Carer’s Leave: Government Departments

Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with the right reverend Prelate. Flexible working is widespread in the Civil Service. Civil Service carers are able to discuss their needs for flexible working and have them recorded in a carer’s passport. Like all employees with 26 weeks’ continuous service, they have the statutory right to request a change to the hours, timing or location of their work. The Government recently consulted on measures to reform the right to request flexible working; we will publish a response to it in due course. I assure the right reverend Prelate that we take this matter seriously.

[Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, in evidence to your Lordships’ Adult Social Care Select Committee, we have heard that carers are exhausted, unable to get any respite, face poverty and struggle to juggle care and working. Yet these carers take a huge weight off the National Health Service and provide care that would otherwise have to be paid for at taxpayers’ expense. Some good employers, including some of the Civil Service, recognise the pressures on them but many do not. Carers are forced either to reduce their working hours or to leave work altogether. Will the Minister acknowledge the urgency of this and introduce legislation as soon as possible to at least begin to sort this out?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, as I indicated, we are looking at the Private Member’s Bill in the other place. I agree with all noble Lords who pay tribute to the extraordinary work done by carers—those in employment and those not in employment. I remember my beloved mother in those circumstances and what she did for my father. We in government are human. We understand the immense sacrifices made by carers and will do the best that we conceivably can.

House of Lords and Machinery of Government: Consultation on Changes

Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe Excerpts

Wednesday 15th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord True]

My Lords, at risk to my career, I must say that Mr Cummings’s blog is not on my reading list, and I do not normally consult social media in general. However, I say to the noble Lord that the commission will examine the broader aspects of the constitution in depth and develop proposals to restore trust in our institutions and the operation of our democracy. We will consider the composition and focus of the commission carefully and will provide an update in due course.

[Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I read the debate on this topic yesterday, following the Question of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, and noted the imprecise Answer given then by the Minister. I have listened carefully to his answers to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, today, which again have not been definitive. Therefore, I would like to put two straightforward questions to the Minister, and I would appreciate a straightforward answer. Is it the intention of the Government to table proposals for the relocation of the House of Lords, on a permanent basis, to York or any other location outside London? If so, when do they intend to table these proposals?

[Lord True]

My Lords, I said yesterday, in a straight- forward fashion, that the location of this House is ultimately a matter of its exclusive cognisance. The Government are putting forward a series of ideas—they have done and are continuing to do so—about the relocation of aspects of government outside London. This is ongoing and will continue.

Covid-19: Wedding Venues

Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord True]

No, my Lords. The current rules on marriage are set in primary legislation. This has not been changed and the Government have no plans to change it.

[Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I have a young friend for whom the cancellation of her wedding and the subsequent negotiations were a nightmare. That must have been true of thousands of others. Of course, I appreciate the decision that had to be taken, but cannot help but feel that there was a failure to be creative by allowing vicars and registrars to marry people in private gardens, and so on. There is a much broader question of the costs of weddings arising from the law not permitting marriages at home—unlike, for example, in the US. When will the Government, in these challenging times, make it easier and cheaper for people to marry at home or a place of their choice, especially to clear the backlog and let the people affected get on with their lives?

[Lord True]

My Lords, again, I understand the point. I do not want to add to my reputation for eccentricity by admitting that my wife and I delayed our marriage because the late Lord Callaghan unexpectedly delayed the anticipated election in 1978. I fully understand the frustration that many young couples face. On the noble Baroness’s wider point, wedding venues are governed in legislation, and altering it is not currently on the Government’s agenda.

Covid-19: Economy

Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, the Covid pandemic has revealed some crucial economic realities that have been ignored for too long. One of those is the inability of the construction industry to respond quickly when demand slumps. Yet construction, and in particular housebuilding, could be a vital engine of economic recovery from this crisis.

Home ownership is something that the Government have championed and it is what most people aspire to, but undoubtedly, at least in the short term, we face a big rise in unemployment and an imminent recession. It is unlikely that many people will be able to afford to buy a home. We need a massive increase in affordable housebuilding, which can deliver a fast-acting, broad- based economic and social stimulus. We know from past economic downturns that investment in social housebuilding is counter-cyclical, which means that government investment can buy a lot of development. This in turn will provide ongoing work for the construction sector and SMEs in difficult times.

The pandemic has increased the challenges we face in housing. This is not just in the nationwide homelessness that the Government have taken initial steps to redress, but in the very areas where they hope to encourage more equal access to prosperity. Significant investment in social housing is key: we must build more homes. For such a programme, long-term certainty is required. If the Government have the vision to commit to a 10-year affordable housing fund, they could secure a long-term and sustainable economic recovery. Housing associations are ambitious to play their part in this recovery. A longer-term investment programme would give them the stability and confidence to deliver a new generation of high-quality, accessible and greener affordable homes to rent and to buy while rebuilding our economy. Will the Minister commit to doing this in this year’s spending review?

Income Equality and Sustainability

Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe Excerpts

Wednesday 6th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I join others in wishing the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York a happy and very well-deserved retirement. I declare an interest as chair of the National Housing Federation, the voice of affordable housing in England.

People need good, affordable homes to sustain greater income equality. The ONS has shown that income inequality is increasing. A significant factor is the cost of living, along with income instability and insecurity. Housing costs are a substantial proportion of living costs, sometimes more than 50% of monthly income if you rent in the private sector.

Even prior to the crisis, many individuals and families across the UK had always struggled to meet everyday living costs. With thousands of people losing their jobs as a result of the pandemic, this situation will get worse. The Government have introduced a job retention scheme and increases to universal credit to provide much-needed support, and I welcome these, but some gaps remain in helping people meet their housing costs. The uplift in universal credit or the local housing allowance will have no effect on some families already claiming benefits, because they are caught by the house- hold benefit cap. It is an arbitrary cap that further undermines families who are already struggling, with schools closed and no childcare to allow them to start work. Parents—particularly single parents—are struggling to get jobs. Will the Minister consider the need to suspend the housing benefit cap? Can he tell us what monitoring the Government are doing and how families affected by the cap are coping during this crisis?

As we rebuild from this pandemic, investment in affordable and social housing would not only reduce the cost of living for many more families in low-paid and unstable work but enable the Government to move away from subsidising unaffordable rents with the welfare system.

The ability of many families to bounce back quickly from this crisis will depend on the changes we make now to reduce the amount people spend on one of life’s basic necessities: somewhere safe and secure to live. Can the Government say whether they will take the first step by significantly investing in affordable housing?

Social Housing

Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe Excerpts

Thursday 31st January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Whitty on securing this debate and I look forward to the maiden speech of my noble friend Lady Osamor. I declare an interest as the chair of the National Housing Federation.

I too want to refer to Shelter. Its social housing commission—my noble friend Lady Lawrence was a commissioner—recently set out graphically the damning consequences of poor provision of social housing, including increased homelessness. This is clearly a crisis and the true cost is staggering. The Government spend billions of pounds a year on housing benefit, much of it going to private landlords. Councils are spending hundreds of millions on housing homeless families. In stark terms, the housing crisis costs lives. Recently a homeless man died just outside this building.

The National Housing Federation and Crisis have shown that, to meet demand, we need to build 340,000 homes a year, but numbers alone will not solve this. The type of tenure is vital to tackling the root of the problem. We need to build 145,000 affordable homes a year and 90,000 must be for social rent. Last year, we built just 42,000 affordable homes. There are no quick fixes. We need a long-term, joined-up plan to build vastly more homes for social rent.

I want to use my three minutes to identify briefly some key issues and ask the Minister some questions. Housing associations will play their part as the largest providers of social homes, and the Government too have made a commitment to build 300,000 homes. How many of them will be genuinely affordable? How much investment has the Treasury calculated will be needed? Each area faces its own unique challenges, which require local solutions. In some places regeneration is needed, not new build. Does the Minister agree that different solutions are required, including investment for regeneration? Partnerships with local authorities are vital. The removal of the housing revenue account cap should empower local authorities and housing associations to work together to tackle the crisis. However, barriers remain. Will the Government reform the Land Compensation Act 1961 so that a fairer proportion of the uplift in land value can be shared with the local community, including for affordable homes? Will the Minister commit to delivering 50% of affordable housing across public sector land?

The freezing of working-age benefits, the design of universal credit, the spare room subsidy and changes in the way benefits are paid have all made life harder for many tenants. They have certainly contributed to, if not driven, the huge rise in homelessness. I am pleased that the Government have promised to provide impact assessments in their rough sleeping strategy. Can the Minister tell the House what data he and/or DWP have on the impact of benefit changes on homelessness?

The Government have taken positive steps to invest more in social housing, but to provide a sustainable solution they must act on longer term funding for genuinely affordable homes and on access to land. My final question therefore is: will the Minster commit to doing so in the upcoming spending review?

Universal Credit

Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe Excerpts

Thursday 16th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, this is an extraordinarily timely debate in terms of the rollout of universal credit and I congratulate my noble friend Lady Hollis on securing it. Her powerful opening speech was a catalogue of good policies eroded by Treasury pressure, now creating misery for thousands.

I declare an interest as chair of the National Housing Federation representing housing associations. Many thousands of their tenants are eligible for universal credit. I have seen at first hand the awful impact on families and individuals of both the six-week wait and the poor administration of the scheme. The federation I chair has worked with the department to design a portal that enables landlords to see the status of tenants in the system and avoid moving to eviction.

I want to focus on some of the immediate problems that housing associations have encountered. It is clear that the six-week waiting time for the first payment is not working. It is causing unnecessary hardship for low-income families who struggle to make ends meet while waiting for their very first payment. I know that the Government have increased the availability of advance payments, but these are loans that must be paid back. This leaves people with already very limited funds with another financial burden to manage while they try to keep a roof over their head and put food on the table.

The six-week wait is not fundamental to the operation of universal credit. It has been built into the system by government and—yes—by pressure from the Treasury. Reducing this period to two weeks or to a very maximum of four weeks would save even more people from falling into unnecessary financial hardship and building up rent arrears. Will the Minister acknowledge the evidence and deal with this as a matter of urgency?

Then there is the way universal credit is being paid. Claimants are paid on a monthly basis in arrears. The Government argue that this is designed to mirror the world of work, smoothing the transition into paid employment. The Resolution Foundation found that this was not realistic for many of those eligible for universal credit. Many other noble Lords have mentioned this, but 58% of new claimants moving on to universal credit after leaving a job were not paid monthly. They relied on weekly or fortnightly pay cheques. So the move means more juggling of costs, or borrowing money while they wait for their UC to arrive. We should have learned; the same problems arose when weekly cash payments were changed to monthly bank payments. The response then was phasing and it worked. Will the Minister consider that option before UC is rolled out any further?

I have one final point. As many noble Lords have highlighted, universal credit is a huge change for everyone involved. It should be no surprise that many people need help navigating and managing it. All sorts of problems need to be sorted out. But the department has not allowed implicit consent for sharing information with third parties in UC full service areas—except for MPs. This is a different system from live service and has hamstrung housing associations and agencies such as Citizens Advice as they try to help people manage their claims and sustain their tenancies.

In full service, housing associations now have to seek explicit consent from tenants to allow the Department for Work and Pensions to share more detailed information about a claim. This consent can last for the period of the assessment, or sometimes staff are asked to provide consent each time they contact the DWP on the tenant’s behalf. This is just not practical, especially in rural areas where support is often provided remotely. It leads to unnecessary delays in sorting out problems and, in the worst circumstances, can result in associations and tenants incurring legal costs because a problem with a claim cannot be sorted out in time. I urge the Minister to resolve this issue as soon as possible. I urge her to look again now at waiting times, payment cycle and the rules around consent.

There was widespread support for the principle and aims of universal credit. Speakers today on all sides of the House have shown that we do not yet have a system that meets those aims. As the rollout of universal credit speeds up, affecting more and more people, these issues will pose real challenges to the very people universal credit was set up to help. This is one of the biggest welfare changes in a generation. I do not believe that the Government want their legacy to be thousands of families pushed further into debt and hardship.

Housing: Availability and Affordability

Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe Excerpts

Thursday 12th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Smith of Leigh on securing this debate on one of the most pressing issues affecting this country. I wholeheartedly endorse both his analysis and his conclusions. I declare an interest as chair of the National Housing Federation, the trade body representing England’s housing associations.

I want to focus on the positive role of housing associations in increasing the availability and accessibility of housing. At times, unfortunately, that has been in spite of government policies. I hope that is changing. Last week, the Prime Minister announced £2 billion of additional funding for affordable homes, including those for social rent. After years of distrust and misunderstanding of the social housing sector, the Government have finally grasped the nettle of the housing crisis in this country. This could in itself be a watershed moment for housing.

It is not enough to talk about the aspiration for home ownership. As a nation, we have neglected housing for the most vulnerable. The debate slipped away from where need was greatest, at times forgetting the fundamental principle that every person deserves a quality home they can afford. No event has highlighted this more painfully than the tragic fire at Grenfell Tower. Whatever the outcome of the public inquiry, it is clear that the residents of Grenfell Tower were failed by the system that should have protected them. We must ask whether successive Governments have put in place sufficiently robust measures to protect residents.

In 2010, government disinvestment from social housing, combined with a sudden drop in funding for local government, meant far fewer homes were available and affordable. Research by the National Housing Federation shows that the nation's commitment to building homes fell from £11.4 billion in 2009 to £5.3 billion in 2015—from 0.7% to 0.2% of total GDP. This was at a time when more than a million families remained on the housing waiting list. Furthermore, the cumulative impact of welfare policies, including universal credit, has made many people less secure in their homes and put them at risk of rent arrears.

Policies such as right to buy may support people in their aspiration to reach that first rung of the housing ladder, but when this is not balanced by building truly affordable homes, the market cannot work. The cost and distribution of land is an additional barrier to the availability of affordable housing. I entirely agree with the points made about this by my noble friend Lady Young of Old Scone and the noble Lord, Lord Best. Too often, in planning and viability assessments, economic value is prioritised over the social value development can offer, leading to unaffordability. Will the Government give public bodies the powers to dispose of land based on quality, tenure mix and speed of delivery?

Housing associations and local government have campaigned tirelessly for those left behind by the broken housing market. They have maintained delivery of affordable homes, despite Government and private developers looking elsewhere. Nearly 50,000 social-rented starts were made last year by housing associations, 74% of which were delivered outside the affordable homes programme. The housing association sector has a track record of finding innovative ways to continue to provide homes for those who need them the most, while also investing in communities as part of our enduring social purpose. This is not something the sector has been able to do on its own: it needs support from the Government but, importantly, it also needs a positive relationship with local authorities. I am heartened to see how housing associations and local authorities work together when united in a single purpose of increasing the supply of new homes.

I am glad that the Government are at last catching up. The newly announced money can go some way towards tackling the huge numbers of people on the waiting lists for housing. Even 5,000 homes a year will make an immeasurable difference to the lives of the families within them, and I for one unequivocally welcome this policy as a much-needed first step. I hope the positive outcomes that housing associations will generate from this additional investment will encourage the Government to invest further in social rent in the future. I also welcome the long-awaited certainty about the future of housing association rents. The rent cut imposed in 2016—this one policy—took £3.9 billion out of the sector’s business plans to build more homes. The Government need to do more long-term thinking and to consult with the sector and tenants to design a long-term approach to rents.

I want to make one final point about social housing. For older people, the homeless, those with mental and physical illness, and the victims of domestic violence, supported housing is their only way to access housing that will enable them to live independently. Some of the most vulnerable people have been hit by the Government’s proposed application of the local housing allowance to supported housing. Recently published data showed an 85% drop in the number of new supported-housing homes that are planned to be built. The Government have to sort this out. We can only say we have a fair housing market when these lifeline services are protected.

Both the Government and the Opposition recently committed to a comprehensive review of social housing policy and how it serves communities. We have a rare opportunity to make a real, meaningful change and to rebalance our housing market to help those left behind. This is an issue that now goes beyond party politics. It is the beginning of a journey to make housing available and affordable for all. I hope that all sides of the political debate are now united in delivering more homes for those most in need and, as my noble friend Lady Donaghy said, in ensuring that those homes are genuinely affordable and accessible.

Northern England: Opportunity and Productivity

Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Massey for securing this debate, which has engaged so many excellent speakers. Like many speaking today, I was born and bred in the north of England and, although my working life has been spent elsewhere, my ties to the north are still very strong. In my home town of Bradford in Yorkshire, I have seen over the years both the decline in its traditional industries and the determination to recover its economic potential. So I read the IPPR’s annual health check on the northern economy with great interest. It contains some nuggets of good news, such as the latest GVA stats, which show that, in 2015, the north’s economy grew faster than any other part of the UK. It has now passed the £300 billion mark and is worth more than those of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland combined; apparently it is the 10th largest economy in Europe. There is no doubt, therefore, of the enormous economic potential of the northern powerhouse.

However, last year’s optimism has been replaced by the shadow cast over the region by the Brexit vote. Given the north’s dependence on EU trade—which is greater than that of anywhere else in the country—and the legacy of its industrial decline, the report argues that the north has the most to gain or lose from Britain’s exit from the European Union. One thing that I found most telling was that the northern areas most vulnerable to the economic turbulence caused by Brexit are those that voted most strongly to leave the EU. The report argues strongly that Brexit negotiations should focus on the needs of the areas that voted overwhelmingly to leave and that the Brexit vote in the north makes the Government’s northern powerhouse more important than ever. I agree: you have only to contrast areas such as Humber, Tees Valley and the Sheffield city region, which had the highest percentage of leave votes in the north, and the city of Manchester, which has benefited from economic development and where 61% voted to remain, to realise that the benefits of the northern powerhouse have been felt only in certain parts of the north so far.

As I have seen in visits to various parts of the north in my role as chair of the National Housing Federation, the,

“patchy development of combined authorities, metro mayors and devolution”,

mean it cannot as yet match the response of the devolved Administrations for Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales, or even that of the Mayor of London. So I echo other speakers today in asking the Minister to recognise the IPPR’s call for a northern Brexit negotiating committee to determine the type of Brexit that would best suit the north and to unite the northern voice in negotiations. Does the Minister agree that to ensure sustainable productivity in the north there is a need to build direct relationships with regions and nations within and beyond the EU, to develop and enhance the north’s particular trade interests?

The author of the report calls the Brexit vote,

“a cry of community outrage at the imbalances of wealth and power, played out … within and between the regions”.

It is a reminder that many areas in the north, particularly those post-industrial communities outside the city centres, have not shared in northern economic growth, and are vulnerable, for example, to any post-Brexit restrictions on trade. I am therefore anxious, like my noble friend Lord Monks, that the Government’s new economic and industrial cabinet committee’s focus on,

“delivering an economy that works for everyone”,

to ensure that the,

“benefits of growth are shared across cities and regions up and down the country”,

could dilute our focus on the north. I fear that this would be a mistake. We must not allow support for the northern powerhouse to falter. The announced investment in infrastructure, culture, housing and the quality of life in the north, the devolution deals in Sheffield, Greater Manchester, the north-east, Tees Valley and Liverpool, and the work to raise education and skills levels, must be supported. Yes, this is important for the success of the north, but it is also important for the success of the UK as a whole.

My final point is that the two key issues of high-level skills and housing are inextricably linked. In the past 10 years, 75,000 highly qualified British residents have been lost from the northern powerhouse regions, which seems to have been masked by highly qualified workers coming in from outside the UK. In a poll of 2,000 graduates by an alliance of the north’s largest housing providers, 55% said that the quality of housing would be a key factor in deciding where to live if they were to move. Cost of housing was a very close second. Affordability and availability of housing is a unique selling point in the north. The alliance argues that if local authorities, housing providers, employers and universities came together, they could develop joined-up strategies to attract and retain many more highly qualified people. Does Minister agree that the Government could be instrumental in assisting them in developing innovative new products to buy or rent, specifically aimed at the graduate market, to attract the very graduates that the north so clearly needs?

Health and Social Care

Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for introducing this debate and commend him for his continuing interest in this issue. I join with other noble Lords in offering condolences to the noble Lord, Lord Prior. The headlines earlier this week following the Care Quality Commission report sharing the experiences of families seeking information about the death of a relative make this, regrettably, a timely debate. I declare an interest as chair of the National Housing Federation, and in a moment I will say something about the importance of the role of housing associations in supporting users of social care. First, however, I will support my noble friend in his comments about Healthwatch England.

Just over a year ago, NHS England published its Patient and Public Participation Policy, which pledged to,

“work in partnership with patients and the public, to improve patient safety, patient experience and health outcomes; supporting people to live healthier lives”.

Those are laudable aims. The problem in achieving them—as the King’s Fund and others have pointed out—is that it is not entirely clear what involving people in health means; and when you attempt it, difficulties arise because often this challenges vested interests and the established way that people do things. Yet, as the chief executive of the CQC, David Behan, has said, what distinguishes many of the good and outstanding services that exist is the way that they work with others: hospitals working with GPs, GPs working with social care, and all providers working with people who use services.

Those services, we hardly need reminding, are under increasing pressure. This makes the role of Healthwatch England and local Healthwatch groups all the more important. As other noble Lords have said, having a local voice for users of the health service is critical to the development of the service. They are the only organisations with an overall view of an entire local health and well-being system. Their responsibility to use public experience to drive service improvement is a vital one. We now have a network of local Healthwatch organisations across England’s 152 local authorities, supported by more than 6,000 volunteers. Almost four years on, it is certainly right to ask about their effectiveness.

I share the concerns already voiced about Healthwatch England’s independence. When it was established in 2012, it was hosted by the CQC but reported directly to the Department of Health. A restructuring this year means that the national director now reports directly to the chief executive of the CQC and aims to “work more closely” with the CQC. How free will Healthwatch England be to criticise the CQC if it is embedded within it? A too cosy relationship makes it harder to be a critical friend.

I think that the point about relationships is particularly important when it comes to local Healthwatch groups, which are commissioned by local authorities. Large organisations such as local authorities and NHS bodies tend to understand the world through analysis of quantitative data and research evidence. This contrasts with the way that individuals and communities operate, where the emphasis is on personal experiences and the stories that describe them. To be effective, local Healthwatch needs to operate between the two—to bring the public into the discussion in a way that is understood and accepted by these large organisations.

However, I believe that the groups must also be at arm’s length from local authorities. They must be prepared to ask difficult questions and to have enough knowledge to square up to consultants or hospital chief executives, and perhaps tell them that they are not doing a good enough job. We know that this was part of the problem in the tragedy of Mid Staffordshire.

It is easy to forget that local Healthwatch groups are still small and relatively new organisations, still developing their expertise. I wonder to what extent local authorities and health trusts are helping Healthwatch by, for example, including an explanation of the Healthwatch role in inductions for new staff, by briefing managers on the role and activities of their local Healthwatch, or by agreeing what good practice should be when working with the local Healthwatch on an investigation. The effectiveness of a local Healthwatch can be helped by bigger players in the system.

My noble friend also referred to the capacity of Healthwatch England and local Healthwatch. It is a concern to me that the funding for local Healthwatch groups is still not ring-fenced. I have heard the arguments for local autonomy and the rationale for not telling local authorities what to do but, if the end result is that some regions or councils are not using the money for its intended purpose, this can surely only harm the local community and the patients in those areas.

I should like to mention here the work of housing associations. Our social care system is at crisis point for both patient and taxpayer. A recent National Audit Office report, Discharging Older Patients from Hospital, highlights a problem that we are all too aware of but the figures are still startling: £820 million of taxpayers’ money is spent every year on unnecessary acute care and 2.7 million patient days are wasted waiting for transfers from hospital which have been delayed. If we did more to help older people recover at home, rather than in hospital, the estimated savings would be around £640 million every year. Housing associations are helping to make this happen, and I want to give one example.

Curo, a housing association in the south-west of England, has over 13,000 properties and a successful care and support division. Its “step down” service is made up of six homes that have access to a care team round the clock. Patients are discharged from hospital and move into a home in the service for a set period of time, agreed with their clinician when they leave hospital. They receive individually tailored care and support, and are given opportunities to familiarise themselves with telecare options for when they move on from the service. This reduces the likelihood of further readmissions to hospital.

The step down service was commissioned in 2011 by Bath and North East Somerset Council and the local clinical commissioning group with funding from the better care fund. It has enabled emergency discharge from hospital as part of a wider “discharge to assess” pathway, providing a value-for-money route for hospital discharge where assessments can be conducted outside a primary care setting. It has been recommissioned and continues to deliver a cost-effective solution for discharge and reablement, particularly for older people.

The financial benefits are huge. It is estimated that an excess hospital-bed day costs £303 per day or over £2,000 per week. In contrast, Curo’s step down facility costs £60 a day. In 2015-16, Curo delivered 1,721 days of step down from hospital, equating to a saving to Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust of over £520,000—or £390,000 once costs are taken into account. Feedback from patients who have benefitted from Curo’s services reflects the value, independence and dignity of care from a housing-led service around hospital discharge.

This is just one example of a housing association scheme that is saving the NHS money and helping people to recover with dignity. Working in partnership with the NHS and local Healthwatch groups, so much more could be done. If the Government wish to ensure that the health and social care system works for everyone, more incentives to work together need to be provided to encourage new and alternative approaches to delayed hospital discharge. The current consultation into the future of supported funding offers the perfect opportunity for the Government to work with the sector to end this crisis in provision.

It is clear to me that now, more than ever, we need independent evidence-based thinking to address key public health concerns. Healthwatch England’s special inquiry last summer into the lack of care for vulnerable people discharged unsafely from hospital made the headlines and highlighted the need to put patients at the centre of health and social care. But reports have real value only if they are listened to and acted on. The case for supporting Healthwatch England and local Healthwatch organisations to grow their expertise and experience in undertaking this sort of work is undeniable.