Social Care

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

As ever, my noble friend makes excellent and wise suggestions, which I am grateful for. She highlights an important point, which is that social care is a co-funded service for most people. Most people make a contribution to their social care and the state will often make a contribution, too. Therefore, vehicles that allow people to save up in advance, whether through pensions, ISAs or the other means that my noble friend has suggested, are an excellent idea. I am sure that they will be part of considering the financial sustainability and build on products that are already in the market, whether equity release or deferred payments, so that people can go into their old age with confidence that, whatever their care needs, they will be able to afford them.

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, I think I heard the Minister mention in the Statement that his ministerial colleague had written to chairs of relevant all-party parliamentary groups to invite their participation in preparatory work in the department leading up to the publication of the Green Paper. Does he think there may have been an oversight here, because, as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing, I have received no such letter? I know that the Minister has seen the report of the APPG entitled, Creative Health: The Arts for Health and Wellbeing, and was kind enough to speak warmly of it in the House last week. Will he and his colleagues in the department study the substantial evidence presented in that report that engagement with the arts can confer considerable benefits in the field of social care in terms both of quality of life for people receiving care and their carers, whether family members or professional carers, and of value for money? Will he investigate the possibility of the APPG on Arts, Health and Wellbeing being involved in the process that he has mentioned?

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I will certainly be happy to do that. I absolutely endorse the ultimate finding of that report about the valuable contribution that the arts have to make. I shall investigate whether a letter has perhaps gone astray.