Independent Residential Care

Baroness Falkner of Margravine Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell [V]]

The noble and right reverend Lord is entirely right: the value and contribution of care home workers to society and to the communities that they work in go way beyond the actual monetary value of their salary. We completely respect and pay tribute to the contribution that they have made, particularly during this epidemic. We have sought during the epidemic to run recruitment campaigns to bring in new workers and to help plug any skills gaps, but this is the kind of issue that needs to be addressed in a long-term plan. We have already started work on that plan and look forward to bringing it to Parliament when the kind of cross-party support that is needed is in place.

[Baroness Falkner of Margravine (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, I welcome the initiation of cross-party talks. The Minister will know now that more than two-thirds of the public want to fund health and social care through higher taxation. Will he now accept that as a principle if that is the result of the cross-party talks, instead of his Government ruling out tax increases?

[Lord Bethell [V]]

The noble Baroness makes her case well. There are a large number of considerations in this matter—my noble friend Lord Forsyth has already made a strong case for the recommendations of the Economic Affairs Committee—and we need to look at all of them. It is an extremely complicated area. We need to get buy-in from cross-party support and from a wide number of stakeholders and the businesses involved. Once we are in that position, we will be able to make a plan that delivers a long-term solution to this knotty problem.