House of Commons Hansard Debates for 18 Jul 1990

Column 1012

arguments for delay and was convinced that he and his colleagues would be arguing for resources for community care. What has happened since that time to make him change his mind?

Mr. Clarke : I am always in listening mode when developing policy. I pay most attention to those who are complaining about the excessive levels of community charge they are facing. It is also the case that organisations such as Mencap share the views of many others that it would be advantageous to phase in the policy. Once the dust has settled--I do not think that the hon. Member for Livingston will raise much of it--he will find that most people working in this area will accept that the policy can be improved by phasing it in.

Mr. Tim Rathbone (Lewes) : Does my right hon. and learned Friend accept that the two-year delay will place an additional burden on income support? Can he give an assurance to those who live in Sussex and other parts of the south of England where income support is insufficient already, that it will be increased sufficiently to make up the difference?

Mr. Clarke : The new grants I have announced will be an increased burden for the general taxpayer. My statement included announcements of increased expenditure to be taken account of in local authority settlements. I accept that this is likely to lead to an increase in income support, but we cannot anticipate exactly how much. The care element of that income support will be transferred to local authorities at whatever level it has reached in April 1993. I agree with my hon. Friend that an important issue to be addressed over the next two years, particularly by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security, is reviewing the levels of income support to ensure that they reflect changes in cost, about which more information is being sought. This is always a difficult matter. No Government have ever claimed that income support can always meet the full charges, let alone the full cost, of every residential care home.

Mr. David Young (Bolton, South-East) : Apart from lacking resources, my local authority was ready in every way for the implementation of the policy and it had not anticipated the prevarication of the Secretary of State. We are concerned not about apportioning blame but about the fact that many old people may find their lives shortened because of the hiatus that has been created. I trust that no hon. Member on either side of the House is in favour of that sort of involuntary euthanasia. Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman pay attention to the patients he has now put in an impossible position? They are often the most disadvantaged in the community.

Mr. Clarke : The hon. Gentleman's reference to involuntary euthanasia, or however he described it, is breathtaking. I have announced increased provision for care in the community and three new specific grants totalling £70 million ; I have not announced a reduction in service or provision. I accept that the hon. Gentleman's local authority may have been in a position to go ahead. I have no idea what view it would have taken on how much it would spend or how much its community charge payers would be asked to meet. Many people in Bolton will appreciate the need to get the new system under control and to get the community charge properly managed before

Column 1013

we go ahead with the full policy. To suggest that I have announced something that will kill old people is to take political rhetoric to absurd extremes.

Several Hon. Members rose --

Mr. Speaker : Order. I have received notice of one point of order from a Front-Bench spokesman, but before taking it, may I repeat that I am not responsible for the timing of statements, although I understand that there was an agreement on this one? Today is an Opposition day, and some hon. Members who have been rising will be called in that debate ; others will be remembered.

Mr. Donald Dewar (Glasgow, Garscadden) : On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In the circumstances, I intend to be extremely brief. The Secretary of State for Health has made a statement dealing with the position in England and Wales. I presume that Scotland again is being treated by the Secretary of State for Scotland as something of an afterthought to be fobbed off with a written answer.

I understand that in Scotland, too, financial confusion about the poll tax is the root cause of the Government's retreat. The position in Scotland, whatever it may be elsewhere, is that local authorities are willing and ready to go and organised and determined. I know from personal contact today that the announcement that has been made will be a bitter disappointment. Scots will want to know why the most vulnerable in our society will, in effect, be victims of the Government's own poll tax blunders.

There is no obvious opportunity, despite what the Secretary of State for Health has said, to question the Secretary of State for Scotland between now and when the House rises. A statement will be made by the Scottish Office on overall head totals of the revenue support grant settlement, but that will not enable us to consider in detail the policy behind community care. I simply want, through you, Mr. Speaker, to express my disappointment and dismay that a major matter of policy is being passed without an opportunity for scrutiny on the Floor of the House.

Column 1014

Mr. Barry Jones (Alyn and Deeside) : Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. The Secretary of State for Wales has proffered not an oral statement to the House but a wretched written answer on the important matter of care in the community.

I seek your guidance, Sir, because, besides not making a statement to the House, the Secretary of State for Wales has attacked the local authorities of Wales, and he has used an unjust and disgraceful means to do so.

Wales has a higher proportion of disabled people than other areas of Britain because so many of our people worked in our coal mines, foundries and steelworks. Disabled and elderly people and carers have been treated shabbily. I ask how you, Sir, may bring the Secretary of State for Wales to the House to make an important statement on the most vulnerable members of our community.

Mr. William O'Brien (Normanton) : Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker : I will take it, but this is Opposition time.

Mr. O'Brien : I am aware of that, but not one hon. Member from the Yorkshire region was called. There are many chronically sick and disabled people in Yorkshire. We should have been given an opportunity to make our point.

Mr. Speaker : I am afraid that there are many disappointed hon. Members, and I regret that the hon. Gentleman is one of them. As I have already said, I am not responsible for the timing of statements or of the Opposition day. I must do my best to ensure a fair balance. I have already said that some hon. Members who have not been called will be called in the coming debate. It would have been unfair to call them on the statement as well.

The matter raised by the Front-Bench spokesmen is not a matter for me. I have allowed complaints to be made and they have been heard by the Government. There will be other opportunities before we rise, such as the debate on the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill and the summer Adjournment motion.

Column 1015

Abolition of Fox-Hunting

4.24 pm

Mr. Tony Banks (Newham, North-West) : I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make the hunting of foxes with hounds illegal.

Given the depth of feeling on the subject, I am quite surprised that this appears to be the first time such a Bill has been attempted since the last war.

In my lapel is a badge depicting a badger. I wear it to remind me of the Protection of Badger Setts Bill which was introduced through the ten-minute Bill procedure. That Bill aimed to protect badgers' homes against the activities of those subhuman perverts who gain pleasure from baiting badgers with dogs. Because of a stroke of fortune and some deft footwork on my part, the Bill received an unopposed Second Reading and was debated fully in Committee. There were no representatives of the badger baiters on the Standing Committee, but there were Members of Parliament who represented the interests of fox hunters. Because of the fragile nature of the procedure that I am trying again to adopt today, I was forced to make a number of significant concessions. I shall not rehearse the arguments and the concessions, but they turned out to be a vain attempt on my part and on the part of the supporters of the Bill to buy off the opposition of the fox hunters.

We failed to satisfy the hunters because they demanded an absolute right to interfere with a badger sett in pursuit of their so-called sport. The end result was that the fox hunters killed the badger setts Bill and in doing so probably condemned many more badgers to death at the hands of those sick characters who bait badgers. In Committee I was accused of using the badger setts Bill as part of a strategy to deal with fox hunting. I denied that then, and I deny it here in the House this afternoon. I said in Committee that I would approach fox hunting head on at an appropriate time and I am trying to do that. That is why I am seeking leave to introduce a Bill to make the hunting of foxes with hounds illegal.

Fox hunting was memorably described by Oscar Wilde as,

"the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.".

Perhaps the hon. Member for Crawley (Mr. Soames), who is a prominent hunter, is the exception that proves the rule. He is certainly not unspeakable and, although a fox might be uneatable, the carcass of the hon. Member for Crawley would provide many a jolly banquet.

The great majority of people in Britain oppose fox hunting. It is not an issue of town versus country as it is often caricatured by supporters of fox hunting. In a 1987 Gallup poll based on a large sample, 68 per cent. of people canvassed said that they would support laws forbidding fox hunting. I might add that 73 per cent. of people supported the banning of stag hunting, which was the subject of another ten-minute Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn), and, in the same poll, 72 per cent. supported an end to hare coursing. None of those barbaric and cruel activities have been banned, precisely because of the

behind-the-scenes pull of the hunting lobby. It is significant in the House, but it is behind the scenes. I believe that on a free vote, the House would be able to end all such activities with a massive majority.

Column 1016

I remind the House that the Labour party promised to do just that in our 1987 election manifesto. Unfortunately, we lost the election ; we shall win the next one. This afternoon, I am not authorised to commit the Labour party to such a promise. I only wish that I were, but, knowing the opinions of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and the feelings in the Labour party, I feel quite certain that the same undertaking to end all forms of organised hunting with hounds will be repeated by the Labour party at the next general election. If only small furry creatures had the vote, Labour would never be out of office.

I confess that I do not understand the psychology of those who derive pleasure from hunting small terrified creatures to death. The hon. Member for Crawley, to whom I referred earlier, is an affable sort of fellow. I can not understand why affable fellows like him can do that sort of thing. There is a great gap in understanding.

Mr. Dave Nellist (Coventry, East) : He is a fool.

Mr. Banks : I would not describe the hon. Member for Crawley in such a disgraceful fashion. However, there is a gap between us which I cannot bridge.

The great Samuel Johnson wrote :

"It is very strange, and very melancholy, that the paucity of human pleasures should persuade us ever to call hunting one of them." People who go fox hunting actually say that they enjoy it.

Mrs. Edwina Currie (Derbyshire, South) : Mr. Johnson could never have got on a horse.

Mr. Banks : The hon. Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie) says that hunters enjoy riding horses. I can understand that. I enjoy that pleasure myself from time to time when I go donkey riding on the sands at Blackpool at party conference time. However, for the life of me I cannot understand how hunting small furry creatures adds to the pleasure of riding through the countryside on the back of a magnificent horse.

For hon. Members who do not know the details, fox hunting starts in November with hunts usually twice a week. Hunters tell us, and I hear this so often, that they are quite glad when the fox gets away. If that is the case, they still do a great deal to ensure that it does not get away. All the escape routes around the earth are blocked and that includes badger setts which brings us back to the point that I made at the beginning of my speech.

The hounds flush out a fox and the entire hideous circus which accompanies the fox hunt sets off in pursuit. The fox is not a natural prey species and it has therefore not evolved physically for prolonged pursuit. It naturally soon becomes exhausted. One small terrified animal is pursued by a pack of hounds plus a bunch of red-coated wallies on horseback and a column of ghouls in motor vehicles. That hardly seems like an even match to me. After an hour of so, not surprisingly the fox is exhausted and is either savaged to death by the hounds or, if it is very unlucky, upon finding an unblocked subterranean refuge, it falls victim to the terrier and spade brigade which follows every hunt.

Because fox hunters face a mounting barrage of opposition in the House and elsewhere, they know that they have no moral standing. There is a moral bankruptcy to their arguments. Therefore they are resorting to spurious arguments and cite conservation as a defence for their so-called sport. For example, we hear the accusation

Column 1017

made about foxes that they kill livestock and are pests. Many supporters of fox hunting make that claim. The fox is a carnivorous predator and a scavenger. That is precisely how nature made it. However, the great majority of foxes live largely on beetles, frogs, rabbits, wild birds and carrion and they are the biggest destroyers of rats and mice.

Although foxes do not constitute a pest, if they were pests surely far more efficient and humane methods would be available to trap or shoot them if that were necessary. Of the estimated 300,000 foxes killed each year, fox hunting accounts for about 7,500 adult foxes and cub hunting for a further 8,500. That is hardly a major contribution to fox control even if such controls were needed. All the attempts at rationalisation by the fox hunters will not hide the unpleasant fact that they are indulging in a primitive blood lust. That is what fox hunting is all about. It also causes much damage to the countryside and hunts are often resented by rural residents. So much for the town versus country argument.

William Cowper described fox hunting as :

"Detested sport,

That owes its pleasure to another's pain."

I believe that the days are now surely numbered for that detested sport. I seek the leave of the House to introduce my Bill in the certain knowledge that substantive legislation is not now far off. It is the turn of the fox hunters to be hunted and I suggest that they will not enjoy the experience.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Tony Banks, Mr. Michael Foot, Mr. Jeremy Corbyn, Ms. Dawn Primarolo, Mr. Elliot Morley, Mr. Andrew Bowden, Mr. Steve Norris, Ms. Diane Abbott, Mr. Peter Hardy, Mrs. Alice Mahon, Mr. Alan Meale and Mr. James Lamond.

Abolition of Fox-hunting

Mr. Tony Banks accordingly presented a Bill to make the hunting of foxes with hounds illegal ; and for connected purposes : And the same was read the First time ; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 20 July and to be printed. [Bill 188.]

Mr. Dave Nellist (Coventry, South-East) : On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Given that the Bill that my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) has introduced has received a unanimous First Reading and that not a single voice was raised in opposition to it, may we suspend the normal procedures and practice of the House and immediately proceed to Second Reading, Third Reading, and all stages to ensure that it is passed this afternoon?

Mr. Speaker : As far as I know, the Bill has not even been printed yet. The hon. Gentleman has had leave to bring it in.

Column 1018

Opposition Day

[19th Allotted Day]

Community Care

[Relevant reports of the Social Services Committee : second report, Session 1989-90, Community Care : Future funding of Private and Voluntary Residential Care (House of Commons Paper No. 257) ; third report, Session 1989-90, Community Care : Funding for local authorities (House of Commons Paper No. 277) ; fifth report, Session 1989-90, Community Care : Carers (House of Commons Paper No. 410) ; sixth report, Session 1989-90, Community Care : Choice for Service Users (House of Commons Paper No. 444) ; eighth report, Session 1989-90, Community Care : Planning and Co-operation (House of Commons Paper 580-I) and the Government's reply to the second report of Session 1989-90 (Cm. 1100).]

Mr. Speaker : I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister. In view of the late start, I appeal not only to Back-Bench Members, whom I hope will limit their contributions to 10 minutes, although I have no authority to impose that rule, but also to Front-Bench Members to have some consideration for those who are waiting to speak.

4.35 pm

Mr. Robin Cook (Livingston) : I beg to move,

That this House recalls the repeated assurances of the Secretary of State for Health that provisions to strengthen the local authority role in community care would take effect in April 1991 and that adequate resources would be transferred through the revenue support grant to support the new responsibilities of local authorities ; records its concern at the statement last week by the Leader of the House that implementation now depends on the availability of resources ; is aware of the desperate need of growing numbers of elderly and disabled people in the community for more help in their home and of the carers who look after them for more support ; notes that the solution adopted by Her Majesty's Government to meet the shortfall in Department of Social Security payments for claimants in private residential care depends on local authority contracts being in place next April ; and calls upon Her Majesty's Government to proceed with implementation of the full community care programme in April 1991 and to ensure adequate funding to enable local authorities to improve on the social service support for elderly and disabled citizens in the community.

I anticipate that some objection will be taken to the motion. It is now almost four years since the Audit Commission began the present chain of reform in community care, with a report that recommended to the House :

"If nothing changes the outlook is bleak."

At that time in 1986, fewer than 700,000 people in Britain were over 85. It is now more than two years since Sir Roy Griffiths presented to the Department of Health his report entitled "Community Care", with a sub-title that now reads rather ironically, "Agenda for Action". Sir Roy Griffiths recommended :

"Merely to tinker with the present system would not address the central issues."

It took Ministers in the Department of Health longer to respond to Sir Roy Griffiths's report than it took him to write it. Nevertheless, last autumn the Secretary of State

Column 1019

presented a White Paper to the House. In that White Paper the Secretary of State observed that progress on community care "has been slower than the Government would like."

Today, after his announcement to the House, we are left with the conclusion that progress is to be even slower than the Government promised. We have now to wait until April 1993 for the central changes that were recommended by Sir Roy Griffiths in 1988. By April 1993 almost 1 million people in Britain will be over 85. During the seven years that it has taken the Government to get their act together since the publication of the Audit Commission report, the number of people over 85 will have increased by more than one third. Every day of delay brings social service departments across Britain another 30 elderly people who need whole-body bathing. That is the urgency of the problem and the urgency of the human need that has to be measured against the timetable that was announced by the Secretary of State today.

It is only three weeks since the Secretary of State wrote to the coalition of community care campaigners on 25 June. The Secretary of State said :

"I am not at the moment convinced by the arguments made for delay."

Plainly a moment is a long time in politics. Is the Secretary of State really convinced by those arguments now? Should we perhaps send round Dominic Lawson to inquire into his private thoughts after lunch? If he is convinced, when was he convinced, and what was it that convinced him? The Secretary of State has told the House that he has been convinced by what he referred to in a reply to one of my hon. Friends as the problem of the poll tax, which, it would appear, we are to believe the Secretary of State has noticed only since 25 June.

The Secretary of State cannot get away with pretending--as he has pretended so far this afternoon--that the problem of the poll tax has been invented by the local authorities, as if they thought it up. The local authorities had the poll tax thought up for them by the Government. The Government imposed the poll tax on the local authorities. The Government chose the poll tax deliberately because they wanted to impose the most painful and unpopular tax that they could think up to stop local authorities spending money.

The problem with the poll tax is that if local authorities are stopped spending money, they are also stopped improving their local services. I predict that the Secretary of State for Health will be only the first of many Ministers who will have to come to the House and admit that the real price of the poll tax is worse public services.

In the light of the Secretary of State's statement, I must ask, whatever happened to local accountability? Whatever happened to the principle that the poll tax would enhance the accountability of local authorities to their electors, thus making it possible for the Government to take a more relaxed view of local authority expenditure?

Mr. Thomason, the chair of the Association of District Councils, has put a figure on the impact of the community care programme on the poll tax. He has priced it at £15 per poll tax payer. It seems perfectly rational and reasonable to ask local electors to choose whether they are prepared to pay an additional £15 a year so that the old people in their community can be properly looked after and so that

Column 1020

they themselves, when they are old, can be looked after properly. If local electors are prepared to make that choice, what possible logic is there in the Government saying that they will deny the electors the opportunity of making that choice?

There is a gaping hole in the logic that the Secretary of State advanced to the House this afternoon--that delay is necessary because of problems with the poll tax. Local authorities will have to add the cost of community care on to the poll tax only if they do not get the resources to pay for community care from central Government. The Secretary of State always denied that this would happen. In my 16 years as a Member of this House and in 11 years shadowing the Government, I have never been involved in debating an issue on which Ministers were so generous with their promises of resources. Only three weeks ago, when we were debating the Lords amendments, the Minister for Health assured the House :

"we have always said that adequate resources will be available".--[ Official Report, 27 June 1990 ; Vol. 175, c. 440.]

Indeed, she had said that--I am glad to receive her agreement on that point --as did Lord Henley and Baronness Hooper in another place. Indeed, so did the Secretary of State because his letter of 25 June continued :

"On the issue of resources, Virginia Bottomley and I have constantly reiterated our commitment to ensuring that resources will be adequate. I repeat that assurance now.

I hope this is reassuring."

It is perhaps unfortunate that the Secretary of State did not add to that sentence the phrase "for the moment" that he used earlier in the letter, and conclude, "I hope this is reassuring for the moment."

What happened after 25 June? What happened to render inoperable the assurance in the letter of 25 June and the assurance that the Minister gave the House on 27 June? It is not that the Government were suddenly struck by the problem of the poll tax and noticed that it was high in many local authority areas. No--the Department of Health had a meeting with the Treasury, and when the Treasury saw the size of the cheques that it was supposed to sign, it bounced the Secretary of State.

When we last debated the matter three weeks ago, it was in connection with the Lords amendment relating to ring-fencing the grants for community care. You will recall, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that our case for ring-fencing was that it would force Ministers out into the open. It would oblige them to come clean about how much or how little they were prepared to put on the table to pay for community care. If ever there was a case for ring-fencing, that case has been made by the shameful and shifty way in which those Ministers are now sliding out of the commitments that are only three weeks old. Against that landscape of speeches strewn with broken promises, we are now asked to believe that this roll of bounced cheques cannot find the resources to improve the provision of social services before the general election, but that once polling day is out of the way the Government will buckle down and find the resources. Anyone who is capable of falling for that one really forfeits his right to the franchise--

Mr. Peter Thurnham (Bolton, North-East) rose--

Mr. Frank Dobson (Holborn and St. Pancras) : Here he is.

Column 1021

Mr. Cook : Yes, indeed, here he is. I shall give way to the hon. Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnham) on this occasion, but I am conscious of the strictures of Mr. Speaker, so this must be the last time that I give way.

Mr. Thurnham : The hon. Gentleman keeps asking Ministers to come clean, so will he come clean and say how much a future Labour Government would put on the table? If there is a total of £24 billion-worth of unpaid voluntary care, will a Labour Government pick up the whole of that bill, half of it or a quarter? Will the hon. Gentleman now come clean and give us a figure?

Mr. Cook : No party could commit itself to replicating the £24 billion-worth of effort that is made by informal carers in our community. Indeed, I have not met a carer who has asked the Government to take over the entirety of the effort made by those informal carers. They have asked for a reasonable degree of support from the state for the efforts that they make. That £24 billion-worth of effort on their part is likely to fall through the floor unless we provide the respite care, training, help and relief that they need. That is what the hon. Gentleman's Government are proposing to postpone for two years.

Mr. Thurnham : That is no answer.

Mr. Tony Banks (Newham, North-West) : Yes, it is the answer.

Mr. Cook : What is now clear is that the Government never intended to transfer to the local authorities any resources other than the money that is at present spent by the Department of Social Security. The big problem with that is that the money now spent by the DSS is not adequate for it to do even the job that it purports to fulfil. The people who will not forget today's statement are those who will be reminded of it every month for the next two years when they receive a bill that they cannot pay for their residential private care. Many people will not be able to pay those bills even when they are stripped of the £10.05 that they receive for personal allowances ; and when, as a result of surrendering those personal allowances, people cannot buy toothpaste, postage stamps or a newspaper, they still will not be able to pay the bill for the home.

It is all the more remarkable that the Secretary of State has allowed himself to be convinced on this issue because this is the one issue on which the Government have been defeated since the last general election. That defeat in March forced Ministers to come up with a lifeline for those people in homes where the DSS charge does not meet the charge of the home. That lifeline is section 9 of the Social Security Act 1990. It received Royal Assent on Friday, but became a dead letter this Wednesday. That section enables the Department of Social Security from next April to track local authority contracts with private homes and thereby reflect the real charges in the real world. There will now be no local authority contracts next April. There will not be any until April 1993. However, April 1993 will be too late for the people who cannot pay their bills this month. The average length of residence in a nursing home is less than three years. Most of the residents who need support now will be dead before April 1993. It will be too late for the relatives who are seeing their savings disappear, because those savings will have vanished before April 1993. The average shortfall in meeting nursing home charges is currently £60 per week. By April 1993, that will mean an accumulated bill of

Column 1022

£7,000. April 1993 will also be too late for many proprietors, an increasing number of whom will solve the problem by clearing out the residents who are dependent on the DSS to pay the bill.

April 1993 will also be too late for many charities. This morning I received a letter from the Anchor housing association for the elderly which provides residential care for 1,300 elderly people. This year, Anchor has made a loss of over £500,000 as a result of the failure of the DSS to match what Anchor charges, even on its non-profit making basis. Anchor can bear that loss this year. It cannot bear that same loss in each of the next two years. It said to me :

"We will not force any residents on the DSS level to leave but we will have to ration the number of people without private means and paying only the DSS rate to say 50 per cent. of all new residents we house. As a charity this is a strategy of last resort but we may have no choice".

It is perverse that the House is making charities unable to afford to accept people supported by DSS payments, the poorest people in our community.

Today's statement makes a mockery of the vote that the hon. Member for Maidstone (Miss Widdecombe) and I forced in the House last March. We forced the Government to recognise the problem to which they are shutting their minds once again.

Miss Ann Widdecombe (Maidstone) : Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the solution given to us a few months ago was that there would be some immediate relief--which has been provided--and further reviews and that, in the light of the reforms, the Government would consider whether assessment procedures were adequate? Does he agree that the independent inquiry is absolutely necessary before we know which costs are reasonable? Does he accept that there is no doom and gloom in the statement today but only a responsible fulfilment of that promise?

Next Section

Home Page