Clause 32 - Consulting carers etc
Mental Capacity Bill
9:45 am
Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge and Chryston, Labour)
I rise to speak in favour of amendments Nos. 181 and 182, which are probing amendments tabled to enable my hon. Friend the Minister of State to set out in more detail the Government's thinking on the appropriate safeguards to protect incapacitated people from exploitation.
I am concerned, in amendment No. 181, about a court-appointed deputy deciding whether an incapacitated person should take part in research that does not directly benefit P unless the court has conferred on the deputy express authority to that effect. I would welcome comment from my hon. Friend the Minister as to when she thinks it might be
appropriate for a deputy to make a decision about research on P's behalf, and whether she thinks that such an occurrence might be common.
Amendment No. 182 deals with my concern about clause 32(7). It is worth noting that the title of that clause is ''Consulting carers etc'', yet subsection (7) gives researchers the right to ignore what carers say are P's wishes and feelings—that P does not want to take part in research—and go to the Court of Protection to obtain permission anyway. That requires an explanation.
Given the absolute need to err firmly on the side of caution, if the researcher knows that P is unlikely to want to take part in research, my gut feeling is that that should be the end of it. I would welcome hearing what my hon. Friend thinks about this, and in particular whether she thinks it likely that a researcher would go to the Court of Protection to get permission to undertake research on P if that researcher knew, as far as possible, that neither P nor P's family would like to take part in that research. That is an extremely important question.
I would like my hon. Friend to give us the benefit of her thinking on these probing amendments.