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Mr. Forth: Let me give my hon. Friend a surprising example to reinforce his point. It is even possible that company stocks and shares may be of sentimental value. When I inherited a modest share portfolio, I decided to keep one or two shares that had been very good for my mother over a period of time. Therefore, I had a peculiarly sentimental attachment to them. Even something as apparently banal or financial as a share could in some circumstances come under the definition to which my hon. Friend refers.
Mr. Luff: Strangely, I agree with my right hon. Friend. If I were to be placed in the position covered by the Bill, there are two groups of shares that I hold that I would not want to be disposed of on my behalf by a hospital manager or anyone else. They include shares in the Severn Valley Railway, of which I am a vice-president and shares in another company which were bought by my mother on the advice of a travelling salesman. They were a disastrous investment as they collapsed in value and any manager might well consider disposing of them on my behalf, but I would be sorry if they were sold. I shall not name the company as that would be invidious, but my right hon. Friend makes a genuine point. The strangest
items can have sentimental value. They are not limited to paintings, keepsakes, souvenirs and books; even financial instruments can have such an attachment.
I am particularly concerned to know what rights the relatives of a patient have to disagree with any expenditure on behalf of that patient. A number of us will have had difficult constituency cases involving mentally incapacitated adults. Watching families, close relations or, in one case the fiance of a patient shows that it is a difficult and painful process. It is crucial that when a manager spends money to benefit a patient, the family has some rights to challenge that expenditure.
On 12 March, the Bill had a long Second Reading. A cynic might say that that had something to do with legislation that should have been considered after the Bill--such as the important Bus Fuel Duty (Exemptions) Bill, promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for West Derbyshire (Mr. McLoughlin). Nevertheless, the Second Reading debate was a good one. However, one sentence in the Minister's reply to the debate caught my eye and worried me, which is partly why I believe that the safeguards proposed in this group of amendments are so important. The Minister said:
Mr. Luff:
That is the safeguard that we are being offered by the Minister, but it is a sledgehammer to crack a nut. The approach suggested by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst offers a much better way of dealing with the problems. We are often talking about quite small sums and I am loathe to hand to lawyers the "benefit" of a dispute on issues that are often tragic and personal, involving painful and difficult decisions. We could find less painful dispute-resolution procedures than those offered by the Minister in his reply, which greatly concerned me.
The Minister also gave some assurances on safeguards to the House. Although ministerial assurances are always welcome, I much prefer statements to be made in a Bill--which is what this group of amendments would do. Warm words uttered at the Dispatch Box are always worth having and Ministers can generally be held to account for the promises that they make, but the Minister said:
The Minister gave a further assurance. He said:
Those are my primary arguments on this group of amendments. However, I had some reservations about amendment No. 1, which, in its final subsection, states:
Mr. Forth:
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Luff:
I am spoilt by this embarrassment of riches. As I have heard a great deal today from my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst, I shall first take the intervention of my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean).
Mr. Maclean:
I accept that the terminology "any person" seems wide-ranging, but to try to define the individual categories of person who may have an interest--whether relatives, friends or a curator bonis, who is mentioned in the amendment--could lead to a very long list and would inevitably, in some peculiar circumstances, exclude people who are relevant. I therefore felt it better to use the terminology "any person", trusting that those who did not enter that category would have the discipline and the sense not to interfere in the affairs of someone else and behave like a busybody. In any case, the commissioner or medical officer would have the final say on whether and how to proceed.
Mr. Luff:
Does my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst wish to add to that intervention, so that I can deal with both points at the same time?
Mr. Forth:
My hon. Friend is extraordinarily generous in giving way. I wish to take up the other point, just to show how inseparable my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean) and I are on
Mr. Luff:
I understand the import of the amendment. Without wishing to appear invidious, I am no more persuaded by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst than I am by my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border. I apologise for that. I am satisfied on the "at any time" provision, but "any person" still seems very wide ranging, given the nature of the disputes that often arise and the question of incapacitated people. That is a matter of concern to me.
I accept that the amendment is important, as it stops a hospital being locked into administering the funds in perpetuity. That seems to be a good thing. If the Minister is comfortable with the words "any person", I hope that the amendment will be acceptable to him and to the hon. Member for Paisley, North, who is in charge of the Bill.
Mr. Swayne:
I am not persuaded by the force of the arguments in favour of the amendment. The Bill tackles a clear-cut problem in anticipation of a wider reform that will attend to difficulties that go beyond its scope. [Interruption.] I hear my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) tut-tutting because of my lack of experience of how long situations may persist when it was anticipated that they would be remedied rather sooner. However, the force of that argument is undermined by the fact that the remedies that he seeks to include in the Bill will affect only people whose assets continue to be administered in that way after they have left the hospital to go into community care. Those obligations, and that way of operating, are not imposed on people whose funds will continue to be administered by the hospital because they have remained in the hospital.
"anyone who deals with a person's funds has an obligation to account for his actions. If he is negligent, that can be remedied under common law."--[Official Report, 12 March 1999; Vol. 327, c. 646.]
Mr. Forth:
Oh, no.
"Several hon. Members made the point that we need to ensure that reasonable and proper safeguards are in place . . . The hospital manager will retain responsibility for the funds . . . There will need to be close co-operation between the new carer in the community and the hospital manager. I anticipate that the procedures, which will be put in place when the Bill becomes law, will enable the new carer to apply to the hospital manager for the release of funds, as the occasion arises, to be spent in the most appropriate way for the person's benefit."
The Minister said
"I anticipate that the procedures . . . will be put in place".
We can anticipate many things, but I should much prefer clear-cut legal procedures to be in place, rather than a Minister's anticipation of procedures. We all know that, in English affairs--I cannot speak with the same authority on Scottish affairs--relationships between health services and social services are often, to say the least, tense. Often, the barrier between the two services leads to the most unwelcome disputes in how an individual's affairs are
handled. I am, therefore, concerned to think that the Minister merely anticipates that the two bodies will be able to agree matters between them in a friendly way.
"I undertake to ensure that further guidance is issued to those who will be required to operate the new provisions. The guidance will set out, for example, how money should be requested from hospital managers, and how hospital managers should consider such requests."--[Official Report, 12 March 1999; Vol. 327, c. 650.]
I do not know whether the Minister will be able to say, in his reply to this group of amendments, that that guidance has become available. As I said, I hope that at least some of the amendments and new clauses in this group will commend themselves, so that the existence of such guidance will not be so important. However, if the Government or the hon. Member for Paisley, North do not intend to accept any of these amendments, the guidance would become very important and it would be good to know what progress has been made in developing it since the Minister gave that assurance to the House on 12 March.
"Any person may at any time request that the patient's ability to manage and administer his property and affairs be reviewed by the medical officer in charge of the case."
"Any person" "at any time" seems to be an extraordinarily wide-ranging provision, and I should like to know from my right hon. Friends who tabled the amendment why it proposes such a provision.
12.45 pm
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