Health and Care Bill

Lord Pendry Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 7th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pendry (Lab)]

My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, on his maiden speech. We all look forward to hearing more wise words from him, I am sure.

We all have waited patiently for the White Paper that was promised by the Prime Minister two and a half years ago, when he said that his Government would fix social care problems “once and for all”. We have now had the White Paper and a Bill, but there is no way that it will fix the many problems that exist in the social care system. At the same time, it would be churlish not to acknowledge that within the Bill there is some recognition of what many of us have been demanding for many years, well before the Prime Minister’s boast.

However, the Bill is silent on many of the problems of social care, and certainly in no way meets the needs of an integrated system between social care and the National Health Service. Instead, we shall continue to have an unequal system whereby the National Health Service will be a part of, rather than at one with, the social services. Funding allocation for social care in the Bill is far too small for the reform that is needed. There is no recognition of the important role that carers play as an essential part of supporting the National Health Service or the important role that they played alongside the National Health Service during the difficult months of the pandemic crisis.

I have always declared my interest in debates of this kind as a member of UNISON, a union with many health and social care workers among its membership. Before I was elected to the other place, I was a union official for nurses, midwives, care workers and others in the health service. Since arriving in Parliament, I have always shown an interest in those workers, who have always been at the wrong end of the wage scale. Nothing has changed in this respect; it is about time that they are recognised for the important role they play in our society.

In truth, the White Paper recognises some of the problems that exist in the workforce and includes a focus on career progression, the move towards the registration of care workers and the proposed changes to care certification. However, notwithstanding those improvements, there is virtually no coverage of the living standards of social care workers in the Bill. It shows a pathetic failure to grasp the gravity of the situation given the severe workforce crisis that exists currently. We all know that care workers are leaving the sector in droves, particularly over the past year. To put it bluntly, there is no point in highlighting the importance of a workforce if there are no workers there to be highlighted. Talk of their importance is meaningless.

To give a sense of the workforce crisis, UNISON shows the important state of the sector for care workers. Nearly 31% of care staff say that staffing levels are dangerously low and getting worse, affecting the care provided. Virtually all workers—some 97% of them—say that their employers are currently experiencing staffing shortages. Care workers have been overworked with low pay. These are all major factors among the reasons why they are leaving the sector for better pay. UNISON argues that 67% of staff say that they are thinking of leaving the sector altogether.

It is quite obvious that the Government must recognise that there is a crisis in this area and that they should do something about it—and quick. I could go on stressing the needs of care workers but time is clearly not on my side. However, I hope that this message gets clearly home to the Government because it is sadly needed.