LORDS AMENDMENT (Hansard, 28 June 1990)

§ Baroness Hooper
My Lords, I beg to move that the House do not insist on their Amendment No. 4 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 4A. The reasons for disagreement with the amendment centred on the fact that the amendment would put off virtually indefinitely the implementation of community care policy. I do not think that your Lordships intended to render it virtually impossible to take forward a policy the principles of which are widely supported, but as I argued during our earlier deliberations that is what we were in danger of doing.
The amendment would mean waiting until all local authorities produced full plans, undertaking a full scrutiny of those plans, making judgments about costs, consulting yet again, assessing the validity of response to every individual in need of care and then looking at resources over a five-year period. This is a recipe for second-guessing, enormous central bureaucracy and utter frustration for those waiting to know how their authority would deliver its services. That is why I argued against the amendment at an earlier stage, and that is the reason another place has disagreed with your Lordships' conclusions. I beg to move.
Moved, That the House do not insist on their Amendment No. 4 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 4A.—(Baroness Hooper.)

§ Lord Carter
My Lords, as I moved the original amendment in Committee and secured the agreement of noble Lords, I am very disappointed by the response of another place. I find the reason very curious—that it would unreasonably delay the commencement of Part III of the Bill. The press has recently been full of a briefing and a counter-briefing on the point that the Government intended to slow down the implementation of community care, and we generally felt that a clause of this nature would help the Government out of their difficulties. After all, to quote the amendment, any responsible Secretary of State would surely want to satisfy himself that the resources available to local authorities are adequate.
The Minister has been saying throughout the course of the debate that the Government will ensure that is so. So we are not asking the Government to do something that they did not already intend to do. It seemed to us that the new clause repeated a number of phrases, all of which have been used recently by Ministers in this House and in another place—that there will be evolution and not revolution; that there will be a measured pace of reform; that nothing will happen overnight and that adequate resources will be available. All those phrases have been used by Ministers in the past few weeks.
The original amendment was intended to assist the Government in ensuring that those worthy objectives were achieved, and it is very disappointing indeed that the Government have rejected it.

§ Baroness Seear
My Lords, since the amendment said only that the Bill shall not come into force until there are sufficient resources, are we to assume that the Government will bring it in when there are not sufficient resources: Otherwise, I do not see why they have not accepted the amendment. It must mean that the Government will bring it in without sufficient resources. It seems odd.