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12.57 am
Dr. Lynne Jones: Like other hon. Members, I want to go home, so I shall try to be as brief as possible. On Second Reading, I expressed reservations about whether the Bill would achieve the Government's intentions in regard to pension reform. I hoped that improvements would be made through scrutiny in the House. I remain worried about the Government's pensions policy and whether it will stand the test of time.
We wanted to reduce means testing, but there will be more means testing of pensioners. At best, the Bill will reduce the amount of means testing that would have occurred without the provisions. I suppose that that is at least an improvement.
Although they have not yet taken the opportunity to do so, there is still a chance for the Government to relent and improve the level of the basic state pension, and prove that we want it to be the foundation of the pensions system in this country.
The Government also want to improve take-up and encourage more people to make private provision. On Second Reading, I said that the growth in private provision had been underpinned by the basic state pension and SERPS. Unfortunately, when I re-read my speech today, I realised that Hansard had reported "undermined" rather than "underpinned". I now have an opportunity to put that right.
Many pensions commentators doubt whether there will be more private pension provision as a result of the measures. The state second pension is horrendously complicated. It has three different rates of accrual. I hope that the Government achieve their aim of informing all pensioners and people who contribute to the schemes about the exact pension that they are likely to receive when they retire. I wish them luck with that. It will be difficult, but if people do not understand the sort of schemes to which they contribute, it is doubtful whether the provisions will stand the test of time.
Mr. Leigh:
In summary, I oppose the Bill because its Child Support Agency provisions are too inflexible and its pension provisions undermine the contributory principle.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed, with amendments.
Motion made and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 119(9) (European Standing Committees,
Ordered,
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst):
With permission, I shall put together the motions relating to Committees.
Ordered,
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.--[Mr. McNulty.]
Mr. Tony McWalter (Hemel Hempstead):
The debate, which is about the treatment of the elderly in residential homes, concerns how we should safeguard the human rights of the elderly. Those of us born in England might well be tempted to think of old age as Shakespeare thought of it. In "As You Like It", Jaques, famously, makes the seven ages speech, which starts with the infant "mewling and puking"--like many Members of the House, perhaps--and ends with the seventh age:
Although in the past old persons were thought to lose their marbles, we now know that certain illnesses make us lose mental capacity, and the majority of the population do not have the disposition to get those illnesses. Shakespeare may have been right about the seventh age in his day, though even then the speech was directed inappropriately, but in our planning for the care of the elderly we think much more in terms of how to facilitate an active and sociable life, which is what we ought to do.
Today's newspapers feature 93-year-old Jim Dowd, who works for Sainsbury's, helping to collect trolleys and keep them available for customers. While his life style might not be typical, he provides a clear example of how important it is that ageist attitudes do not deny our fellow human beings who have aspirations the possibility of realising them. It might have been less poetic for Shakespeare to say that, for most people, old age brings a capacity actively to continue to enjoy life, albeit at a slower pace, but it would have been more truthful.
I chose the treatment of the elderly in residential homes as my topic because of my disquiet at how elderly persons are being treated at such a home in my constituency. There are in my area manifestations of what I can call the Shakespearean attitude to the elderly and I want to enlist the Government's help to combat them. Gadebury residential home is owned by Hertfordshire county council. Following privatisation by the Conservative council in 1993, the contract for care for 31 such homes was awarded to an organisation called Quantum Care.
Quantum proceeded to refurbish 29 homes, but two, including Gadebury, were left to go downhill for five years. Then, Quantum announced that it would "cost a fortune" to do up the two homes. At the end of January, Hertfordshire county council announced that Gadebury would be closed in July 2000. Since then, there has been an exodus of staff and residents, and the decision is now irreversible.
I am aware of the Government's determination to ensure that our elderly population are treated with more respect than they have been hitherto. The case of Gadebury echoes the treatment of council house tenants in what many of us who grew up in such houses regard as the bad old days. Council house tenants used to be strongly reminded that they were merely tenants, and that their hold on their homes was provisional. When their families had grown up, they could be relocated to a smaller dwelling, even though that meant selling the furniture, not being allowed to have a pet, having insufficient space for grandchildren to visit, and losing the garden and facilities that many of them had worked hard all their lives to build up.
We rightly decided that such a system was unjust. Under-occupancy of a council house may make housing managers lose sleep, but the first imperative of housing management is to recognise the right of good citizens who pay their bills to continued enjoyment of their home.
That change in managerial style was welcome, but it has not been extended to the elderly. I did not encounter one person in Gadebury who wanted to be relocated. Furthermore, there was a strong ethos at Gadebury, which conformed to many of the Government's ideas on care for the elderly. The home was primarily residential, but if residents needed nursing care it could be provided without an enforced move. One floor of the home tended to be for those who were frailer than the others, and whose need for nursing care was more pronounced. At Gadebury, those employed by the health service, the care agency and the county's social services team worked closely together. The Berlin wall that was described so ably by the previous Secretary of State for Health, my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson), had been broken down sufficiently for quarrels about funding and resources to be minimised.
I am happy to commend Hertfordshire county council and the West Hertfordshire health authority for the way in which they have jointly delivered on co-operative programmes of care--in some cases well in advance of governmental initiatives. It is clear that such arrangements are fragile if the threat of closure hangs over a place where such good practice is achieved.
Why was Gadebury served with a notice of closure? The crucial point is that, in the deal that Hertfordshire county council made when it privatised care, there was never any commitment to keep it open, even though it was only built in the late 1960s. Such privatisations often have unacceptable secret clauses and undisclosed understandings. The announcement of closure at Gadebury came as a complete shock to staff and residents at the home, but county council officers had known for more than five years that the plan was to close it. Such secrecy cannot be right. It undermines confidence in any other assurances that council officers may make. The elderly and their relatives and carers were still accepting places at the home in late 1999, even though those responsible for the home knew that it was destined for the chop.
After Gadebury had been neglected for five years, some running repairs that could have been phased over time had built up, and some said that the building needed rewiring and a new heating system. Work on such replacement systems is usually phased, but when there is an
undisclosed determination to close a building dating back years, the phased improvement in such systems is not undertaken.
Why did Hertfordshire county council and Quantum Care decide not to invest in Gadebury, especially as it offered a high standard of care that was, in some ways, a model? I am forced to the sad view that it was because the site, which is close to the town centre, is worth a fortune and the county council wanted to asset strip once the initial furore about privatisation of care had quietened down.
The high price of land in Hemel Hempstead brings about many difficulties. As an example, I cite the 65 persons who have used a temporary homelessness provision supplied by local churches over three months around Christmas. That period is now over, and there is now no provision for the homeless in Hemel Hempstead.
With the closure of Gadebury, residents of the home on public land close to the town centre will be cleared and the land asset disposed of. If Hertfordshire county council's first obligation is to ensure that public assets address public needs, its first duty should be to inform itself of the needs that the land asset may be used to address.
I have given what I believe to be the main reason why Hertfordshire county council has connived at a policy that has caused real distress to my constituents. There is, however, a particularly disturbing dimension to the argument. Certain county councillors say that the Gadebury home is to be closed because the Government have produced guidelines, in a paper entitled "Fit for the Future?", that necessitate closure. Gadebury does not afford its residents rooms that measure 10 sq m, and that is what the paper enjoins.
I know that my hon. Friend the Minister will confirm that "Fit for the Future?" is not law, and, indeed, that those who inspect existing homes in future will consider the overall standard of care that such homes provide. If Gadebury did not have rooms measuring 10 sq m per resident, it did have the most precious attribute that any such home can have: it was regarded by those who lived there as a home, and it was organised in such a way that it could be a home for most residents for life, however frail they might become.
The home had a joyful atmosphere, and if the facilities were not the most modern, they were sufficient to produce a quality of life to which, in new legislation, we aspire. I hope that my hon. Friend will confirm that, whatever changes the Government make, when inspectors see good-quality provision of the sort that Gadebury had, their brief will be not to close such homes, but to commend them.
I have four concerns. First, the Government are rightly worried about the standards in care homes; indeed, they are the subject of a Bill being considered in another place. However, the biggest issue for residents in such homes, when they are enjoying their place of abode, is the feeling of security engendered by their belief that they will be able to continue to live there. When a home is well organised and staffed in a friendly way, and when it has the capacity to cope with those who become progressively more frail--that applied to Gadebury--residents believe, very reasonably, that they will probably be able to end their days there. The secretive actions of Hertfordshire county council and Quantum Care violated the reasonable expectations of the Gadebury residents.
Summary decisions of that sort, made with no reference to the views of residents, their families and their carers and with no reference to those working in such homes, constitute a violation of the rights of such persons. I ask the Government to ensure that, in future, residents in homes throughout the country will not be subjected to circumstances in which they feel vulnerable to decisions summarily to close such homes.
Secondly, Hertfordshire county council has decided to dispose of an asset that is of considerable value, but could also be used for a variety of socially beneficial purposes, whether for the establishment of new extended care provision for the elderly--in which Hertfordshire is a pioneer--or for other purposes. I am thinking of, for instance, people who are homeless, mentally frail, or both.
I should like the Minister to see such disposal as akin to selling off a school playing field. Such sites are being transmuted from being community resources to being simply private assets. Perhaps the Minister could consider whether he should have the power to call in such asset disposals above a certain value. That is particularly an issue when there is not a unitary local authority. Socially beneficial projects that the borough council might have in mind are not considered by the county council, which has a more focused brief.
Thirdly, Hertfordshire county council's decision was based on the grinding of a political axe. Members were given a figure for the refurbishment of Gadebury which included a large sum relating to compliance with new Government regulations, as articulated in "Fit for the Future?". In doing that, the county council has tried to transfer responsibility for closure to central Government. I ask the Minister to confirm that, as he has said in the past, the remit of the National Care Standards Commission will not be to close homes that work well, even if their rooms are not spacious, and that the commission will have regard to the general level of amenities in and about the environs of a home when it makes a judgment about whether care should continue to be given at such a place.
Fourthly, I ask that consideration be given to the grief caused by the break-up of friendships, the distress caused by unnecessary discontinuities in caring provision, and the bewilderment caused to elderly people when they have to go through an unnecessary uprooting.
As we have yet to act on the Sutherland report, many such elderly people have lost their savings, the family home and their access to friendly neighbours. When government or other agencies consider the closure of a home, they should recognise that they are dealing with persons who have already endured trauma. Although sometimes the closure of a home cannot be avoided--there is such a home not far from Gadebury, but it is not the subject of this debate, as it is falling down and its closure is necessary--I hope that the Government will exercise strongly their powers to prevent unnecessary home closures.
In a recent Adjournment debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) said that local authorities should act like the Official Receiver in the case of home closures, so that there is a back-stop to prevent unnecessary distress of the type that famously caused eight deaths within a fortnight because of a relocation to Barnet.
That this House takes note of European Union Document No. 12992/99, a draft Council Regulation on the reform of the flax and hemp support regime; and supports the Government's aim of promoting reform of this sector, whilst ensuring that the changes to the regime do not prejudice the future viability of the UK industry.--[Mr. McNulty.]
Question agreed to.
That--
(1) the matter of the state of Northern Ireland agriculture, being a matter relating exclusively to Northern Ireland, be referred to the Northern Ireland Grand Committee;
(2) the Committee shall meet at Westminster on Thursday 13th April at 2.30 p.m.; and
(3) at that meeting--
(a) the Committee shall take questions for oral answer; and shall then consider the matter of the state of Northern Ireland agriculture, referred to it under paragraph (1) above;
(b) the Chairman shall interrupt proceedings at 5 p.m.; and
(c) at the conclusion of those proceedings a motion for the adjournment of the Committee may be moved by a Minister of the Crown pursuant to Standing Order No. 116(5) (Northern Ireland Grand Committee (sittings)).--[Mr. McNulty.]
That Ms Fiona Jones be discharged from the Agriculture Committee and Dr. George Turner be added to the Committee.
That Mr. Tony McWalter be discharged from the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee and Mr. Colin Burgon be added to the Committee.--[Mr. Clive Betts, on behalf of the Committee of Selection.]
3 Apr 2000 : Column 783
1.1 am
Last scene of all,
Despite its powerful hold on our cultural consciousness, Shakespeare's seventh age is not true to old age for most elderly people: it is not simply that, in modern times, dentistry has made it possible to keep one's teeth, but that modern medicine extends the prospect of full and joyful old age, with those of advanced years keeping active, sociable and intellectually lively until severe illness or accident takes them to the destination that we all share.
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness, and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
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