Social Care

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Wednesday 25th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

We have had a very wide-ranging debate with 16 Back-Bench contributions. I pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Redcar (Anna Turley), for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins), for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury), for Leicester West (Liz Kendall), for Blaydon (Liz Twist), for Warrington South (Faisal Rashid), for Keighley (John Grogan), for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), for Crewe and Nantwich (Laura Smith) and for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) for their passionate, powerful and well-informed contributions. I also thank the right hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green), and the hon. Members for North Cornwall (Scott Mann), for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), for Cheadle (Mary Robinson), for Solihull (Julian Knight) and for Redditch (Rachel Maclean) for their contributions. We might not always see eye to eye, but there is consensus that we have to fix the problem in adult social care, although how we go about that will always be up for debate.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the very constructive cross-party, collegiate visit of the Communities and Local Government Committee to Germany, where we looked at its social insurance scheme, which could provide the perfect, sustainable and scalable solution to the adult social care conundrum?

[Andrew Gwynne]

The Government need to decide their position, but there are examples across the world of how adult social care can be funded. We need to make sure we get a system that works for England.

I also pay tribute to the workforce and carers. They do not just need platitudes from us in the House; they need the Government and politicians on their side.

This is the second time we have had to call an Opposition day debate on this issue, following the Government’s lack of action on social care. In our debate last October, there was broad agreement across the House, as there has been more or less today, that reform of social care was a priority, but here we are, six months later, and little has changed. Last month, we heard the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care tell the British Association of Social Workers that he accepted his share of responsibility for the lack of progress since the Conservatives entered government in 2010.

The social care Green Paper, due this summer, has faced substantial delays. We need a commitment from the Government that it will not be delayed any further. There is only so much longer that the sector can wait. Let us remember that in January there was hope that the Government would place an extra focus on social care after the Department of Health was rebranded, but then, shortly afterwards, in what sounded like a tribute act to the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government told a packed LGA conference—I was there—that

“nothing has changed, nothing has changed”.

Confusion still reigns, and it is true: nothing has changed. This confusion means that 1.2 million people are being denied the support they need.

Let us look at what the cuts mean. According to its director of adult care, social care provision in Northamptonshire County Council—a Conservative council —is

“on the verge of being unsafe”

as a result of the cuts. That council has effectively been the first in England to declare insolvency. According to the director, the additional funds in the local government finance settlement will have “little impact” on the county’s problems, and I fear that that is right, but the Minister will be aware of the widespread fear that what has happened in Northamptonshire could happen again elsewhere. Mark McLaughlin, who was appointed from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in December to oversee Northamptonshire’s finances, has warned that all top-tier local authorities will soon face similar issues. Then, only last week, we heard that Worcestershire County Council, the Conservative-run local authority in the constituency of the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, had buried a report expressing urgent concern after rising costs, including the cost of adult social care, had forced the council to use more than half its reserves in the past five years. The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy expects the growth in demand to result in a budget deficit of £60.1 million by 2020-21.

[Rachel Maclean]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andrew Gwynne]

No, I will not. Well, I will, because it is the hon. Lady’s local council.

[Rachel Maclean]

Worcestershire County Council covers the whole of my constituency, and I am aware of the concerns that the hon. Gentleman has raised. I want to respond to them, because I too have been worried about the position, as many other people naturally are. I met the chief executive and the leader of the council to address this very issue, and I can assure the hon. Gentleman that they have a sustainable plan to deal with it. However, I will of course keep it under review, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Gwynne]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for providing me with a nice segue. On Monday, Paul Robinson, the chief executive of her council—Tory Worcestershire County Council—said that

“there comes a point where cost-cutting can’t go any further—there has to be a solution”.

He is right too, but we have yet to hear a Minister even acknowledge that this crisis in social care funding in local government is as serious as it is—and it is a crisis that has its roots in Downing Street. Let us be clear: austerity and cuts in local government budgets have been a political choice by this Government since 2010.

It gets worse. Behind every statistic that I can quote are real people working in the service, real people receiving services, real people requiring services, and families worried about how to support their loved ones. Funding cuts, poor pay, recruitment problems and a lack of support for the sector have hit the quality and availability of adult social care support. In the past year, one in five local authorities has seen more of its care homes rated “inadequate” or “requires improvement”. In some areas, as many as one in two care homes is now rated inadequate.

For some of the most vulnerable, even gaining access to any form of support is difficult. Vulnerable older people with conditions such as dementia and motor neurone disease are being denied support because there is a postcode lottery for treatment. According to Which?, where people live can make them 25 times more likely to receive social care support. South Reading paid care costs for 8.7 patients per 50,000 people, while Salford funded 220.3 per 50,000. In Stockport, people are nearly seven times less likely to receive the funding than those just a few miles away in Salford, and patients in Richmond are more than three times more likely to receive it than those in Ealing.

Ministers cannot hide the terms of a social care levy behind flexibilities on council tax. They know, as we know, that in the areas with the greatest need, a small increase in council tax will never make up the shortfall in funding caused by cuts in grants from central Government, which have been slashed by an average of 50% since 2010. That has exacerbated inequality, as poorer areas, which often have many needs, have struggled to raise the funding that they so desperately need. I will use a local example for the Minister. Tameside, one of two local authorities that cover my constituency, will face a £33 million funding gap in adult social care in the next three years, yet a 1% increase on council tax raises just over £700,000—never, ever enough to plug that gap.

The news that Allied Healthcare, one of the biggest providers of home care, has fallen into financial difficulty shows the impact that is being felt in the sector. The fact that 150 councils rely on Allied Healthcare should send shivers down the spines of Ministers. We got no real answers or any assurances from the Government that they were taking these developments seriously or putting in place emergency contingency measures to ensure that we do not see a repeat of the Carillion collapse.

There are four reasons that people now give for their dissatisfaction with social care: staff shortages, long waiting times, a lack of funding, and Government reforms. That is coming not just from the Opposition; the same concerns that we have raised today are being raised in living rooms and care homes across England. The Government have a duty to respond, and I commend our motion to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

To be frank with the hon. Lady, one of our priorities is to make sure that disabled people can live independently for longer. That is very much a central part of our approach and we are making more money available for it. [Interruption.] She can sit and smile, but that informs our approach.

I should also like to associate myself with the comments made by a large number of colleagues in paying tribute to the hard-working, committed people who make up our social care workforce and to the informal carers who play such a vital part in our health and social care system. Central to the points made by the hon. Members for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) and for Keighley (John Grogan) is that we all collectively need to send a clear message that the work that those people do is valued. We are working with Skills for Care to put more value on this as a profession. People who work in the care sector do so because they are personally motivated and money actually matters less to them. We ought to give them a clear message that we really appreciate all the efforts that they make.

Many Members have raised the issue of funding cuts to council budgets. That subject obviously informed the comments from the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish just now. I will not run away from the fact that there have been challenges for councils in recent times— [Interruption.] Opposition Members mention cuts, but the bottom line is that we can only spend what we collect from taxpayers. That is the reality of the situation. I will be first in the queue to pay tribute to those councils that have stepped up to the challenge, coped well with the reductions and worked hard to become efficient. They have shown real innovation in rising to the challenge.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I fully appreciate the Minister’s point that we can only spend the money that we raise from taxes, but this is a question of priorities. Why did she vote for a £5 billion cut to the bank levy in the Budget? Is that not the wrong priority?

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

I think the hon. Gentleman will find that we actually have a very progressive tax paying system none the less.

I want to celebrate those areas that have continued to deliver their social care responsibilities in challenging circumstances. We have heard a lot about what has gone wrong, but let us just remember this statistic: 81% of people in care homes are in homes that have been rated good or outstanding. I think that is an achievement, and something to be celebrated. I also want to compliment those councils that have really stepped up to the plate to deliver an improved performance on delayed transfers of care. Stoke and Trafford in particular have cut their delayed discharges by more than half. This comes down to leadership and determination. Where councils show real leadership, that will deliver improvements and change—[Interruption.] I have just named those councils: Stoke and Trafford.