Social Care Funding: Intergenerational Impact

Baroness Wheeler Excerpts

Thursday 16th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wheeler (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, on securing this debate and on her timely reminder of the intergenerational fairness report on social care funding, which she so ably chaired.

This is the first, brief, opportunity we have had since the usual hyperbole and razzmatazz of the Prime Minister’s announcement last week to begin the step-by-step, detailed debate and analysis about what is actually in the proposals and their impact across the generations on the elderly, on working-age people, on younger people with disabilities and their families and on carers.

Reality is fast setting in, as noble Lords’ wide-ranging and thoughtful contributions in this debate have shown. After the way it was treated during the pandemic, the hope and expectation must surely have been for social care to have been an up-front and equal partner in any future health and social care funding plan, but it certainly is not in what the Government have set out.

The funding allocated to social care from the health and social care levy over the next three years amounts to only £1 in every £6 of the total £36 billion raised. Figures from the Institute of Fiscal Studies clearly show that this is nowhere near enough to offset the £8 billion of cuts in per capita spending over the last decade. Local councils, social services leaders and providers are deeply concerned that the NHS will continue to absorb and swallow up the vast majority of the proceeds from the new tax, and there is no extra funding to deal with the crisis in social care now; a number of noble Lords pointed that out. As the National Care Forum put it:

“This is a recovery plan for the NHS … The funding pot being talked about for social care is not sufficient to even address the issues of today.”


Although we do not agree with the intergenerational report’s overall recommendations on funding, many of its findings nevertheless resonate with Labour’s key concerns about the impact that the Government’s proposals will have. Many of those concerns have been underlined today by noble Lords, particularly the noble Lords, Lord Howarth, Lord Davies and Lord Griffiths, and the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler.

We have made it clear that the plan is wrong on so many fronts. First, the national insurance increase will disproportionately affect younger and lower-income workers. It does nothing to tackle the chronic workforce shortages, which are getting worse by the day, and will mean care workers ending up £1,130 worse off as a result of this increase and the £20 cut in universal credit, which many rely on.

The cap will do nothing for a third of the users and half the budget for social care, which is for working-age adults with disabilities, as a number of noble Lords— including the noble Baronesses, Lady Watkins and Lady Brinton, and the noble Lord, Lord Sikka—pointed out. The press stories of young disabled people having to stay in bed or sitting in a chair all day because their care hours and the other services they depend on stopped during the pandemic and still have not restarted are heartbreaking. Further, the cap will not kick in until 2023 and does not cover all costs. People will still need to sell their homes to fund their care and many people in care will never hit the cap, as the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, pointed out.

Moreover, there is no commitment to addressing the urgent needs of the 1.5 million older people who are denied personal care for help with washing, dressing, toileting and other basic needs to help them to stay in their homes and be part of their local communities. Labour’s key principle of “home first” must form a key part of the plan for sustainable funding. We have made it clear that the social care plan must be fair across generations, and that those who can most afford it must be asked to contribute more. It must deal with both the immediate and long-term funding needs, and give social care the parity with the NHS that it both deserves and needs.