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Health and Social Care Bill

This group of amendments emphasises the need for human rights considerations in these matters. My mind goes back to one of the homes that I visited, to which I referred before, which is not very far from this institution. I described it as a place in which I would not be prepared to place an animal. I presume that the home cleared the inspection hurdles as being a satisfactory place. One problem that I believe exists cannot be dealt with in the Bill, but it helps to emphasise the need for human rights to be embodied in the Bill. Staff in these homes often simply do not understand what human rights are. The reality is that in many private homes—as I say, I am not in that profession, but many here will know exactly what I am talking about—staff are on minimum wages at the bottom end of the wage market. They are often people who can find employment in very few areas other than in care, yet we presume that somehow, instinctively, they will want to flag up human rights issues in the way that they handle a client group. I do not believe that they necessarily do. Some of those on minimum wages are very good carers, but some, from what I hear, are appalling, and they remain in those institutions. Unless someone complains, which we talked about before, very little happens. If we can embody in the Bill this human rights issue in a way whereby service providers cannot avoid it as a consideration, the responsibility will then be placed on them to ensure that those who they employ, at the very bottom end of the wages market, are well aware of their responsibilities.