Social Care

Baroness Keeley Excerpts

Wednesday 25th April 2018 Commons Chamber

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

I beg to move,

That this House notes that Government cuts to council budgets have resulted in a social care funding crisis; further notes that Government failure to deal with this crisis has pushed the funding problem on to councils and council tax payers and has further increased the funding gap for social care; is concerned that there is an unacceptable variation in the quality and availability of social care across the country with worrying levels of unmet need for social care; and calls on the Government to meet the funding gap for social care this year and for the rest of this Parliament.

It has been six months since the House called on the Government to commit the extra funding needed to ease the crisis affecting social care—six months of missed opportunities for the Government to bring more stability to our fragile social care system; six months in which the situation has deteriorated further. The care of older people and of younger people with disabilities seems sometimes to be an afterthought for this Government. The Secretary of State finally made a speech about social care in March, having had the words “social care” added to his title two months previously. Indeed, he told a conference of social workers:

“We need to do better on social care”.

This Government have had eight years to do better on social care.

The simple fact is that since 2010, things have got manifestly worse. I told the House in October that the care system, in the words of the Care Quality Commission, remains at a “tipping point”. Eight years of cuts to council budgets has meant that over £6 billion has been lost from social care budgets since 2010. The diminishing care fees that councils are able to pay in the light of those cuts have further destabilised the care sector, which is already described by the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services as “perilously fragile”.

ADASS reported last year that two thirds of councils had seen care providers close in their areas and that more than 50 councils had contracts with care providers handed back to them. A major chain of care homes, Four Seasons, recently ran into financial trouble, bringing with it the threat of care home closures and uncertainty for thousands of vulnerable elderly people. A few days ago, Allied Healthcare, one of the country’s biggest providers of home care, announced that it would be seeking a financial rescue plan from its creditors. Allied Healthcare has contracts with 150 councils and it cares for over 13,000 older and vulnerable people, so the Minister needs to tell the House how local authorities will be able to discharge their statutory duty to deliver care if Allied Healthcare collapses.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

On local authorities, my hon. Friend will know as well as I do that because of the cuts to local authority budgets, there is, on the one hand, bed blocking in hospitals, because local authorities do not have enough social workers to prepare a care package, and on the other, when people can go into care, care is so expensive that they cannot afford it. Councils are under pressure to try to make up the shortfall, which they cannot do.

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[Barbara Keeley]

Indeed they cannot, and given the fragility in some of these private care providers, I wonder what on earth councils are supposed to be able to do.

[Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD)]

Does the shadow Minister agree that Allied Healthcare looks like the tip of the iceberg? So many care providers are contemplating getting out of the publicly provided social care market or have already done so that we run the real risk of drifting towards a situation in which people with money can get good care privately but those who do not have the money could be left without.

[Barbara Keeley]

That is almost the situation we are in at the moment. It is worth thinking about why we seem to have this issue with Allied Healthcare, given that the problem has occurred in the last few days. It was reported that Allied Healthcare’s cash-flow problems had been triggered by increases in the national minimum wage for care staff and by an £11 million bill for back pay owed to sleep-in care staff. However, Allied Healthcare is not the only provider that is facing a large back-pay bill for care workers on shift. Learning disability social care providers have warned that they will have to withdraw services or close altogether to pay the bill for back pay, placing the care of even more people in jeopardy and putting care staff jobs at risk.

This trend of closures and contract cancellations is set to continue. A recent report into residential care by the Competition and Markets Authority painted a bleak picture of the current care home market.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I recently met Lifeways Group, which looks after thousands of people with learning disabilities and has many hundreds of staff who do sleep-in shifts. It pays above the national living wage and is a good employer, but it cannot afford the back-pay claims if the finding goes against it. Should the Government not provide the funding to support these organisations?

[Barbara Keeley]

It is reported, in fact, that the total back-pay bill across the social care providers that provide sleep-in cover will be about £400 million, so it is not surprising that a care provider such as Lifeways would say that. The Government have to come up with answers for this, because there has been a dragging of heels, the guidance has been very confusing, and it is a serious matter. I understand, too, that the Government have completed two reports, but they have not been made public. Hon. Members and I would certainly welcome having those reports placed in the Library so that we can get that information.

We have seen warnings from the Competition and Markets Authority that care homes would find themselves having to close or move away from local authority-funded care because the funding is now only just covering day-to-day running costs. It is quite clear from all this that there is a growing funding gap in social care that must be filled. The Local Government Association has said that our social care system needs an immediate injection of £1.3 billion to fill that gap, and this is projected to rise to £2.5 billion by 2020, according to the King’s Fund.

In our last Opposition day debate on social care, in October, the strain social care was under—from the weight of growing demand, reducing supply and the lack of funds from Government—was plain to see, but since then the system has cracked still further under the pressure of Government funding cuts.

[Thelma Walker (Colne Valley) (Lab)]

When elderly people fall, they often have a stay in hospital, putting additional pressures on the NHS, and when they are ready to be discharged, hospitals sometimes cannot discharge them, because local social care provision is not available. Two thirds of admissions to hospitals for falls could have been averted by early intervention in the home. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need more money for our adult social services?

[Barbara Keeley]

I do absolutely—and that is the point I was making. It was only when the number of delayed transfers of care hit a record high that the Government started to pay much attention to this issue. The other worry is that, as the British Red Cross has reported, in attempting to reduce the number of delayed transfers of care, hospitals often eject people before they are ready. One can see a vicious cycle of admission and readmission.

As I was saying, the system is beginning to crack. Hard-pressed councils and their associations are pleading for more funding to deal with the ever-increasing demand for social care. In December, the former president of ADASS, Margaret Willcox, said:

“The crisis facing us is so acute that we fear social care could pass the point of no return in 2018 while we wait for decisions to be made.”

The National Audit Office has warned that councils could face insolvency after using their reserves just to meet those increasing costs of social care. As well as Northamptonshire County Council being technically insolvent, we recently learned that Worcestershire County Council has a massive budgetary disparity. A report from the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy has warned the council that it faces a £26 million hole in its finances this year and that that would rise to £60 million in 2020, owing mainly to an increase in demand. The council chief executive, Paul Robinson, has said that

“there comes a point where cost-cutting can’t go any further – there has to be a solution, and I think it has to be a national solution.”

Lord Porter, the Conservative chair of the LGA, has said to councils that:

“you can’t keep dipping into your savings; sooner or later the money will run out.”

Let us think about what these cuts to social care mean for the quality of care that people receive. In the recent words of the Secretary of State himself, there is unacceptable variation in the quality of services. One in five care facilities receives the lowest quality rating from the Care Quality Commission, and Labour’s own research has revealed that over 3,000 care facilities that already have the lowest quality rating continue to receive the lowest rating even after being re-inspected. Cuts mean providers have less money to pay staff or to invest in training or building renovations, which can obviously lead to their getting trapped in a cycle of poor-quality care provision, and that poor-quality care has a serious impact on the lives of people who need care.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for pointing out the very high percentage of care homes being found to be inadequate or requiring improvements—the figure is over 40% in my local authority. Does she agree that in many cases this is about care not being safe in those care settings? The real worry is not just that the settings are a bit grotty but that the care is unsafe.

[Barbara Keeley]

Yes, indeed. My hon. Friend takes me ahead in what I was going to say, but I know she has been involved with Age UK in understanding the state of care in her own local area, and I applaud her for that. Cuts have resulted in providers giving poor-quality care, and that is having a serious impact on the lives of people who need care. It means people not being washed or going hours without receiving a meal or being given a drink; it means people being left without help to go to the toilet; and in some cases, as she just said, it means people not being given crucial medication.

Care quality has become so bad that Age UK’s recent report was entitled, “Why call it care when nobody cares?” Many Members went to the launch of the report and listened to the older carers who were there. The anger of those older carers who spoke at or attended the event was palpable. Some told me that they and their families were often at breaking point, that they felt betrayed by a system of care that left them with little or no affordable support, and that they faced rising care costs which they described as crippling, although the care for which they paid was often not good enough.

I know that the Minister was present at that event. She may have talked to one carer there, Elaine from Northamptonshire, whose council is battling insolvency. Elaine gave up her job to care and has cared full-time for her husband ever since, but rather than giving her any extra help, the council recently tried to increase the weekly cost of care support at home from £88 to £178 per week. That was another battle for a carer to fight to obtain the care support that she needed at a price that she and her husband could afford.

Labour Members recognise that unpaid family carers need more support. We understand how much families are doing to look after their family members, and how hard that is for many carers but the Government have not even developed an updated national strategy for carers, having scrapped the planned strategy back in October. Since then, they have even failed to publish the action plan that was promised for January. What does that say about their attitude to carers?

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

The motion states that

“there is an unacceptable variation in the quality and availability of social care”.

Where in the country does the hon. Lady think it is really good at the moment?

[Barbara Keeley]

It tends to be outstanding in the independent sector. Charities in particular can be outstanding, although they are not always so.

The care sector’s funding crisis also has an impact on the growing number of people who need care but are given none at all. More than 1.2 million people are now living with unmet care needs, many of them isolated and lonely, and that number rises to 1.5 million with the addition of people who need assistance with taking medication. Unmet needs can lead to people being forced to wear incontinence pads overnight because there is no one to help them to get to the toilet, which takes away their dignity. The number of older people living with unmet care needs will inevitably rise without an injection of new funding, because of the growing demand for care in our ageing population.

It is clear that the social care system needs sustainable funding from central Government, but the Government’s response to the crisis so far has been to push the funding problem on to hard-pressed councils and council tax payers through the social care levy. The only increase in Government funding has been the paltry £150 million extra for social care in the local government finance settlement. That is nowhere near enough to avert the crisis that the Government have created in social care. Moreover, it was not the new money that councils desperately needed. The Government admitted that the increase would be funded through an expected underspend in existing departmental budgets.

It is clear that local authorities are now facing some of their greatest challenges just to make ends meet. I want to highlight the heroic efforts of Labour councils to protect adult social care in the face of swingeing budget cuts from the Government.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend has referred to Labour councils. In each of the last two years, my local authority, Bolton Council, has had to increase its council tax rates by 3% and 2% respectively in order to fund social care, and it will have to increase them next year as well. It has had a shortfall of £6 million, and has been able to cover it only by increasing council tax, which is really not acceptable.

[Barbara Keeley]

Indeed. As I have said, the Government have pushed the problem on to councils, which have been forced to use their reserves, and pushed the council on to council tax payers, who have had to pay the levy.

I was talking about the heroic efforts of some councils. Despite budget cuts, which are now running at between 40% and 50%, my local authority, Salford City Council, and neighbouring Manchester City Council have acted to ensure that care providers with which they contract will pay care staff a real living wage, and I know that Labour councils in Lambeth, Southwark and many other London boroughs have committed themselves to paying their care staff the London living wage.

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

As my hon. Friend is mentioning many councils, may I draw her attention to the work of Bristol City Council under Councillor Helen Holland? It is leading an important Proud to Care campaign to encourage more care workers back into sector, particularly at a time of increasing demand and labour shortages. Will she join me in commending Bristol City Council’s work in this area?

[Barbara Keeley]

I will indeed, because given the cuts that many councils have been facing—I am sure Bristol is the same—these efforts to protect care services are really excellent.

I was talking about those London boroughs that have committed to pay care staff the London living wage, which, at £10.20 an hour, is way above the Government’s so-called living wage of £7.83—a commitment that is no small undertaking. That is a further example of the good that Labour-run councils are doing for the most vulnerable people in their communities. We on this side of the House—this ties in very much with the point that my hon. Friend has just made—see the need for social care to be valued as a career. At last year’s general election, Labour pledged to implement the real living wage for all care staff and to ensure that care staff were paid for travel time, that 15-minute care visits were scrapped and that zero-hours contracts were ended for care staff. Those are important steps, but we know that we have to go much further if we are to improve care quality.

It is clear from the reports of the Care Quality Commission that staffing levels are still a major issue in those care services rated as inadequate or requiring improvement. Much of the care workforce are underpaid, undervalued and overworked, which leads to high turnover and vacancy rates in the sector among care staff and, more importantly, the registered managers who are responsible for overseeing care quality. Improving pay for care staff will help with that, but we also need to commit to improving care staffing levels to reduce the workload pressure and offer better training and career paths.

The National Audit Office has criticised the Government for failing to have an up-to-date workforce strategy for the care sector and for their lack of oversight of workforce planning in local areas. Indeed, the Government have no major workforce strategy for social care. It was the Labour Government who produced the last strategy, in 2009. The head of the National Audit Office has said:

“Social care cannot continue as a Cinderella service—without a valued and rewarded workforce, adult social care cannot fulfil its crucial role of supporting elderly and vulnerable people in society.”

Skills for Care has a budget of only £21 million for care staff training, whereas Health Education England has a budget of £4.7 billion. That disparity in budgets between health and social care says it all about the Government’s lack of priority for improving the quality of social care.

At the 2017 election, Labour pledged an extra £8 billion for social care across this Parliament, with an extra £1 billion to ease the crisis in social care this year. That aimed to relieve the pressure on the social care system. It would have been enough to begin paying care staff the real living wage and would have sought to offer more publicly funded care packages for people with different levels of need. Today’s debate is not primarily about the long-term funding of social care, but Labour has made it clear that maintaining the current funding system is not an option in the long term. Recently, polling by the Alzheimer’s Society has shown that paying for social care is a growing public concern and that there is overwhelming public support for a cap on care costs. The next Labour Government will implement a lower cap on care costs than the cap set under the Care Act 2014. We will also raise the asset threshold to a higher level than under the current system.

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

I am listening with interest to the hon. Lady’s opening remarks. I am obviously interested in the cap, in paying care workers more and in raising the threshold, but how would a Labour Government pay for that?

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[Barbara Keeley]

I think there must be an echo, because the hon. Lady asked me exactly the same question in the last debate, six months ago. I said to her previously that there is a range of options that we could use to raise the money, including wealth taxes, an employer care contribution and a social care levy. However, it really is a bit rich of Government Members to raise that question when they have no idea whatsoever how they would take forward any social care developments. Furthermore, there was absolutely nothing in the Conservative party’s election campaign last year about the funding for anything. We had a costing document. We had a costed manifesto. I can stand here and say that we had the funding to put £8 billion extra into social care in this Parliament, including £1 billion this year. The Conservative party said nothing whatsoever about that.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

rose—

[Barbara Keeley]

I will not give way—I need to move on. When the Minister responds to the debate, she can tell us what the Conservative party is aiming to do, but I am afraid that there has been a complete cloud of obfuscation.

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Barbara Keeley]

No, I need to move on. The Deputy Speaker has asked me not to take too long, and not take too many interventions. I have been very generous up to this point.

We believe that the time to act on this care crisis is now, but instead of taking the bold steps needed to fix the crisis, this Government are promising a Green Paper. Since the royal commission first reported on the long-term funding for the care of older people in 1999, we have seen 12 consultations and four independent reviews, so I really question why the Government are undertaking yet another consultation and producing yet another Green Paper. It is clear that they have become increasingly fond of consultations, reviews and Green Papers. In fact, they have launched more than 1,600 consultations since 2015, and more than 500 of them have not yet been completed. Sadly, I have to say that that includes the carers strategy. The Government spent £1 million on the Dilnot review, only to delay the introduction of its recommended care cap before shelving it indefinitely. The Government are wasting time and public money on consultations, and even more on adopting then shelving long-term funding solutions for social care.

The time to act is now. I urge the Government to give our social care system the funding it so badly needs, both this year and in the longer term, and I urge hon. Members to support our motion tonight. We must give councils the proper funding to deliver the high-quality care that people across this country need to live with dignity. That is nothing less than they deserve.

[The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)]

I thank the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) for introducing the debate. We want this to be the best country in the world in which to grow old and in which people can face their third age knowing that they will be supported to live healthy, independent lives for longer and for as long as possible, with a choice of good-quality, affordable care that is there, should they need it. Today’s debate is a welcome opportunity to cover the action that this Government have taken to improve social care, highlighting a few examples where real progress has been made, as well as discussing our longer-term plans for the Green Paper, which will be published later this summer.

Most of all, however, I want to do something that the hon. Lady forgot to do, which is pay tribute to the extraordinary people—both the social care workforce and the informal carers—who play such a vital part in our health and social care system. At the heart of their endeavours is the commitment to do all they can to support individuals and families throughout the country.

[Barbara Keeley]

The Minister has just said that I did not pay tribute to informal carers. That is just not true. Everybody who knows me knows that I have never stopped paying tribute to informal carers, and I did so in my speech today. Please will the Minister not attribute comments to me that I did not make?

[Caroline Dinenage]

What I actually said was that the hon. Lady forgot to pay tribute to the social care workforce, who play such a vital part in our health and social care system. At the heart of their endeavours is the commitment to do all they can to support individuals and families throughout the country to live healthier lives with comfort, dignity and respect. However, it is absolutely right to begin by acknowledging that this sector has been through some really difficult times.

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[Caroline Dinenage]

If the hon. Lady will bear with me, I will come on to discuss that, but there will be a separate, parallel workstream on working-age adults, who account for over half of the spending—

[Barbara Keeley]

Why?

[Caroline Dinenage]

If the hon. Lady will give me the courtesy of allowing me to finish my comments, I will explain why in a moment.

The hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) wondered why we are going back to the past and looking at Labour’s record, but Labour is asking people up and down the country to vote for them in the local elections, so they will rightly look at Labour’s record and at how it dealt with the social care crisis when it was in government. After 13 years of inactivity and bluster, people need to be able to make a choice based on historically accurate facts.

[Barbara Keeley]

Will the Minister give way?

[Caroline Dinenage]

The hon. Lady had plenty of time to make her comments, so I will make a little progress.

When the Conservative party formed the coalition Government in 2010, it is worth remembering that not only did we have to deal with the parlous state of the country’s finances, but we inherited a burning platform of social care. Of course, that meant taking difficult decisions in those early years, which were challenging times for local authorities.

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[Caroline Dinenage]

I will make a bit of progress.

The shadow Minister asked about Allied Healthcare. She is right to raise that, and I am grateful that she has done so. As she said, Allied Healthcare announced last Thursday that it is proposing a company voluntary arrangement to its creditors. I want to talk about that specifically because people across the country will be concerned. I spoke to the chief executive officer last Thursday to emphasise the importance of continuity of care for everyone receiving its services, both in adult social care and primary care, and the company has made it clear that those who receive services from Allied Healthcare will continue to receive the same level of care and that their care plans will not change.

[Barbara Keeley]

I am glad the Minister has responded in that way, but I asked her how she would ensure that 150 councils can fulfil their statutory duty to provide care if that company goes bust. We need to know a bit more than that she has had verbal reassurance. Of course the chief executive, in his current position, will try to give her verbal reassurance but, under the CVA, the creditors have to be satisfied within four weeks. What is going to happen if this company goes bust? Is it going to be another Southern Cross?

[Caroline Dinenage]

I am happy to answer the hon. Lady’s questions, which she is right to ask. Although we are very hopeful that this procedure will have a positive result, we are taking steps to ensure we are prepared for all eventualities. The Care Quality Commission and my Department are monitoring the situation, and the CQC will notify local authorities in the event it considers it likely that services will be disrupted as a result of business failure. The law means that local authorities will step in to meet individuals’ care and support needs if a care provider business fails and its services are disrupted. The relevant local authorities are working up contingency plans to ensure individuals’ care and support needs continue to be met.

While the long-term options are being resolved, it is right that funding for social care comes from a variety of sources, including business rates, general taxation and the social care precept. Delayed transfers of care is one area where that money is clearly making a difference. This Government are clear that no one should stay in a hospital bed for longer than is necessary; doing this removes people’s dignity, reduces their quality of life and leads to poorer health and care outcomes.

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[Caroline Dinenage]

I will certainly take that into consideration.

[Barbara Keeley]

The Minister is just proving that she was not listening to what I was saying. What I said was that the British Red Cross has said that it had found innumerable cases where discharges have happened so quickly that people were discharged without the right amount of care, and that can just lead to a cycle of readmission. A constituent told me that, in the case of Salford Royal, which is an excellent hospital, she felt she had been “thrown out of hospital.” That is what she told me.

[Caroline Dinenage]

I very much thank the hon. Lady for that clarification.

Our funding increases have gone into initiatives such as the better care fund, which provides a mechanism for local authorities and clinical commissioning groups to pool budgets for the purposes of integrated care.

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[Damian Green]

I will certainly give way to the right hon. Gentleman in a moment, because I am about to mention him, but I am conscious of time.

There needs to be radical change, and the Green Paper needs to be radical and brave, because although in this debate, as in the wider debate on this issue, a lot of people talk about the fact that we live in an ageing society, we have not remotely adjusted as a society to what that means yet. Our population is projected to grow by around 10 million over the next 40 years. Almost all that growth comes from older people, and particularly those in the oldest age group. There are 5.3 million people over 75 in Britain today. That number will double to more than 10 million in 40 years. This is not just a looming problem; it is a problem today. There is a short-term and a long-term problem to solve. Frankly, in the spirit of non-partisanship, no party has a record unblemished by using social care as a political football. Phrases such as “death tax” or “dementia tax” make good copy and can affect the outcome of elections, but they do not help rational debate or, more importantly, help us improve the lot of the increasing millions of older people.

[Barbara Keeley]

I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman is admonishing his own Chancellor, who used the expression “death tax” in the last Budget.

[Damian Green]

I think that the phrase “death tax” dates back to the previous Labour Government’s attempt to solve the problem in 2008, and I am sure that the hon. Lady used the phrase “dementia tax” during the last general election campaign. I hope that she will reciprocate my attempt to be non-partisan—so far it does not feel like it.

In the short term, the challenge for the Government is one of capacity and quality of care. Both problems will become more difficult in the long term. There is a range of things that we must do as a society before people need social care. For example, we need to keep people active for longer, we need to keep them in the workforce for longer, because that is good for their health, and we need to make changes to the planning system so that we can keep them in appropriate housing of their own for longer. In the end, however, the nub of the issue will be funding.

I want to address a point raised by the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire about joining the whole thing up with health funding. I agree with the broad thrust of the 10 principles proposed by the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), the hon. Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall) and my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) yesterday, particularly the idea of hypothecation, whose time is coming, but I think there is a problem with the idea of simply integrating all health funding and all social care funding.

It is a no-brainer that, organisationally, social care and healthcare need to be much better integrated, so that the individual is not trying to negotiate a very complex system, as the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire said. If we simply roll all the funding together into one pot, however—a sort of national health and social care fund—there are two serious dangers. The first is that social care takes over from mental health as the Cinderella of the health system, never quite at the top of the priority list when money is allocated. The second is that nobody feels that their contribution is related to their personal needs. The effect is that some of the sources of funding that could be made available—I agree with all those who say we need more funding—such as the £1.7 trillion of equity in residential property, of which more than two thirds is held by the over-65s, would be in danger of being permanently excluded, which I think would be a great mistake.

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[Jackie Doyle-Price]

The ruling from HMRC is clear that those on sleep-in shifts are still entitled to the minimum wage, so we are working out a solution to those historical liabilities. We are clear that we expect all employers to abide by the national minimum wage legislation, and I hope that that gives the hon. Lady some clarity on that point.

We can expect the Green Paper to be brought forward, but I also want to address what Members have said about the variation in quality and availability of provision. As has been said, local councils are responsible for responding to that, and the CQC has rated 81% of care services as good, but it is important that we work with those that are performing less well to achieve significant improvements so that everyone is entitled to the best possible care.

I was pleased to hear the contribution of my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green). His philosophical approach perhaps reflects the amount of time that he has spent thinking about this topic. I associate myself with the comment made by him and several Members across the House about the fact that no one has an unblemished record when it comes to debates about social care. If we are genuinely to come up with a long-term solution, we need a spirit of consensus to take people with us, and people on both sides of the House need to remember that.

In conclusion, we have had a full debate and it will not be the last time that we debate this subject. We are now quite a way down the track when it comes to working up real proposals to bring genuine reforms of the social care system to equip ourselves for a world where life expectancy ends not at 70, but at 100. That will require significant change. We are stepping up to the challenge and will bring forward proposals in due course.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House notes that Government cuts to council budgets have resulted in a social care funding crisis; further notes that Government failure to deal with this crisis has pushed the funding problem on to councils and council tax payers and has further increased the funding gap for social care; is concerned that there is an unacceptable variation in the quality and availability of social care across the country with worrying levels of unmet need for social care; and calls on the Government to meet the funding gap for social care this year and for the rest of this Parliament.

[Barbara Keeley]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The motion that has just been unanimously agreed calls on the Government

“to meet the funding gap for social care”—

widely said to be £1.3 billion—

“this year and for the rest of this Parliament.”

Given that Ministers have agreed to the motion, can you advise when we might expect an announcement from the Government on this important agreement on social care funding?

[Mr Speaker]

The most pertinent response that I can offer to the hon. Lady—I understand her perfectly legitimate point of order—is as follows. On 26 October 2017—obviously this was done in the light of a number of Opposition-day debates and motions voted thereon—the Leader of the House said in a written ministerial statement:

“Where a motion tabled by an opposition party has been approved by the House, the relevant Minister will respond to the resolution of the House by making a statement no more than 12 weeks after the debate.”—[Official Report, 26 October 2017; Vol. 630, col. 12WS.]

That is the position as things stand. The hon. Lady has registered her point with considerable force, it is on the record, and I do not dispute the fact of what she said about the motion being carried unanimously.