This past week has been an exceptionally busy week for me in parliament and the theme of old age ran through much of the debates. First the Personal Care at Home Bill had its second reading on Monday. It’s a singularly unfortunate piece of legislation which has largely been created as an electoral eye catcher. Both opposition benches were scathing; there was major opposition on the government’s own benches as Lords Warner and Lipsey weighed in against it and rallied a good deal of support. These two peers passed a motion of amendment to delay the committee stages but the Tories and Lib-Dems had decided to sit on their hands and did not vote probably because they don’t want to be seen trashing a bill which the public like the sound of; instead they will try and introduce major changes at committee stage. The Bill itself is a paving bill which merely provides powers for subsequent regulations to be created to enable local authorities to extend the current 6 weeks of free social care to be extended. It all sounds so innocuous, until you look at the proposed rigid assessment rules, arbitrary cut off points and minimal number of hours of help (6hrs max) that the rules will allow.  We need to press in committee for time to examine the proposals at greater length and prevent the government making a mess which future governments will have to sort out. I felt rather sorry for Baroness Thornton, whose job it was to respond to all these criticisms. She didn’t finish the debate until 8.00pm then had to go straight into a debate on a contested pharmacy order.

 On Wednesday Lady Thornton was also responding to my own debate on Age Discrimination in Mental Health Services, a QSD (Question for Short Debate) of an hour in the Moses Room. I like its intimate environment and warmth for a short debate. I complimented Lady Thornton on her striking Chinese jacket….”Thanks, people keep asking me if they can order a take-away”.

 That was followed by another QSD from Lord Warner proposing an Inquiry into the business of Assisted Dying. Another shot over the bows but this time over half the speakers were in support, so we are gradually creeping up. I was somewhat taken aback by Lord Alton of Liverpool and Lord Elystan-Morgan both quoting novelist Martin Amis’s recent rant against old people suggesting there should be euthanasia booths at street corners where old people can end their lives with “a martini and a medal” as if it was serious.  Have they no sense of humour? It reminded me of Jonathan Swift’s searing 1729 pamphlet on the Irish tendency to breed lots of children. His ‘Modest Proposal’ was “that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled …”  Swift of course was one of the great benefactors of his generation in Ireland and cared desperately about the Irish poor. And he knew how to shock people out of their complacency. Martin Amis is merely doing a similar job.