ENACTMENTS CONFERRING FUNCTIONS ASSIGNED TO SOCIAL SERVICES COMMITTEE (Hansard, 11 May 1970)

§ Mrs. Shirley Williams
I beg to move Amendment No. 43, in page 12, line 6. column 2, leave out ' assistance in certain cases ' and insert ' certain services '.
Mr. Deputy Speaker, I think that it will be convenient, with this Amendment, to take Nos. 44, 45 and 46.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Sydney Irving)
If the House agrees, so be it.

§ Mrs. Williams
I wish to thank the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight), who pointed out in 988 Committee that the wording of the Bill is not very precise. We have endeavoured to meet the point. These are purely drafting Amendments to make the Bill as precise as possible.

§ Mrs. Shirley Williams
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
I do not want to detain the House more than two minutes, but I should like to thank all those who have contributed to the work which has been done on the Bill both in Committee and outside the House; in particular, the organisations of social workers, the local authority associations, and the representatives of the medical profession.
The Bill essentially creates a structure of co-ordination on the different aspects of personal social services. It integrates three crucial social services: children, welfare, and certain aspects of health. It has been suggested that the Bill does not provide the means to make the structure effective, but it provides those means under other enactments.
The Bill brings to an end 10 years of uncertainty which started with the Ingleby Report in 1960, which suggested that a family service be established. We can say that we have now created the structure, but that structure will depend very much, as all buildings do, on the spirit of those who live and work within it. I think that we will be able to say, looking back, that we have given the means, and that it is up to the local authorities to achieve the ends that we all wish to see.

§ Mr. Maurice Macmillan
I do not wish to detain the House long.
First, I should make plain, if it is not already, that the Opposition welcome the main purpose of the Bill, which is implementing the Seebohm Report in broad terms. However, we have some reservations on the secondary purpose of the Bill; that is, putting into action 990 what has been described as the white parts of the Green Paper on the reorganisation of the Health Service. We have these reservations largely on a matter of timing.
It is clear to all who have taken part in the proceedings on the Bill that any difficulties over demarcation, as it were, between health and welfare are likely to be at their greatest during the interim period while the social services and the welfare side is being reformed and we are still awaiting the changes on the Health Service side.
This particularly applies to those relatively few local authorities which have had part of the welfare function delegated to them and which, therefore, in the interim period retain a truncated health function as local authorities, while the bit that is cut off has gone not to their welfare side, which they will lose, but to a separate authority.
Despite the good intentions of the Bill, we feel that there is one weakness: that it is difficult to see how the health and the welfare will work closely together, because it is difficult to see how the Health Service will work at all as described in the Green Paper. To the extent, therefore, that support of the Bill depends on the implementation of the Green Paper, and, indeed, of the Maud Report, we are a little concerned.
I should make clear to the House that our support for the Bill, which is wholehearted in every other respect, should not be taken to imply, as it has been, support for the provisions of the Green Paper, or the proposals on local government reform in their totality.