Queen’s Speech

Baroness Jolly Excerpts

Wednesday 12th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jolly (LD)]

My Lords, I join others in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Blake of Leeds, and the noble Lord, Lord Lebedev, on their maiden speeches. I will miss the wise words of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth.

We must prevent injuries in the home. The Grenfell Tower tragedy should be a watershed moment that makes us reconsider the adequacy of existing standards for the safety of all homes—not just from fire but from any injury due to flaws in building design. We know that people have been spending more time at home because of Covid, and it is expected that increased home-working will be a long-term trend. This is the moment to focus on home safety, and, given that for every single fire-related hospital admission there are 235 from falls on stairs, it is essential that stair design is included in this.

In the homebuilding industry, it has been clear for some time that stair safety is a serious issue. In 2010, an evidence-based, robustly tested code of practice for safe stairs was introduced. These stairs can be easily incorporated into new-build housing and have a huge impact. On stairs that are designed to the British standard, falls decrease by over 60%, significantly reducing admissions to A&E—so why would we not take this simple action? There is a respected evidence base and an outcome that is preferable to the status quo, so I shall table an amendment to the building safety Bill to see if we can move this on.

I would like 2021 to be the year when the Government get serious about carers, who were sadly omitted from the gracious Speech—I refer both to those unpaid carers who care for family and friends and to those who are paid for their work. Without England’s millions of paid and unpaid carers, our health and social care systems would have collapsed in the last year under the impact of Covid. A light has been shone on the importance of their work. In the first Covid lockdown, you may remember that, on Thursday evenings, we applauded the efforts of carers, NHS workers and others.

In my own area, the south-west, there are 168,000 jobs in adult social care: 145,000 of them are in the local authorities, and the remainder are in the independent sector. It will not surprise noble Lords that these are not paid very well. England’s local authorities pay more than the independent sector by just under £2 an hour. Some 17% of these jobs are zero-hours contracts, and the turnover rate is just over 35%. By contrast, in Scotland, care workers get at least the living wage, of £9.50. Again, in Scotland, free personal care has been available to those over 65 since 2002, which can include help with personal hygiene, at mealtimes, with medicine and with general well-being. It is regulated by the Scottish Social Services Council. COSLA, which is the Scottish equivalent of the LGA, has agreed to pay care workers at least the real living wage of £9.50 an hour.

Most care workers are not unionised, and, in England, they are not even regulated. Their Welsh and Scottish colleagues have a regulating body: the Care Council for Wales and the Scottish Social Services Council. A review is long overdue for care workers in England, but support for unpaid carers must not be forgotten. I would be grateful if the Minister could indicate if this could be included in the health and social care Bill.

The Prime Minister promised to sort out the care system “once and for all”. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, has described the position that we are in as a “national scandal”, and a Select Committee that he chaired determined that to provide free social care to those who are eligible would save enormous pressures on the NHS and would effectively pay for itself. As such, I hope that, when we have sight of the forthcoming health and social care Bill, provision for all carers and free care for all those who are eligible will be there—but somehow I doubt it.