as a surprise to many people in the local authorities and those who are involved in social work. To give statutory impetus to a process which we all agree is an admirable one—the importance of joint planning—is not a matter of dispute between sides. I cannot see that giving joint planning a statutory basis can be described, fairly, as putting the clock back.

I am grateful for the fact that the Minister, not just because of pressure from the House but from groups in Scotland, is prepared to think again and has come a good way towards meeting our points. It is a simple proposition which holds up well in logic and in terms of its administration. If the Minister is correct we do not need a statutory basis. There is, however, no harm in having such a basis. It will reassure people. It will give an edge to joint consultative efforts and will involve the widest possible spectrum of expert opinion.

The Minister is maybe being over optimistic and perhaps some advice which is reaching Members is more accurate. It seems that there is a clear case for giving statutory force to the joint planning and consultation processes in Scotland parallel to what is happening South of the Border. Although we are not getting everything, I welcome the fact that some gestures have been made.

I recognise the Minister's point on the necessity to extend the process to cover the four priority groupings—the physically and mentally handicapped through to the elderly.

My hon. Friend the Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) has fought long and hard and with great tactical skill for the Bill. He is happy to accept what is being offered by the Minister. I do not wish in any way to cavil with what he has said and we will certainly watch what happens over the next two years with great care. We hope that the Minister's monitoring of the planning process by means of the circular is positive monitoring. I hope that he will not hesitate to use his powers under the enabling clauses which will be written in another place. That is necessary. The Minister's powers should not be left to lie upon the shelf unused. If there is a need, I hope that the Minister will not hesitate to act.

If it is not uncharitable I shall end on a warning, if not a slightly threatening, note. Whatever monitoring is pursued by the Minister—we shall certainly try to monitor what will happen—there will be groups in every constituency in Scotland who will make sure that the House will not forget about the issue. If we do not make the progress which I believe the importance of the matter deserves we shall be knocking very hard at the Minister's door to remind him of the enabling powers which will be written into the Bill.

I welcome the concessions that the Minister has made. At the outset, many people feared that the Government were sticking their heels in and were unprepared to make concessions. Many people in Scotland in caring organisations were keen that the statutory approach and joint planning should be adopted.

The Scottish working group, composed of 22 organisations, wrote to Scottish Members of Parliament, drawing attention to its fear that the Scottish Office, which, to its credit, has been in the lead in some aspects of care for the disabled, has been lagging behind. I am glad that the Minister has said that he will produce a new clause and alter the long title to deal with the elderly. I should like to thank him for that.

In these circumstances, it is better to be gracious. I know that that is extremely difficult, but those of us who have a proper Christian background are prepared to express gratitude on the Floor of the House occasionally for a sinner come to repentance. That is a rare event for Scottish Office Ministers.

I should like to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) for keeping me informed of progress. I welcome the concessions.

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

The months since early November, when I came first in the ballot, have been incredible but very inspiring. I have learnt a great deal, not least from the Government Front Bench. I hope that it might occasionally admit that it was able to learn something from us. Perhaps more important, we have been able to reach agreement on what I think can be a good and effective Bill which is in the interests of 5·5 million disabled people.

I have to be candid, however. The Bill is not as radical as the Standing Committee would have wished or as I would have hoped, but we are building for the future. The input of disabled people, voluntary organisations and professional bodies into the Bill has been outstanding. There are many people whom I ought to thank. For that very reason, it would be very difficult. I should like, however, to put on record my deep appreciation to Mr. John Healey, Mr. Peter Mitchell and Mr. Hugh Stewart, among others, who have done sterling work in support of the Bill.

I thank right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House, especially my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris), whose great interest and experience in these matters has been invaluable. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) referred to our unique arrangements for whipping. When we next have a meeting of the Scottish Grand Committee I am sure that the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) will be happy to offer his services and that we will be all the better for them. We all appreciate the work that he has done.

We have reached that stage at which we can contemplate what the exercise has achieved thus far. We have had an open and wide-ranging debate, which has involved the public. Some sections of the media have been excellent and others have perhaps been a little disappointing. As time passes those who have been disappointed will perhaps realise the importance of the Bill. We have ensured that a number of vital issues have been considered, such as representation, assessment, the problems of school leavers and the 19-plus problems. We have deliberated also on discharge from psychiatric hospitals and the Scottish planning clause. We have made considerable progress and I do not believe that the House would want to underestimate its scope.

Time after time Government spokesmen have referred to resource implications. The House has reached a conclusion on the matters contained in the Bill after serious consideration. In due course we shall hear the views of those in another place. When we come to that stage and when we reflect in this place on what has been said by their Lordships, perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Fulham (Mr. Raynsford), who has a great deal of expertise in many of the matters covered by the Bill, will join in our discussions. I am sure that his contribution will be welcome.

I say in all candour and without, I hope, causing any offence, especially to the Minister for Health, that the Treasury should remember that it is responsible to this place and not the reverse. This place has established priorities for the disabled and mentally handicapped and their carers. We have taken the decision. We could consider it ill-judged if the Treasury took the view that it should try to thwart the decisions and objectives of the House when the Bill is duly enacted.

I thank my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition for his interest and support. I think that his intervention yesterday was crucial. We have reached the stage when I must express the hope that the Bill will be given its Third Reading. I hope that in time it will be developed to provide a framework for the real progress that I think the disabled will welcome. We have not yet achieved such a framework but the disabled certainly deserve one. I look forward to the time when the many problems the disabled are facing will be solved and when the disabled will feel that they have an enormous contribution to make to our society and the potential which the House wishes them to realise.

First, I congratulate warmly the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) on what he has achieved. I made it clear throughout that the Government endorse the principles that the Bill seeks to enshrine. On Second Reading, I said:

"I hope that the hon. Member for Monklands, West and his sponsors will be prepared to respond constructively to amendments, some perhaps radical and substantial, which the Government will bring forward. If they do, it is likely that at the end of the day they will be responsible for a Bill which provides a useful if modest development of the present legislative basis on which services are provided for disabled people. That is a worthy achievement for any Member of this place."—[Official Report, 17 January 1986; Vol. 89, c. 1372.]

That is the worthy achievement which the hon. Member for Monklands, West is getting close to chalking up today. We now have a measure that will genuinely help to improve services for the disabled without imposing inflexible and impracticable burdens upon local authorities. That is what the Government always hoped would emerge.

The Bill represents an important development of existing provision for the disabled and as such it has significant cost implications. As I have explained, the Government will make commencement orders to bring into effect those of the Bill's provisions which have significant resource implications when the necessary resources are available. Other provisions without significant cost will, I hope, be brought into effect soon after Royal Assent.

We have had a good and constructive debate and not at all the debate that was predicted by those in the media and elsewhere who were questioning the Government's attitudes and intentions and, as they so often do, making wholly and utterly wrong predictions.

The debate has been characterised by the constructive nature of the points raised on both sides of the House. I can assure the House that the Government have noted all the points and many of them reflect issues which were raised during the consultation exercise. We shall be seeking to take them into account in the further consultation and co-operation with the hon. Member for Monklands, West and his hon. Friends following Third Reading when looking at some of the points which have been highlighted and identified during our discussions of amendments which should properly be brought in with the agreement of another place. I must make it clear that such amendments in another place must be on the understanding that they are acceptable to the Government and if they do not add further to the cost of the Bill.

It is fair to say that this is something of a historic day in the development of the legislative structure for the provision of services for disabled people. The hon. Member for Monklands, West rightly and properly paid tribute to some of his advisers from the voluntary sector who, I know, worked closely with my officials on many of the detailed matters concerning this legislation. The hon. Gentleman has steered his Bill with considerable skill, great moderation, great patience and realism of what can be achieved within the constraints, which necessarily control us all, and with consideration for hon. Members in other parts of the House so as to achieve the widest possible area of agreement.

I hope that by praising him in this way I do not influence his reselection, which I hope has been well established by now. At any rate, this achievement, as I have said, is one of which any hon. Member can be proud. Of course, the hon. Gentleman is not yet quite home, as he well recognises. The Bill has to go to another place. If the other place and those responsible for the Bill there have the same skill, moderation, realism, patience and consideration which the hon. Gentleman has shown I see no reason why the Bill should not become law and receive Royal Assent. I say to the hon. Gentleman, as one has sown, so has one reaped. If the response to what I said on Second Reading had not been constructive, realistic and responsible we would not all be congratulating each other. We would probably be jumping up and down with points of order. I am sure that the reason for the presence of the distinguished Leader of the Opposition is to add to the congratulations to his hon. Friend rather than to take advantage of what might have been a rather different situation.

I have no wish to end in any other way than again to congratulate the hon. Gentleman. I have made my gratitude to him clear all along for the courtesy and consideration with which all the dealings we have had together have been carried through. I wish the Bill well.

I shall give up the self-denying ordinance that I have exercised today to congratulate the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) on his great achievement in steering this Bill through to Third Reading, not entirely undented but 70 per cent. to 80 per cent. complete. I thank the hon. Gentleman for the decision that he took after coming top of the ballot, to pick up the Bill. There were pressures on him to go in other directions, but he chose the Bill that would do the most good to the most people. He has built up the Bill through Committee and on Report to something that is really worth while.

Many people have helped in getting the Bill through the House. I should like to thank not least those who have been able to come to the Chamber today. There are more people here than there usually are on a Friday. It has not been necessary to divide the House, which is a satisfactory state of affairs, but it was good to see the support of all parties across the House on these important issues. It is good to see the Leader of the Opposition here. I am not sure how much sleep he has had, but no doubt he has had a good celebration. That underlines the importance of these issues.

Reference has been made to those who have worked hard, such as John Healey and Peter Mitchell, as well as organisations that have given support, especially MENCAP, the Spastics Society, the Scottish organisations, and the Standing Committee of Voluntary Organisations in Wales.

There are important elements in the Bill as it goes forward to the other place, giving representation to those who are incapable of speaking up on their own behalf because of disability. We now have a structure that will enable them to have their case properly heard, and proper assessment and non-bureaucratic and efficient procedures to facilitate that.

Progress has been made today on the position of those leaving special schools. I thank the Government for being willing to accept the new clause tabled by the hon. Member for Monklands, West, so that those leaving special schools, will have an assessment before going out into the community. The same will apply to those leaving long-stay hospitals. Those two areas are critical for disabled people and their families. I welcome the approach that the Government have taken today and the commitment that the Ministers have given. I thank all three Ministers for their willingness to meet deputations and discuss these matters. We have not always seen entirely eye to eye in everything, but one never does. The way in which Ministers have responded has been a significant step forward.

The one area in which we have not been able to go as far as we would like is on carers. I hope that the other place will consider what can be done within the resource limitations and that we shall look again at the matter in future months and years, while doing everything that we can. If there is any one group of people who deserve support, it is those who look after disabled people, especially women, who have given up their careers to look after members of the family or others who are disabled.

With regard to resources, the Government said that, according to their own discussion paper, there was a financial implication of between £25 million and £100 million. That is what they were advised. They have grasped the nettle. I hope that that money will become available to turn the legislation into reality. The provisions will have to be phased in, but I hope that the elements that imply expenditure commitments are not left so long as to leave those who are looking forward to their enactment hanging on while there is nothing happening. I realise that some things cannot happen this year. There may be a need to provide money for local authorities, particularly in the next financal year. I hope that there will not be an undue delay beyond that.

Today, a very important Bill is going from this House to another place. I hope that it will be treated constructively there, and that after it comes back here later in the Session it will be on the statute book before too long.

I have refrained from speaking on the Bill, apart from a brief intervention, because, as someone with a lifelong interest in the disabled, I should have been horrifed if I had been instrumental in talking out the Bill. I have sat here through virtually all the proceedings because I believe that the Bill is extremely important. As my right hon. Friend the Minister for Health said, this is a historic day in the development of services for disabled people.

I have the honour to represent a city with a long tradition of hospital service. Many of the matters that are dealt with in the Bill will set at rest the anxieties of many of my constituents. They will be glad to know that the gap in the education facilities for young people will, to a large extent, be filled by the Bill. They will be relieved to know that people leaving long-stay hospitals, two of which are in my constituency, will, from now, be assessed properly before they leave, and all the services will be co-ordinated before they are released into the community.

We are fortunate in our local hospitals in that nobody is released into the community without the hospital ensuring that proper services are available for them, and we want to make sure that the high standards that we practise are common throughout the country.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) on his enterprise in getting the Bill through and my right hon. Friend the Minister on working so closely with his colleagues in getting the Bill through in an atmosphere of harmony and tremendously positive achievement. I cannot recall in many years a Bill that has given me greater pleasure, and I thank everybody for co-operating in it.

Our proceedings on the Bill have been full of surprises. Many strange things have happened. We thought that the Minister for Health had been put in as a night watchman. If that was the original intention, he has played a very long innings. He has been patient and understanding and, although he has not been as helpful as we had wished, we forgive him as the Bill has now reached Third Reading.

Another strange thing is that we had today the maiden speech on the Bill of the Minister for the Disabled. He emerged from the dressing room this morning full of running and we welcomed him to the Dispatch Box. We know that he is involved in other legislation, and I am glad that he agrees that this Bill is deeply important for Britain's 5·5 million disabled people, their families and all who care for them.

There were two schools of thought about when to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke). There were those who congratulated him at the beginning of today's proceedings. I thought it safer to wait for the Third Reading as there were some uncertainties this morning about the final outcome. My hon. Friend has been dour—

It is pronounced "doer".

—good-humoured, responsive to all possible offers of help and always felicitous in his use, if not his pronunciation, of words.

It is now virtually an annual custom for the House to debate one or more private Members' Bills on the needs of Britain's disabled people and their families. Yet it is not by any means an old custom. Before the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970, there were entire Parliaments in which the claims and needs of disabled people and their families were never debated. It seems unbelievable and outrageous now, but in the Parliament of 1959–64 there was not one debate in the House of Commons on disability. Going further back, there was not a single mention between 1945 and 1959 in the manifestos of either of the main political parties of anything that might be done specifically to help people with disabilities. In congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Monklands, West on his choice of Bill, I also most warmly thank him for strongly maintaining this important new tradition of the House.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) has played a most distinguished part in our proceedings. He speaks as chairman of the all-party disablement group. He raised this morning, on new clause 9, an important point about interpreters for deaf people. I hope that what he said will be considered very carefully and sympathetically in the other place. Speaking for the Opposition, we shall be glad if the other place wants to strengthen the Bill. I was saying this morning that many of the Government's proposals offered only 80 per cent. of what we sought, so if the other place wants to go a little further we will look very sympathetically at its proposals.

To use the word "resources" in Committee was like swearing in church. It seems to have been rather less reprehensible to use it on Report. I must, of course, emphasise that the Bill has resource implications. What we must now ensure, in partnership with the local authority associations, is that the resources required by the Bill are made available in addition to those now at the disposal of local government. Unless that happens, the Bill will not achieve its purpose.

As the World Charter for disabled people says, they have the same rights as all mankind to grow and to learn, to work and to create, to love and to be loved. This humane and important Bill will take disabled people much further along the road to the full attainment of that important objective. I am delighted that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition is with us today. He has helped enormously in sustaining our efforts to enact the Bill. I understand that we meet in the presence of a very distinguished visitor. My right hon. Friend has spent much of this morning with him.

I thank also all hon. and right hon. Members on both sides of the House who have helped to press forward an objective that is so important to many of the most needful people in Britain today. Bless 'em all.

I am one of those who reserved my congratulations to the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) until Third Reading. Even if I had not kissed the blarney stone—or, given the English background of my right hon. Friend the Minister for Health, perhaps I should say the Barney stone—I would like to say just how admirably the hon. Member for Monklands, West has dealt with his Bill.

It is particularly gratifying for a Conservative Member to have played a small part in helping to put a Bill on the statute book that takes us one step further away from the paternalism which has been the key note—despite, perhaps, the best of intentions—of how we have dealt with the problems of the handicapped. Somehow, we have always assumed that the authorities know best, but one of the great things about the Bill is that it states beyond peradventure that the person who is most likely to have a valuable idea about how he can best be looked after is the person who requires the help on offer. Indeed, the representation provisions in the Bill are unbelievably important for that reason alone.

The Bill marks a return to a concept which was once more common but which has been gradually undermined: we all have a responsibility to those who are disabled or ill. The tendency to shut away people who are mentally handicapped or ill, or who have a severe disability, so that none of us can see them or be troubled by their difficulties must be reversed. The Bill goes a long way towards doing that.

There is work for us to do. In our debate on the carers, my right hon. Friend the Minister made a very important point. He said that if we can show that the Government's estimates of what the full implications of the Bill will cost were wrong and our estimates that it would be much cheaper were right, the Government would seriously consider changing its attitude. This means that everyone interested in further progress under this legislation should work to provide as accurate an estimate as possible of the savings that can be extracted from the care of the carers and from the early assessment of need, so that we can go to the Treasury and say that our estimates are better and more optimistic than the Treasury's estimates and that it should honour the pledge given by the Minister. That is an obligation on the voluntary organisations which played such a great part in getting this Bill through, and on parliamentarians who want further progress to be made. I pledge myself to play my part in that.

I add my tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke). Perhaps the best tribute I can pay to him is to say that he has conducted the Bill as we expected him to do. Other people responsible for the passage of the Bill deserve my special tribute. Of these, two have already been mentioned—Peter Mitchell and John Healey. Without their expertise the Bill would never have made progress. I pay a warm tribute to those two people from the back room.

Other people have been active in the all-party disablement group. The hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Hannam) could not be here today, but he has worked marvellously well in this House year in and year out, often behind the scenes, for disabled people. The other member of the all-party disablement group to whom I refer is the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley). On this Bill, he has been the unofficial Whip. I see that our Chief Whip is listening carefully. The unofficial Whip had an important role to play. Without the work of those people, the Bill could not have progressed this far.

The Leader of the Opposition is preoccupied today; he is on a high. However, I am anxious to avoid making any party political point. Ministers might not like this, but they should recognise that without the intervention of the Leader of the Opposition we would not have got the Bill today. I do not want to make heavy weather out of this, but it is a fact. Despite what the Minister has said, I point out that ordinary plodding mortals can inform the Leader of the Opposition of facts about disability, but he transmutes them into political gold. His intervention yesterday was magnificent and most influential. I put that on record because of what the Minister said when speaking to clause 9. He said, "I must be honest with the House." All I am doing now is being honest with the House. I thank the Leader of the Opposition for the important role he has played in ensuring the passage of this significant Bill for disabled people.

I now want to pay a tribute to the disabled people themselves. It is by their effort and growing articulation and insistence on their voice being heard that the Bill will reach the statute book. Nobody who is not disabled realises what severely disabled people go through. Only they and their families realise the extent of the deprivation of the pleasures of life. Only they know the appalling loneliness of disability and how much effort it takes if one is disabled. So it is to those people that I pay tribute today.

Finally, we appreciate what the Government have done, and, I do not want them to misunderstand that. However, the Bill's implementation worries me. We want the Government to implement the Bill as soon as it is passed. If it is not implemented, they will receive the credit for the measure but will not have to find the wherewithal for it. I assume that they will implement the Bill as soon as it reaches the statute book. If they do so, it will transform the lives of millions of disabled people.

Considering the healthy turn-out on this Bench one can say that the Bill gives all sections of the House a cause for celebration today. I add my thanks and congratulations to the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke). All those who have participated in this morning's debate will agree that the constructive spirit of co-operation on the issues and priorities which affect the disabled sector has shown the House, particularly those interested in this issue, in an extremely good light.

The Bill gives prominence to the ability and access of the disabled to enjoy the advocacy and the assessment of the needs and issues which confront them; gives priority to care in the community; and emphasises the role of the carers. The Bill is indeed welcome, and we hope that it will have a good and speedy passage in the other place. I echo the words of the right hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) in saying that we hope its implementation will be as swift as possible.

Obviously, any society and Parliament which devotes attention, to the needs of one of the most vulnerable sections of the community, and one of the sections most in need of parliamentary political support, is behaving well and doing its job well. The Bill has enabled us to do that. We all congratulate the hon. Member for Monklands, West and his colleagues who have worked so hard to make that a reality today, and we thank the Government for their constructive approach.

The Bill is extremely important, and I congratulate the Government on the way in which they have managed to help it pass through the House after a great deal of acrimonious debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) who has fought so ably and courageously for the interests of the disabled. I particularly wanted to make that comment because there has been a lot of acrimony about the Bill. Due recognition should be given to the role the Government played in ensuring that the Bill reaches the statute book.

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third Time.

The House will appreciate that if it accepts the Bill, we shall have passed two measures today which will help disabled people. The Bill is a small step to correct an error in the Rating (Disabled Persons) Act 1978. Under that Act, it was possible for disabled people to have rebates of their rates, but they were unable to have rebates on their drainage rates. Most people pay a general rate and a water rate, but a few people living in areas such as the Fens and around the rivers Ouse and Severn also pay a drainage rate. Inadvertently, under the 1978 Act those disabled people were prevented from receiving rebates of their drainage rates. The Bill will enable those few hundred people to make claims on those rates.

Under the Bill, the rating authority will make a written note to the internal drainage board that it has allowed a rebate on the general rate to some disabled people. The drainage board will then be allowed to give a rebate to those people. It will also be possible for institutions occupied by disabled people to claim rebates. That would cover the provision of additional lavatories, bathrooms and garages and, in some cases, heating allowances, which are required by groups of disabled people.

I hope that the House will regard the Bill as a small measure correcting an error in a previous Act and as a measure of justice to some disabled people.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, East (Sir G. Vaughan) on his success in the ballot and on his wisdom in choosing this subject for his Bill. Many hon. Members will agree that if an hon. Member is fortunate in the ballot but secures only a modest position, there is always a dilemma about what he should do for the best. He has the option of introducing some great measure of national or world-beating, epoch-making calibre which might sometimes be hugely controversial and which comes to an early end through the use of the procedures of the House and no one hears of the measure again. Alternatively, he could try to find a modest measure that is useful, helpful and necessary. My hon. Friend has adopted the latter course.

My hon. Friend is in good company. I was once in a similar position. In the 1960s, I introduced the Parish Councils and Burial Authorities (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act. I do not know whether it is still on the statute book. I suspect that it has been overtaken by other measures.

The Government welcome the Bill. I am grateful to those hon. Members who have eased the Bill's passage so that it can go on to the other place. I intend to give what help I can to ensure that this small but worthwhile Bill reaches the statute book.

The Bill restores to disabled persons relief from drainage rates which was unintentionally removed by the Rating (Disabled Persons) Act 1978. The hon. Member who introduced that Bill is not present, so I shall not name him. I am satisfied that the omission of that provision was unintentional.

Relief from general rates and special drainage rates payable in areas covered by internal drainage boards was provided by adjustments in the rateable value of properties occupied by disabled persons. The 1978 legislation abolished that system in favour of rebates on general rates, but overlooked similar provisions for drainage rates. The Bill rectifies the position by providing relief on drainage rates in proportion to the rebates on general rates. The sums involved are likely to be small, but we believe that this opportunity should be taken to right an injustice that was inadvertently imposed on the disabled.

We have been reviewing the arrangements for the administration and finance of land drainage and flood defences. The Government are considering the responses to the Green Paper in the light of proposals for water authority privatisation, but final decisions are not likely for some time. The Government's proposals for reform of the general rating system which were announced in the Green Paper "Paying for Local Government" are likely to take some time to be realised. In the meantime, I ask for all-party support, which was given to the Rating (Disabled Persons) Act 1979, so that this legislation is placed on the statute book.

The guts of the Bill are in clause 1, which requires rating authorities which have granted a rebate under the Rating (Disabled Persons) Act 1978 on a hereditament in an internal drainage district to give the internal drainage board written notice of that rebate. The written notice would state the gross amount of the general rate and the rebate, the hereditament to which it related and the period for which the rebate had been granted. On receipt of that notice, the internal drainage board would grant corresponding relief in respect of any drainage rates chargeable in connection with that hereditament by reducing the drainage rates payable or by repaying any amount that happened to be overpaid.

I have explained to the House how this works. I hope that very soon we shall hear from another place that this matter has been agreed there and that the Bill may appear on the statute book. All hon. Members will want to join me in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, East upon the signal service that he has again performed in his long parliamentary life on behalf of the disabled people of this country.

Object.

Object.

Committee what day?

Now, Sir.

Object.

Object.

Object.

Object.

Object.