Direction of Government

Debate between Andy Burnham and Alison Griffiths

Tuesday 1st September 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I know that this issue matters to my hon. Friend personally, as it does to me. The leader of the Liberal Democrats, the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), pointed out during our cross-party talks—and, powerfully, in the media—that family carers are often simply not seen, and sink slowly as the situation becomes more and more unbearable and unsustainable for them. I know that from my own family experience.

I give my hon. Friend my word from the Dispatch Box that social care will be a huge priority for me. We do need to support family carers, as the right hon. Gentleman said, and we also need to give much more support to paid carers, who, as I have said, are working on poverty pay. I will not leave this role until we have introduced a social care system that we can be proud of.

[Alison Griffiths (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)]

My constituents will have been pleased to hear from Sir Jon Cunliffe, who produced 88 recommendations last July. However, his diagnosis is rather different from that of the Prime Minister. He believes that governance and regulation are the key to better performance, rather than some ill-defined version of “better public control”, which, according to the Government’s own assessment, would cost more than £100 billion. Will the Prime Minister promise to enact all 88 of those recommendations without delay?

[The Prime Minister]

I appreciate that the Cunliffe report takes us forward, but it was to some degree limited in what it was able to consider, and I believe we need to look at all possible solutions for the water industry. I do not think we are in a position to say that what is being proposed will solve everything. It is very regrettable that the privatisation of water has left us in a position that we will find it very difficult to reverse. What has happened is that funding has left through salaries and dividends. Bills were kept low for a period of time, but it is the infrastructure that is suffering. Now, when we need to put those infrastructure problems right, it is bill payers who are being asked to pay 20%-plus on their bills—not those who siphoned the money out in the first place. It is an unsatisfactory situation. It is an industry where the shareholders never lose and the bill payers never win, and I say to the hon. Lady that it is simply wrong and unsustainable.