Orders of the Day — Community Care (Residential Accommodation) Bill [Lords]

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 7:22 pm on 4 June 1992.

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Photo of Mr Jeff Rooker Mr Jeff Rooker , Birmingham, Perry Barr 7:22, 4 June 1992

With the leave of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker. My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) made the point that we in the House owe a great debt to the people of Denmark for allowing us to have a short debate on community care in prime time. I say that in all seriousness. This is the first debate in the House on community care since April 1991. If nothing else, I hope that it will send signals to the Minister, to his colleagues and to his advisers that there is an unmet need and a pent-up desire in hon. Members of all parties who are concerned about what will happen before April next year and who want to raise many issues. We must respond to the points raised, although I accept that we cannot respond to all of them in Committee, which will probably be the week after next.

The Government will make a rod for their own backs if they do not introduce their own proposals from time to time rather than leaving the task to the Opposition on Supply days, because there dare not enough of those days. The Government could then give reports to the House about the preparations, the decisions being made and the planning for the implementation of the community care reforms next year.

It is no good simply waiting until April 1993—waiting for problems to arise and then having loads of requests for emergency debates under Standing Order No. 20. I hope that the Government will meet the demand for information and the demand to share the experiences of the planning of the implementation of community care which have been expressed in the debate.

I look forward to listening to the Minister and I hope that he will answer some of the questions. The one question that he must address is the first question that I raised, which has been raised by other hon. Members subsequently. We asked for an unequivocal and unqualified reaffirmation that the community care reforms will be implemented on 1 April next year.