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Equality Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 199:"After Clause 89, insert the following new clause—"    ““PUBLIC AUTHORITIES: CARE STANDARDS (1)   This section applies to any establishment or agency within the meaning of sections 1 to 4 of the Care Standards Act 2000 (c. 14). (2)   Any care establishment or agency is deemed to be a public authority in relation to the provision of care services subject to the Care Standards Act 2000 for the purpose of section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 (c. 42) (acts of public authorities).”” The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I am getting used to having the very last amendment late at night, so I shall be brief. This amendment would protect the most vulnerable people in our society. If we do not reach those people, the Act will not achieve its aims. At the moment, 91 per cent of care home places and domiciliary care are provided by the private and the voluntary sector, but we know that nearly all those places are paid for by public authorities. So there is a terrible anomaly, which particularly concerns the two organisations that campaign all the time for older people, who are the majority of people in care and in nursing homes—that is, Age Concern and Help the Aged. Those people have the same human rights as anyone else and are very often more vulnerable to abuse than other people. The fact that the national health service was designed as it was after World War II, which did not take account of nursing home or residential home care or bring them under that umbrella, is an anomaly that we are still dealing with. However, since the Leonard Cheshire case, those very vulnerable people are not covered, because the definition of ““public authority”” does not cover them; and that is quite wrong and must be changed. It is really quite outrageous, in fact. I know that the Government are sympathetic with what I am saying, and I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, because she has met with me and talked about the matter. They want to wait for a test case; but, as I said, most of the people that we are talking about are elderly and very frail and cannot wait indefinitely for such a test case. We cannot be certain that the test case is going to come out the right way, either, because it is a test case. So the Government need to give us clear assurances now that they understand the urgency of the situation and will do something to change the definition of ““public authority”” so that it can be incorporated in some way into the Bill. I beg to move.