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Health and Social Care Bill

moved Amendment No. 171: 171: Clause 123, page 70, line 36, leave out ““or other suitable establishment”” The noble Earl said: I shall speak also to Amendment No. 172. These are two probing amendments concerning the restrictions or requirements that may be imposed by a magistrate. The first one is designed to ask the Minister what is meant by the phrase ““other suitable establishment”” in restriction (b). In what circumstances would it be appropriate to remove someone to a place other than a hospital, and what sort of place are we talking about? Whatever the person is suffering from and whatever protective measures may be required to shield that person from others, it seems to me that the environment in which a person is held should at the very least be of a therapeutic nature. What is meant by ““suitable””? Suitable for what and suitable in whose opinion? I hope that the Minister can assure me that we are not talking here about prison or a police cell. The second amendment is designed to probe what is meant by ““isolation””. The term ““quarantine”” has within it the suggestion of therapeutic care, or at least oversight, when someone is infected. Isolation, on the other hand, does not. When should a person be isolated as opposed to quarantined, and in what kind of environment? Putting the two amendments together, I am left asking whether it would be open to a magistrate to remove someone to a prison and detain them in isolation there, not necessarily because this was the best way to treat the person’s infection or illness but for want of a ready alternative if no hospital bed were available. The use of a prison cell, even as a temporary expedient in order to protect the public, would not seem to be at all appropriate, but it might be deemed ““suitable”” merely to achieve that end. I recognise that the Minister was able to give me some valuable assurances on my earlier amendment, but the most extreme scenario might be where the provisions enabled a magistrate to remove an HIV-positive individual to prison and keep them there. I think that we need a few more particulars from the Minister before being able to feel totally relaxed about the somewhat vague phraseology being used in this part of the clause. I beg to move.