Care Bill [Lords]

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Monday 16th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)]

I beg to move

That this House, whilst affirming its belief that the Care Bill [Lords] is a modest step towards a better social care system that protects some people from catastrophic costs, and welcoming the new rights for users and carers that the former Labour Government initiated, notes that the Bill’s deferred payment scheme will result in people continuing to have to sell their homes to pay for care; disagrees with the Government’s assertion that their proposals will cap care costs at £72,000 given that self-funders will face far higher bills; further notes that it includes provisions which could put NHS hospitals at risk of having services reconfigured without adequate consultation and without clinical support; further notes that the Bill fails to include measures to address the current crisis in care and meet the needs of the UK’s ageing population, including a genuinely integrated NHS and social care system; and therefore declines to give a Second Reading to the Care Bill [Lords] because it is an inadequate response to the scale of the challenge facing social care and fails fully to implement the recommendations of the Francis Report.

The Bill began as a response to the Dilnot report and a reform of social care, but has since taken in major new measures on the NHS. It deals with issues that matter greatly to millions—issues to which that very thin speech we have just heard did not do justice. Worse, it was an inappropriate attempt to turn an occasion such as this into the latest stage of the Secretary of State’s political smear campaign. I refuse to sink to his level, and instead will deal with the important issues before the House today. For clarity, I will take the issues separately—social care, then health.

Providing good care for all older and disabled people and finding a fair way to pay for it is the greatest unresolved public policy challenge of our times. The failure of successive Parliaments to face up to it has left in place today a care system in England which is underfunded, overstretched—[Interruption]—and in danger of being overwhelmed—a malnourished, minimum wage service where care is given in 15-minute slots, with barely time to make a cup of tea, let alone have a meaningful conversation or make someone comfortable.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

Members can hardly say “Ah!” after the performance that we just saw at the Dispatch Box. On the important issue of social care that my right hon. Friend is coming to, he knows that 100 or more of my constituents turned up on a Friday evening to talk to me about that. They want to hear from us today what we are going to do to fix the culture of low pay and poor conditions in social care, so will he say what he thinks local authorities can do, especially given the level of cuts that they face from this Government?

[Andy Burnham]

The issues are huge. They affect every family in this country and the worries they have about how they will look after their mum and dad in later life. They did not hear any answers from the Government this afternoon. I hope my hon. Friend will hear a few from me. I know that she has campaigned on the use of zero-hours contracts in our care system. Is it not a sad reflection on both sides of the House that today in England around 300,000 care staff are working on zero-hours contracts? They do not have the security of knowing what they will earn from one week to the next, so how can we expect them to pass on a sense of security to those they care for? Is not the message that we are sending to people who work in our care service, particularly young people coming into the service, that looking after someone else’s mum or dad is the lowest calling they can answer, when really it should be the very highest?