Care and Support

Baroness Keeley Excerpts

Wednesday 11th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. It was neglectful of me not to mention that the White Paper and the announcement that I have made also drew on the recommendations and work of the Health Committee, and I am pleased to have been able to respond to its report as well.

First, matters relating to the legislative programme for the next Session will be announced in the normal way in the Gracious Speech. Secondly, I am determined that we will not only, I hope, have continuing cross-party talks but that they will be conducted, as I think that the shadow Secretary of State himself would wish, with the sector in a more open, public debate. If we were able to arrive at a position whereby, notwithstanding the fact that funding decisions might be made in the spending review, there was scope to put in place legislative provisions that allowed that to happen and could be agreed in time for the introduction of the draft Care and Support Bill, then we would look to make that happen. However, that is conditional at this stage.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State seems to forget two things. First, his Government did not implement the Personal Care at Home Act 2010, which would have made a difference to people. Secondly, they did not ask Dilnot to consider where the money was coming from, so he can hardly be blamed for not putting forward suggestions. The Secretary of State has committed to a few of Dilnot’s principles but ignored the fact that he advised the closure of the current funding gap in social care. Will he back Labour’s call for the Treasury to use £700 million of this year’s health underspend to close that funding gap, which is the cause of the crisis in social care?

[Mr Lansley]

First, it is ironic that the shadow Secretary of State said that local authorities would be aghast if they were asked to do extra things without resources given that we are providing those resources and that the Personal Care at Home Act was completely unfunded, which is why local government was desperate for us not to proceed with it. Andrew Dilnot and his colleagues are very clear, as are we, that there are, as I said in my statement, baseline funding pressures on local authorities in relation to social care. That will be addressed in the next spending review, as it was necessarily addressed in the previous spending review in direct response to recommendations that Andrew Dilnot gave us in 2010.