Clause 2
Health and Social Care Bill
11:30 am
Stephen O'Brien (Shadow Minister, Health; Eddisbury, Conservative)
I am rather interested in the angle that the Minister has taken, because although he has decided that he does not want to accept the amendment, which I think he detects has a bit of broad support, he declared himself not wholly unsympathetic to the sentiment behind it, although he may think that it does not need the advocacy aspect.
Where is the underpinning of advocacy? We have touched on that in our discussion about independence. All Committee members remember that well in respect of the community health councils. I am sorry to pray that example in aid, but those bodies seem to provide a sensible parallel. There is an absence; the Bill simply relies on the voluntary sector to be advocates. I ask the Minister to reflect on that.
A coroner, for example, while obviously dealing with different circumstances, is looking into the cause of death in a lot of individual cases, but if he or she comes across aspects of the particular that need to be made available in the public arena for general understanding, not only does he or she have an absolute duty and right to do so, but that is strongly welcomed. The advocacy that is obtained by that process is a task that that independent body has been charged to undertake. Sometimes, it can make uncomfortable reading for all of us when the mirror is held up to us as a legislature and an Administration.
The hon. Member for Luton, North deftly described the amendment as possibly a softened version of something that was coming later. He was right to observe that it is a complementary and therefore necessary part of those two things, but I have no doubt that we will have opportunities to raise issues about the incorporation of a rights-based approach or even, to use his argument, the terms of the Human Rights Act 1998, later in our considerations. I did not draft the amendment in relation to the 1998 Act particularly because doing so would have caused certain consequential drafting issues, with which I am sure he is familiar. The amendment is a more effective way of trying to achieve some of the main, underlying principles that he is also trying to secure, with every sympathy. This matter has also exercised those representing the Liberal Democrats.
We will be able to return to the issue again. I am more hopeful than I might have been—I hope it is not hope over expectation—that the Minister will take time to reflect on this set of arguments. It would, of course, be quite wonderful if he intervened, or if he were to indicate that he will think about it and possibly bring back on Report something that would reflect what is becoming a bit more of a cross-party approach.