Social Care Funding (EAC Report)

Lord Razzall Excerpts

Thursday 28th January 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Razzall (LD) [V]]

My Lords, this report was published in 2019 and I share the frustration of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, about the delay in debating it, which I must say is indicative of the treatment of social care by successive Governments.

The history is stark. As long ago as 1999, a royal commission proposed more generous means testing for residential care and free personal nursing care. Nothing happened in England, although I think that free care was introduced in Scotland. In 2011, the Dilnot commission proposed a cap on lifetime care and a more generous means test. The coalition Government legislated to implement these proposals, but the Conservative Government in 2015 postponed their introduction and, in 2017, this postponement became permanent. As Jeremy Hunt said earlier this week:

“It was the silent cut that people didn’t notice until too late”.


In 2017, the Conservative Government promised a Green Paper, but nothing happened, perhaps because of fears about the so-called dementia tax in that election campaign. The 2019 Conservative manifesto promised urgently to seek cross-party consensus on this issue—nothing has happened.

Urgent action, as all noble Lords have indicated, is now required. In 2018, 14% of older people were reported to have unmet care needs. This situation will clearly have deteriorated as a result of the pandemic. To make things worse, we know that, as we speak, there are over 100,000 unfilled vacancies for workers in residential homes—a possible side effect of Brexit—and we also know that finance, as the report says, is forcing care homes to prioritise people who are self-funding over local authority provision.

I therefore endorse the call in the report for cross-party consensus on social care and the demand for a White Paper now to set out the options for funding. I agree with the conclusion in the report that additional funding for adult social care should be provided as a government grant, paid directly to local authorities and funded from general taxation, and that personal care at home should be free. The current postcode lottery in domestic care provision is manifestly unfair. Is there any wonder that local authorities cannot cope, bearing in mind the cuts imposed by central government since 2010? I also agree that there should be a cap on residential care, as Dilnot recommended and as is suggested by the report.

But we should also not forget the position of unpaid carers, without whose help the whole system would collapse. It is estimated that there are 9 million unpaid carers in this country, many of whom have been badly affected by Covid, as Mencap demonstrated this week. The report emphasises the importance of not allowing the body of impartial carers to diminish. Is it too much to ask the Government to increase the carer’s allowance of £67 per week by a further £20 per week, as Sir Edward Davey has called for?