Paul
Rowen: Like the hon. Gentleman, I look forward to the
Minister’s explaining in more detail some of the reasoning
behind this measure. We support amendments 24 and 25, but we have also
tabled two other slightly different amendments, including amendment
70.
I want to
explain what we are proposing to do in amendment 70. It is to ensure
that services would not be excluded should they prevent some of the
other aims set out early on in the subsection. Part 2 lists a range of
matters such
as: “(a)
provision of further education for
P; (b)
facilitating the undertaking by P of further education or higher
education; (c)
the provision of training by P”
and so on. What is
different about amendment 70 is that we are not saying that there
should be an automatic exclusion of those services, but only where the
ability to control those services would prevent an individual from
doing what is set out in part 2.
I had an
example two years ago in my constituency of a young man who was going
to university. The local authority had agreed that there could be
direct payment and the university had agreed to passport over some of
the support that it was going to provide. However, on the final weekend
before the young man was due to go to university, we were still
discussing with the primary care trust whether or not its element of
care was going to be passported, because it clearly made much more
sense for that young man to have a package of services rather than
having different streams providing that support. In fact, having a
package of services is a much more efficient use of public resources.
At virtually the twelfth hour and the last minute, the PCT relented and
agreed to direct payment from its element of the care. The young man
was then able to purchase a total package
that has enabled him, for the last two years, to go to Leeds university.
That would not have happened without that provision of direct
services. In our view,
that is an example of how excluding some of these services could act as
a barrier. It goes back to my earlier point and my earlier amendment to
clause 28, about the authority co-operating. In the case I have just
referred to, the PCT was initially unwilling to co-operate and it was
only after a considerable amount of pressure had been applied, let us
say, that it relented. That is an example of how the exclusion of some
of these services can have a detrimental effect for some of the very
laudable aims that are outlined earlier in the
Bill. Amendment
49, which is the other amendment in my name, goes slightly further by
not dealing with health services, but it seeks to include care services
in direct
payments. 10.25
am The
Chairman adjourned the Committee without Question put (Standing Order
No.
88). Adjourned
till this day at One
o’clock.
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