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Adults with Learning Disabilities

I am perfectly happy to take those points back, because I do this all the time inside Government—support third-sector organisations. From memory, as a former Minister with responsibility for the third sector, I believe that funding for such organisations, which was about £5 billion a year in 1997, was £10 billion in 2006, so in the past 10 years funding and resources for third-sector organisations have doubled. I encourage local authorities, when making decisions about how to allocate funding and doing their commissioning, to recognise the essential role that many third-sector organisations play as advocates, in helping policy design and in delivering services to people in their area. I am pleased that people with learning disabilities, as a result of the progress that we have made, are now connecting with their communities more fully and that more are living independently. Various hon. Members mentioned long-stay hospitals. For the record, I point out that by the end of this month there will be just one remaining long-stay hospital, with just 20 residents. Notwithstanding the point that my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet made, we can say that we have made real progress in encouraging independent living—not people living on their own, lonely, but independent living with support. The numbers living on national health service campuses have also dropped, from about 3,000 in 2006 to 1,000 today. I think that that issue was raised by the hon. Member for Eddisbury. We are already seeing real change, and that is only the tip of the iceberg. We have responded to the JCHR report. We have listened and taken action to ensure that the promises made in "Valuing People Now" translate into an even brighter future for people with learning disabilities, but to do that, we have further to go. Further reform is needed in three key areas. The first—this connects with many of the concerns about policies and action on the ground—is better governance and accountability at national, regional and local levels. We have developed a new command structure—a new set of controls to ensure that we deliver the "Valuing People Now" commitments everywhere and for everyone. At the top of the pyramid is a new learning disability programme board, which I co-chair, supported by two national directors for learning disabilities, one of whom has a learning disability. The board includes cross-Government representation and the active involvement of people with learning disabilities and family carers. That board will link to new regional learning disability boards and strengthened local partnership boards, ensuring that all the agencies link up to deliver on the promises that we set out in "Valuing People Now". The national programme board will also produce an annual report and an updated delivery plan, holding the regions and local areas to account on their performance. I reject the criticisms from the hon. Member for Eddisbury that we are not monitoring, driving, leading and making change happen. We have put in place a structure to do precisely that. I confirm, as a point of detail, that it will include monitoring the implementation of the good practice guidance on parenting. That will go out at local level. We want to ensure that that guidance is shared with primary care trusts and NHS trusts. On top of that, we have put in place specific measures to improve health services, which we know were a particular concern for the JCHR.