Queen’s Speech

Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted Excerpts

Wednesday 12th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the gracious Speech does not hit the height of the 1945 moment, which is what the country needed. Overdoing austerity was a mistake in the past, and it looks as if it will take hold again, however disguised. Here and there, a few lines capture the headlines, but we need detail to measure up to the billing, and there is much absent that is overdue to be done, not just because of the pandemic. The example I want to focus on is long-term care.

I was part of the Economic Affairs Committee under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, when it produced its report on social care, which is still very relevant. More than half the spending on adult social care is spent on people under 65, but a lot of focus has rested on the unfairness for people, who are not only unlucky in needing social care but end up with catastrophic costs, who have to sell their homes and then find they have to pay more than what is charged for those funded en bloc by local authorities.

The fact is that we need care to run on the same principles as health, where risk is shared. This is a Treasury issue, not just about funding but to agree mechanisms that allow risk sharing. If the economic future of the country is to be enhanced by innovation and risk-taking, boasted of in the gracious Speech, this is one place where the Treasury could practice what is preached whether by restoring the Dilnot proposals or finding other ways.

Aside from funding, we should also start to think differently about care. Social care is one of the largest and growing business sectors that we have. The over-75s will increase by 60% over the next 20 years, and it is time to think about how to harness the economic benefits that could generate rather than just bemoaning the economic drain.

The notes to the gracious Speech state:

“We will turn Britain into a science superpower, building on the extraordinary work of our life sciences sector during the pandemic, which has led the world in everything from vaccine development to genomic sequencing. We will invest record sums in Research and Development and create an Advanced Research and Invention Agency to help ensure that the breakthroughs of the future happen in the UK.”


I think we have Vince Cable to thank for helping life sciences into that position.

If we can see economic advantages of frontier and improved technology in health, including in related industrial aspects, then surely the same should apply in the care sector. That market is not going away, and it does not need a pandemic to keep it relevant. It is time to be creative, innovative and scientific about it rather than condemn it to run on cheap labour as the health service’s poor cousin, doing the same work for less pay. Innovation and technology should be at the heart of enabling more people to stay at home and more people to work at home and so, too, can be better ways of building.

I do not want to get involved in cross-departmental squabbles, but BEIS should be as interested in the science and technology opportunities around the care sector as it is around life sciences or robotics, and I put that as a challenge to the Minister. Will we be in the vanguard of these developments, sharing in the profits, or will we end up buying it all in from Japan or elsewhere?