Care Bill [HL]

My Lords, having heard the words about Mencap spoken by the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, I, as president, must of course support this amendment. I say “must”, but I am surprised that these amendments have to be tabled at all. I would have thought that any Bill dealing with care must deal absolutely explicitly with housing. After all, noble Lords will remember when the long-stay, sub-normality hospitals were closed in the late 1970s, the 1980s, and the early 1990s the very thing that was required was housing. Mencap did provide the housing in those days, as best it could, with Mencap Homes Foundation. It has progressed now to Golden Lane Housing which allows people with a learning disability actually to own their own housing with the appropriate support. These provisions are necessary, and I am amazed that these amendments were necessary in the first place.