Domiciliary Home Care Support

Baroness Jolly Excerpts

Wednesday 25th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

My noble friend is right to bring up that issue. They should of course be paid. If she has any specific examples to share with me, I shall be glad to investigate.

[Baroness Jolly (LD)]

My Lords, everyone knows that the social care sector, particularly in domiciliary and care homes, is under great stress at the moment—I declare my interests as in the register—and we look forward to the Green Paper coming up some time in the summer. I hope it takes into consideration that such homes need to pay not only wages and pensions but, for larger ones, an apprenticeship levy. Normally there would be a market for mergers but at the moment the sector is anxious about inheriting sleep-in liabilities. Can the Minister give any guidance about when these issues within the department and the Treasury will be remedied?

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

We know that the issue of back-dated pay for sleep-ins has had an impact on this and other sectors. Two aspects of this are, first, that the Government have waived penalties for non-payment prior to July 2017; and, secondly, that there now exists an HMRC scheme that allows providers to work with HMRC and the business department to understand their liabilities and gives them a further year to pay them. That is the support we offer to any organisation affected by the changes to the taxation arrangements of sleep-ins.