Joint Committee On Human Rights

Joint Committee On Human Rights Eighth Report

Bill drawn to the special attention of both Houses

1 Health and Social Care Bill

Date introduced to first House

Date introduced to second House

Current Bill Number

Previous Reports

15 November 2007

HC Bill 9

None

Background

1.1 This is a Government Bill first introduced in the House of Commons on 15 November 2007. The Government has made a compatibility statement under s.19(1)(a) of the Human Rights Act 1998. The Explanatory Notes accompanying the Bill explain that the Government considers that the Bill engages a number of Convention rights, but that all of the Bill's provisions are compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).[1] The Bill was considered in a Public Bill Committee from 8 to 24 January 2008 and is now awaiting Report stage in the House of Commons.

1.2 This is an important Government Bill containing many provisions with very significant human rights implications. The Minister wrote to us on 26 November 2007 to explain further the Government's views on the compatibility of the Bill with the UK's human rights obligations. We wrote to the Minister on 6 December 2007 asking a number of questions on the following matters, which we considered raised significant human rights issues:

Whether the provisions for registration, cancellation and modification of registration by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) are compatible with the right to a fair hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, as guaranteed by Article 6 ECHR;
Whether the provisions for the inspection of regulated activities by CQC, including rights of entry and seizure, comply with the right to respect for private life and the right to the peaceful enjoyment of possessions (as guaranteed by Article 8 ECHR and Article 1, Protocol 1 ECHR);
Whether the provisions in the Bill which provide for the assumption of Mental Health Act responsibilities by the CQC and the Welsh Ministers are compatible with the rights of patients and providers under the Convention, including the right to respect for private life, as guaranteed by Article 8 ECHR;
Whether the regulatory powers which will be exercised by the Office of the Health Professions Adjudicator (OPHA) in respect of fitness to practice, will be compatible with the right to a fair hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal guaranteed by Article 6 ECHR;
Whether information sharing powers in the Bill, including the power to impose a general duty requiring certain bodies to "co-operate" with one another, including sharing information, in relation to the conduct and performance of health care workers, is compatible with the right to respect for personal information, as guaranteed by Article 8 ECHR;
Whether the provisions in the Bill which relate to public health protection, and particularly in relation to compulsory quarantine, isolation, medical examination and other compulsory powers in relation to public health investigations comply with the right to liberty and the right to respect for private life, including in respect of physical integrity, as guaranteed by Articles 5 and 8 ECHR; and
Whether the Bill should be amended to ensure that the duty to comply with Convention rights in section 6 of the Human Rights Act (HRA) should apply to private providers of social care, and if so, in what circumstances;

1.3 The Minister for Health Services, Ben Bradshaw MP, responded on 7 January. We are publishing our correspondence with the Government about this Bill as appendices to this Report.[2]

1.4 We are grateful to our Specialist Adviser, Frances Butler, for assisting us with this Report.

Purpose of Report

1.5 We aim to report on Government bills raising significant human rights issues in time for Report stage in the first House if possible and, failing that, in time for Second Reading in the second House. We have not been able to complete our analysis of the detailed provisions of the Health and Social Care Bill before Commons Report stage, but we are in a position to report to Parliament on amendments which could be made to the Bill to implement recommendations we made in our recent Report on the human rights of older people in healthcare.[3] This Report sets out those amendments, including a new clause which the Committee wishes to see added to the Bill in order to ensure that private sector care homes (encompassing commercial and not-for-profit providers) which accommodate people whose places are publicly funded are brought within the scope of the Human Rights Act.

Scope of the Human Rights Act: private sector care homes

1.6 In March 2007 we published a Report on the meaning of the term 'public authority' in section 6 of the Human Rights Act, which followed up a Report on the same subject by our predecessors, published in 2004.[4] Section 6 of the Human Rights Act requires public authorities to act in a way which is compatible with the Convention rights set out in the Schedule to the Act. The definition of the term 'public authority' includes:[5]

any person certain of whose functions are functions of a public nature.

What constitutes a 'function of a public nature' is not further defined in the Human Rights Act, but when the issue was discussed during the passage through Parliament of the Human Rights Bill, it was clearly understood that this provision was intended to cover private sector providers of publicly-funded services - public services which had been contracted out to the private sector, for example.[6]

1.7 A series of court cases, culminating in the judgment by the Law Lords in the YL v. Birmingham City Council and others case in June 2007, has subsequently narrowed what was understood to be the scope of the Human Rights Act, particularly in relation to care homes. The YL case concerned the eviction from a private sector care home of a woman whose care was paid for by Birmingham City Council. By a majority of 3 to 2 the Law Lords ruled that the person concerned could not bring an action against the care home under the Human Rights Act, in relation to the infringement of her rights under Article 8 ECHR (right to respect for her private life and home): her claim lay solely against the local authority which funded her care.[7]

1.8 In our March 2007 Report, which was published before the final judgment in YL, we concluded that, in the light of the narrow interpretation of 'public authority' by the courts and the pressing need for a solution, there is a strong case for a separate, supplementary and interpretative statute, specifically directed to clarifying the interpretation of 'functions of a public nature' in s. 6(3)(b) HRA.[8] The outcome of the YL judgment has only served to reinforce our concerns and emphasise the need for the Government to act urgently to reinstate the original scope of the Human Rights Act, especially given that that the Government's strategy of seeking a positive judgment in a higher court has now failed to deliver the desired outcome.

1.9 Since the YL judgment, Ministers have expressed their agreement with our position that the current state of the law is unsatisfactory, particularly for elderly care home residents - a particularly vulnerable group which the Human Rights Act ought to protect. Most recently, the Minister for Health Services, Ben Bradshaw MP, said during the Committee stage of the Health and Social Care Bill, "I am happy to repeat the assurance that the Government have made it clear that they are committed to amending the Human Rights Act to ensure that all independent providers of publicly funded care homes are covered by it."[9]

1.10 Our Chair, Andrew Dismore MP, introduced a Private Members' Bill, the Human Rights Act 1998 (Meaning of Public Authority) Bill, which was intended to clarify the scope of the Human Rights Act. It sought to put onto the statute book our recommendation in our March 2007 Report, that the original intention behind the HRA be restored by clarifying the meaning of 'public function' in s. 6(3)(b). The Bill was not supported by the Government on Second Reading on 15 June 2007 (before the judgment in YL had been published), but the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Justice, Vera Baird MP, said that if the House of Lords did not overturn the Court of Appeal's narrow interpretation of 'public authority' in the forthcoming YL decision, it was the Government's intention to fill the gap in the protection offered by the Human Rights Act.[10] The Government, she said, was "committed to taking action this year" and "will work hard to ensure that the necessary consultation is undertaken with appropriate dispatch."[11]

1.11 We are disappointed that the Government did not honour this commitment to take action to fill the gap in the protection offered by the Human Rights Act in 2007, but now appears to have deferred taking such action. We are also dissatisfied that, instead of undertaking its proposed consultation "with appropriate despatch", as the Minister promised in June 2007, the Government now proposes to bring forward its consultation on this issue as part of its Green Paper on a possible British Bill of Rights and Responsibilities.[12]

1.12 Our preference remains for the scope of the Human Rights Act to be clarified by means of a separate Act dealing solely with the wider issue of the meaning of 'public authority'. This would have the benefit of dealing with the problem of scope across the board rather than on an inevitably piecemeal sectoral basis, so helping other vulnerable groups deprived of protection by the ruling, such as tenants of social housing, and statemented children whose special needs are met in independent school settings; ensuring that the law in this area is consistent throughout the UK; and bringing clarity to a complex area of law. We also remain of the view that this should be treated as an urgent priority, in view of the very large numbers of very vulnerable people whose human rights are currently inadequately protected. Although we acknowledge that there are difficult issues to be addressed, we are dissatisfied that the Government proposes to deal with the wider problem in the context of its consultation on a British Bill of Rights.

1.13 In our 2007 Report on the Meaning of Public Authority, although we made clear our preference for a general solution to the problem by clarifying the meaning of public function in the HRA, and our opposition to a sectoral solution,[13] we also accepted that an interim solution might become necessary if it looked as though there was no prospect of filling the gap at the level of the HRA. We recommended that, in the absence of a more general solution in the short term, "urgent consideration should be given to the amendment of existing statutes to identify clearly that the sectors most seriously affected by the narrow interpretation of 'public function' are subject to the application of the HRA. This should include an amendment to clarify that private care home providers providing care further to s26 National Assistance Act 1948 should be considered 'functional public authorities'".[14]

1.14 We feel strongly that this issue should be debated in Parliament during the passage of the Health and Social Care Bill. We are also of the view that an interim solution, applying the Human Rights Act to certain regulated health and social care providers in England in certain circumstances, would be better than the current position and could also provide a suitable model for the devolved governments to consider following, should they wish to do so. Such a move would not constitute an amendment or modification of the Human Rights Act but rather would provide clarification as to its scope, in accordance with Parliament's original intention when the Act was passed.

1.15 We note that during the Committee stage of the Bill an amendment was moved to the effect that any person providing health and social care within the meaning of the Bill is deemed to be a public authority in relation to the performance of those functions for the purpose of s. 6(3)(b) of the Human Rights Act.[15] This amendment had the support of the NGOs who intervened in the YL case[16] and of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. It was proposed on the basis that making all providers of health and social care public authorities for the purposes of the HRA would close the "legal loophole" opened up by the judicial decisions in YL and other cases and restore the protection that was originally intended by Parliament when it enacted the HRA.

1.16 We are sympathetic in principle to the substance of the amendment. The provision of health and social care is a function deemed sufficiently significant to be subjected to a stringent regulatory regime involving registration, supervision and inspection, and we agree in principle that this should be sufficient to attract the protection of the Human Rights Act. However, it is important to be clear that such an amendment could well go beyond what Parliament intended when it enacted the Human Rights Act. It would extend the protection of the HRA to self-funders, that is, individuals who are receiving health or social care from a private care home pursuant to a private contract between them rather than pursuant to a local authority's statutory duty or power to arrange such care. We agree that self-funders should be protected by the Human Rights Act, whether or not this was Parliament's intention at the time it passed the HRA. Parliament's intention was that the Act should apply to private entities providing services to publicly funded individuals who, before privatisation, would have received the service directly from a public provider. Extending the coverage of the HRA to self-funders therefore arguably represents an extension of the HRA rather than a restoration of its original scope.

1.17 In our view such an amendment should be debated in the context of a Bill either directly amending or seeking to clarify the meaning of the Human Rights Act itself, because it has serious implications for the scope of that Act outside the health and social care sector. We are also concerned that the adoption of a far-reaching amendment to encompass self-funders in the health and social care sector does little, and might give the impression that nothing further needs to be done, to fix the scope problem for other equally vulnerable groups in other sectors, including housing and education, who equally need the originally intended protection of the HRA to be restored in their particular sector.

1.18 We therefore propose, in the absence for the time being of a more general solution, a more limited amendment to the Health and Social Care Bill, designed to restore for this sector the original intention behind the HRA that, in essence, it should cover private sector providers of publicly funded services arranged pursuant to statutory powers. The new clause below seeks to achieve this:

Certain regulated activities to be functions of a public nature

To insert the following clause—

'A regulated activity under this Part shall be deemed to be a function of a public nature for the purposes of section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 (c. 42) where it is performed wholly or partly at public expense and pursuant to statutory powers.'.

1.19 We welcome the Government's intention to use the Bill to strengthen the regulatory powers available to the regulator, the Care Quality Commission, to inspect care providers against human rights standards. In our Report on older people in healthcare, we recommended that the care standards regulations should require care homes to respect residents' human rights. We look forward to seeing the Government's amendments to give effect to this intention, and we suggest our own amendment on this issue below.[17]

1.20 We are also of the view that the regulations governing the operation of health and social care providers - dealing with matters including the training of staff and the handling of complaints - should make reference to the rights of service users. Clause 16 of the Bill already requires such regulations to secure the "health, safety and welfare" of service users. We recommend that the human rights of users should also be central to the operation of health care and social care providers and we suggest amendments to the Bill, below, to achieve this:

Clause 16, Page 7, Line 28, leave out "may" and insert "shall".

Clause 16, Page 7, Line 32, after "safety" insert ", rights".

1.21 In our view these amendments to the powers and duties of the regulator should be made in addition to our main recommendation that the Bill be amended to restore the originally intended scope of the HRA. Achieving effective human rights protection requires a combination of different measures operating in different ways to make human rights considerations more central to the decision-making process where appropriate.

Scope of the Human Rights Act: wider concerns

1.22 The scope of the Human Rights Act is not only an issue in relation to private sector care homes: it has the potential to affect the provision of public services by private sector and voluntary organisations across the whole range of Government activity. We are currently investigating the implications of the YL judgment, if any, for registered social landlords in our scrutiny of the Housing and Regeneration Bill and for providers of social work services in our scrutiny of the Children and Young Persons Bill.

1.23 In addition, we wrote to the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice on 5 December 2007 for their views on the implications of YL for the provision of certain public services in their areas, and on the inter-relationship between contractual provisions and the Human Rights Act.[18] We received a reply on behalf of both departments from the Secretary of State for Justice, dated 21 January.[19] His view was that "all the non-governmental bodies that provide the services you mention [prisons, immigration detention facilities, secure training centres and prisoner transport] are functional public authorities for the purposes of the Human Rights Act". He went on to explain his view in the following terms:

These functions, and the statutory frameworks that govern them, are clearly different to the functions considered in YL v Birmingham City Council and others. In that case, the local authority was obliged to "make arrangements for providing" the residential accommodation in question. The provider of the accommodation exercised no statutory powers itself and (as Lords Scott and Neuberger observed) had no special or coercive powers over its residents.

1.24 We share the Government's view that private and voluntary sector providers of services in the criminal justice field, such as prisons and secure training centres, are functional public authorities for the purposes of the Human Rights Act. Nevertheless, this interpretation has not been tested by the courts following the YL judgment and the legal position will remain uncertain until a body of case law is developed. In our view, this is another strong argument for the Government to bring forward an interpretative statute dealing with section 6 of the Human Rights Act.

Implementing recommendations of the Older People in Healthcare Report

AMENDMENTS RELATING TO THE CARE QUALITY COMMISSION

Adoption of a human rights framework

1.25 We recommended that the proposed merged inspectorate for health, social care and mental health should adopt a human rights framework to underpin and inform the new inspectorate's work and make it more effective in fulfilling its statutory duties.[20] In its briefing paper on the Health and Social Care Bill, the Commission for Social Care and Inspection has echoed our view, stating that:[21]

The new regulator should take a strong rights based approach towards the people who use health and social care services. The new Commission should place the rights of the people who use services and their carers at the heart of its work and they should have clear rights of access to it. We would want to ensure that this approach is reflected throughout the legislation.

1.26 The Government's response to our recommendation, which we set out in full below, was deeply disappointing:[22]

The Department of Health will not be specifying the precise work programme of the new regulator, but will expect compliance with the Human Rights Act to form an important element of its work, as it has for the regulatory bodies it supersedes.

1.27 There are three problems with the Government's response to this recommendation. Firstly, putting the human rights of health and social care users at the heart of the work of the Care Quality Commission is not equivalent to "specifying the precise work programme" of the new regulator. Secondly, compliance with the Human Rights Act is a legal requirement, not simply something for the Government to "expect" to happen. Moreover, our concern is with ensuring that human rights influence the work of the new Commission across the board, and are not simply seen as a matter for 'tick box' compliance. Finally, in our Report we concluded that "the Healthcare Commission should not view the Human Rights Act as 'one of a large number of sets of regulations' to which it is subject" but instead "should regard the framework created by the Act as over-arching and fundamental to all its work".[23] We regret that the Department of Health has failed to address this point and has resorted to restating the current position, whereby the Human Rights Act is seen as just another statute applicable to public bodies, demanding compliance rather than wholesale culture change.

1.28 We propose that the following new clause should be added, and amendments made, to the Bill to ensure that the Care Quality Commission adopts a human rights based approach to its work.

Human rights framework for Commission

To insert the following clause—

'The protection and promotion of human rights shall be central to the performance of the functions of the Commission.'.

Clause 2, Page 2, Line 26, after second "the" insert "rights and".

Clause 42, Page 21, Line 2, after "quality" insert "including, without limitation, respect for the rights of any person"

Clause 90, Page 45, Line 12, at end insert—

'"rights" includes human rights under the Human Rights Act 1998 (c. 42).'

Functions of the Commission: information about human rights

1.29 We recommended that the Department of Health, the inspectorates, health care policy-makers and providers of health care services should ensure that accessible information on human rights, and how they can apply in healthcare settings, should be provided to patients, care home residents, relatives, carers and advocates, and the public as a whole.[24] We were particularly concerned to ensure that such information is presented in a manner appropriate to older people and we have a similar view in relation to adults with learning disabilities, following our recent inquiry into this issue.

1.30 The Government suggested that this would be an issue for the Care Quality Commission to monitor.[25] We were also told that the Government was commissioning a guide to the effects of the Human Rights Act on service users, entitled Promoting Dignity Within the Law, "aimed at staff working in health and social care, as well as service users themselves".[26] We have not yet had an opportunity to review this publication to assess whether it provides useful and appropriate information, in accessible formats, for both staff and service users.

1.31 Without clear and accessible information about how human rights relate to hospitals and care homes, service users may not be in a position to challenge the way in which they are treated or know how to go about seeking redress. Consequently, we propose the following amendment to the Care Quality Commission's functions to ensure that the provision of information about human rights is taken into account by the Commission.

Clause 2, Page 2, Line 16, at end insert—

'(da) the need to improve the range and quality of information provided by health care and social care services to users of those services about their rights;'

Functions of the Commission: complaints

1.32 We recommended that the new health and social care inspectorate should be empowered to investigate individual complaints, as the Healthcare Commission is currently able to do.[27] The Government resisted this recommendation, arguing that it was more appropriate for the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman or the Local Government Ombudsman to investigate complaints than the Care Quality Commission.[28] In their briefings on the Health and Social Care Bill, Help the Aged and Age Concern have pointed to what they consider to be shortcomings with the Ombudsmens' procedures for handling complaints and have proposed amendments which aim to provide for the Care Quality Commission to investigate individual complaints.[29]

1.33 We wish to recommend two distinct changes to the Health and Social Care Bill to deal with complaints. Firstly, we remain of the view that the Care Quality Commission should be capable of dealing with individual complaints, as we recommended in our report on older people in healthcare. A new clause, and an amendment, to achieve this is set out below:

Handling and consideration of complaints by the Care Quality Commission

To move the following clause:—

'(1) Where a complainant is not satisfied with the conduct or result of an investigation by a service provider regulated under Part 1, he may request the Care Quality Commission to consider the complaint in accordance with regulations made under this section.

(2) Before making regulations under this section, the Secretary of State must consult such persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.'.

Clause 150, Page 101, Line 37, at end insert—

"(e) regulations under section [Handling and consideration of complaints by the Care Quality Commission]".

1.34 In addition, we recommend that the new Commission should have a role in overseeing the adequacy of complaints procedures throughout the health and social care sectors. This would be in tune with the aim expressed by the Government in its reply to our Report on older people in healthcare that the process of making a complaint should be "easier, more user-friendly, more open and transparent, and much more responsive to people's needs".[30] We propose the following amendment to ensure that this aim is reflected in the factors influencing how the Commission exercises its functions.

Clause 2, Page 2, Line 11, at end insert—

"(ba) the extent to which complaints about the provision of health and social care by members of the public, in particular users of health and social care services, are adequately dealt with by the bodies it regulates,".

Functions of the Commission: advocacy

1.35 In our Report on older people in healthcare, we recommended that the Department of Health should provide sufficient independent advocacy services to older people, with particular priority being afforded to older people with mental health problems or those who are unable to communicate effectively in English. We suggested that such advocates should have an understanding of human rights principles and the positive duties of service providers towards older people.[31]

1.36 The Government said it shared our view of the important role advocacy could play in the relationship between older people and service providers as well as in safeguarding and promoting the human rights of older people. It pointed to enhanced funding in the Comprehensive Spending Review for the provision of advocacy and information services and to statutory arrangements in the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and the Mental Health Act 2007.[32]

1.37 We were pleased to note that the Government shares our view of the importance of advocacy for older people in healthcare, as well as in other contexts. The important role advocacy can play in supporting older people in healthcare would be reinforced by a statutory reference to advocacy as one of the factors the Care Quality Commission must take into account in undertaking its work. We propose the following amendment to the Health and Social Care Bill to achieve this aim.

Clause 2, Page 2, Line 11, at end insert—

"(bb) the availability and adequacy of advocacy services relating to the bodies it regulates,"

Standards of Health and Social Care

1.38 We recommended that the new health and social care inspectorate should apply one set of standards for health and social care in relation to issues engaging the human rights of service users. In particular, we called for:

care standards which expressly require compliance with human rights by all hospitals and care homes, and state that service users have the legal right to respect for, and protection of, their human rights;
all staff working in health care to receive targeted and regular training in human rights principles and positive duties, and how they apply to day-to-day work;
better information on human rights and the duties of service providers under the Human Rights Act, including avenues for making complaints, to be available in an accessible form when people are admitted to hospital or enter a care home;
all hospitals and care homes to have a policy requiring their staff to report abuse or suspected abuse, with protection for whistle-blowing and confidentiality;
the Delayed Discharge Regulations to be amended to provide for greater flexibility in applying the time period for discharge, in order to protect patients' rights under Article 8 ECHR (right to respect for private, family and home life).

1.39 The Government said that it expected human rights to be "an important feature" in the registration requirements for health care and social care providers and in the regulator's criteria for assessing compliance with those requirements. There would also be "appropriate requirements governing the reporting of suspected abuse".[33] The registration requirements for care providers are currently the subject of consultation and will be brought into force by means of secondary legislation. The Care Quality Commission "will devise the detailed criteria to judge compliance with registration requirements".[34]

1.40 We recommend the following amendments to the Bill in this area.

1.41 Firstly, we propose that the Secretary of State should be under an obligation to prepare and publish care standards, rather than have discretion in this area as is presently suggested.

Clause 41, Page 20, Line 5, leave out "may" and insert "shall".

1.42 Secondly, we recommend that such standards should relate to health and social care in their entirety.[35]

Clause 41, Page 20, Line 6, leave out "NHS" and insert "health care and social".

1.43 Thirdly, the Bill currently gives no indication of the content of any standards to be published by the Secretary of State. We propose the following new clause to provide an indicative list of matters which must be covered by health and social care standards.

Health and social care standards: content

To insert the following clause—

'(1) Standards set by the Secretary of State under section 41 shall—

(a) expressly state that all persons for whom health or social care services are provided are entitled to respect for their rights and that service providers (registered in accordance with Chapter 2) have a responsibility to respect such rights;

(b) require that service providers respect the rights of persons for whom health or social care services are provided;

(c) require that service providers provide their staff, whether employed directly or indirectly, with appropriate education and training in relation to respecting the rights of service users;

(d) require service providers to specify and publish the procedures for making a complaint by any person about a regulated activity;

(e) require service providers to put in place appropriate procedures for ensuring that any person who is aware of any failure to respect any other person's rights in relation to a regulated activity being conducted by that service provider to report such a failure to a designated person;

(f) require service providers to ensure that, where any person is being discharged from a health care service to a social care service regulated under this Part, the rights of such persons are fully respected; and

(g) require service providers to disseminate the standards set under this Part which are applicable to them to users of their services.

(2) The Secretary of State may prepare and publish statements of standards in relation to the provision of health care and social care dealing with matters other than those listed in subsection (1).

(3) In this section, a "designated person" is a person designated by a provider of health or social care services to receive and resolve complaints. '.

QUALIFICATIONS OF HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE PROFESSIONALS

1.44 We recommended that a "basic understanding of how the Human Rights Act requires the protection of basic principles such as dignity, fairness, respect and equality be included in qualifications, accreditation and re-licensing of health professionals".[36] The Government replied that "the regulatory bodies responsible for the basic education curricula and codes of professional ethics should consider how best to ensure an understanding of the healthcare professional's responsibilities in this area" but implicitly rejected taking a statutory approach.[37]

1.45 One means of putting our recommendation into effect would be to insert references to this issue into the relevant sections and Schedules in Part 2 of the Health and Social Care Bill, which relate to the new Office of the Health Professions Adjudicator, the Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence and the education and training of mental health professionals. Our recommendation could also be usefully extended to social care workers, under clause 114 and schedule 9. We set out our proposed amendments below.

Clause 105, Page 51, Line 34, after "safety," insert "rights".

Clause 116, Page 63, Line 6, at end insert—

'(1A) The appropriate Minister shall by regulations make provision in relation to awareness of, and training in, human rights in accordance with this section.'.

Clause 118, Page 63, Line 37, at end insert—

'"rights" include human rights under the Human Rights Act 1998;'.

Schedule 6, Page 130, Line 24, at end insert—

'(3A) The OHPA shall have regard to the desirability of improving the awareness of, and training in, human rights of its members.'.

Schedule 9, Page 154, Line 10, at end insert—

'(ea) awareness of, and training in, human rights;'

1 HL Bill 16-EN, paragraphs 570-588. Back

2 Appendices 1 to 3. Back

3 Eighteenth Report, Session 2006-07, The Human Rights of Older People in Healthcare, HL Paper 156-I, HC 378-I (hereafter OPH Report). Back

4 Seventh Report, Session 2003-04, The Meaning of Public Authority under the Human Rights Act, HL Paper 39, HC 382 and Ninth Report, Session 2006-07, The Meaning of Public Authority under the Human Rights Act, HL Paper 77, HC 410 (hereafter 06-07 MPA Report). Back

5 Section 6(3)(b). Back

6 06-07 MPA Report, paragraph 2. Back