§ 2.49 p.m.
§ LORD SANDFORDMy Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
§ [The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government (a) whether they have yet considered the Report of the Williams Committee on caring for people in homes and hostels and the problems of staffing such places; and (b) when they will be ready to announce their policy on the recommendations in the report and on their financial implications.]
§ LORD BESWICKMy Lords, the Government join with local authorities, voluntary organisations and others who provide the residential services for old and young people and for handicapped people in expressing their gratitude to the Williams Committee for its recently published study, Caring for People. We are grateful also to the National Council of Social Service and others who made this work possible. The recommendations of the Report affect not only local authorities but voluntary organisations, and indeed private undertakings in many cases, as to the conditions of service, recognition and status, as well as training. All those who have been looking forward to studying the results of this important inquiry will welcome its central point, that these services so devotedly given by those who now "care for people" cannot develop without a systematic training. This Report will be most helpful for our thinking 197 together about what is needed for the immediate and longer-term future; but the Government will need to consider the views of those directly responsible for the services before coming to any conclusions on central policy, and I cannot yet forecast when any Government announcement might be made.
§ LORD SANDFORDMy Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord for that reply, and I am glad he appreciates the quality of this Report and is seized of its significance. But I should like to ask two questions. First of all, is he aware that if the Government succeed in following the main recommendations of this Report they will then have a policy towards the social services which not only increases benefits in cash right across the board, or reduces charges right across the board, but also shows more discrimination and selectivity in meeting the most acute and serious social needs with personal care, which is what is needed just as much? The second question I should like to ask the noble Lord is this. Is it not possible for the Government to say yet, with this Report to help them, when we are likely to see some results from this review of the social services which Her Majesty's Government have now had in hand for two and a half years, under two Ministers?
§ LORD BESWICKMy Lords, I think that, as Her Majesty's Government have not yet decided whether they would accept the main recommendations of the Williams Report, it would be wrong for me to speculate as to the consequences to follow if they did accept it. So far as the other point is concerned, I suppose that the noble Lord is referring to the Seebohm Committee, whose Report is expected towards the end of this year.
§ LORD SANDFORDNo, my Lords, I was not. I was referring to Her Majesty's Government's promise at the first of the last two Elections that they would engage in, and were about to swing into, action for a great review of the social services. Mr. Houghton was first appointed to deal with that, and then Mr. Gordon Walker; but so far we have seen no results.
§ LORD BESWICKMy Lords, I think that the noble Lord will agree that he is 198 now raising a matter wholly wide of the organisational question which he has down on the Order Paper.