Clause 34 - Appointment of independent consultees
Mental Capacity Bill
2:54 pm
Mrs Joan Humble (Blackpool North and Fleetwood, Labour)
I enter this discussion about advocacy to emphasise just how important I feel its role is. We have already heard some excellent contributions, so I will not repeat what others have said; I will only pick up a few key issues.
It is important that my hon. Friend the Minister revisits the recommendation of the Joint Committee. Time after time during that Committee's deliberations we heard individuals state the importance of advocacy services to the whole Bill, not just a particular part of it. I support colleagues who tabled the amendments because I am concerned that the role of the independent consultee as framed in the Bill is extremely narrow, which is not what the many organisations that have been lobbying for many years about this legislation told us is needed. Why independent consultees? Where did the idea come
from? The Joint Committee was quite clear in supporting the call for independent advocacy; we were not looking at the narrowly focused role for independent consultees that my hon. Friend regards as the one that they should perform under the legislation. Because that role is so narrowly focused, I fear that people will miss out on opportunities that should be there for them under the Bill.
Like other hon. Members, I think that terminology is important. We have already had confusion about differences between court-appointed deputies and people with a lasting power of attorney, and now we have confusion between consultees and advocates. There has to be some simplicity to the process so that the people we are trying to help—people who lack mental capacity, or who have variable capacity, and their friends and relatives—have a much clearer idea of who is there to help them. The more people with more titles doing slightly different jobs there are, the more confusing it is for those we are trying to help.
People like me, who have supported advocacy services for many years, have laboured long and hard to assure people that advocates are not lawyers or people who represent individuals as lawyers do—describing what is best for them. They are the voice of the individual. Other organisations, especially those that represent people with disabilities, have worked hard to draw attention to what advocacy services do. The point at which we start to win the argument it seems to be the wrong time to begin talking about consultees and to introduce yet another term into the subject area.
It is clear from the remarks of many hon. Members that advocacy services around the country are variable. I worry that the Government assume that advocacy services will be available for people who need them. First, some parts of the country do not have advocacy services. Secondly, there are services in some parts of the country that not many people would want to use. Thirdly, if we introduce independent consultees, there is a threat that existing advocacy services could disappear. Many exist on precarious funding. As I have often said, I am the president of Blackpool advocacy services. At our AGM on Friday, the chief executive had to report that an excellent citizens advocacy service that we had run for three years had reached the end of its funding stream. She spends all her time trying to obtain more funding for the excellent services that are being provided. Existing advocacy services have no security.
This Bill is our opportunity to look at the larger picture. We can think about a national framework and what we mean by advocacy services, building on the proposals in the excellent ''Valuing People'' White Paper, which emphasised the need for advocacy services and made money available for them. We should take the opportunity to define terms such as ''advocacy'' and define basic standards. What standards should people be able to expect, wherever they live? People in my constituency are fortunate—I would say that, wouldn't I? Blackpool advocacy services provide some very good services and we
receive excellent feedback. People come to us saying ''More, more, more.'' The Bill will result in more, more, more—but I do not know where we shall find the resources.