Budget Statement

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Friday 12th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con) [V]]

Although Budgets are primarily about how we raise money, the success of our Government depends on how we spend it in the interests of the country at large. There has been criticism about support for social care, so I thought I would bring some common sense and conservative observations to the matter.

The White Paper of 11 February, Integration and Innovation: Working Together to Improve Health and Social Care for All, included some important proposals. However, it does not tackle the most critical issue of the funding of social care. This is the sort of matter that one expects to see in the Red Book, perhaps in the form of insurance or a levy or in support to local government. There has been an eye-watering amount of spending on Covid and a lot of attention to climate change, yet in the medium term a decent system of social care is more important to more people than either, given the scale of the demographic time bomb that we face, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson, and the erosion of pension provision.

There are a number of important strands to the issue: get the bed-blockers out of our hospitals, perhaps by allowing hospitals to run care homes; support people to recover at home, using innovative digital care and home aids; encourage people to be healthy and active and to save for their old age, reducing pressure on the state; and make care homes decent, profitable businesses or attractive to well-run charities. The current system encourages elderly people to stay in the free NHS for too long, but the “working together” strategy will not deliver unless there are the right incentives.

I welcome the new measures in the Budget that help small businesses, such as the 130% capital allowance and the Help to Grow scheme for management and digital. Will these help the care home sector? Can my noble friend the Minister kindly indicate when he will be able to set out the Government’s plans for social care funding?

I end by welcoming our five new noble Lords and the new thinking that they will bring.