Disabled Persons (Independent Living) Bill [HL]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Ashley, on his persistence and I support the Bill in general. I again declare an interest as the father of a daughter with severe intellectual impairment. If I have a doubt about the Bill, it is that it does not appear sufficiently to spell out and protect the position of the family carers of people such as my daughter and the needs of people who are even less fortunate and who are more intellectually disabled than she is. Noble Lords will be aware that there can be a good deal of tension between family carers and other carers. One of the roots of this tension seems to come from the many people and their representatives who are less handicapped than my daughter, who feel that their families are too controlling about their care and lifestyle. I and those whom I represent accept and respect their position entirely and we agree wholeheartedly that the conscious choice of those who are able to make such a choice should be fully met. But many thousands of people simply cannot make that choice. For those people, the views of their family carers, when they exist, should count very much more than the views of outside professionals unless there are clear and good reasons why that should not be so.