Health and Social Care Levy

Debate between Ben Everitt and Jake Berry

1st reading
Wednesday 8th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Ben Everitt (Milton Keynes North) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher), who made a typically thoughtful and energetic contribution. There was much to agree with there.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison) quoted the words, “To lead is to choose”, and here we have no easy choices. Indeed, in our job we often have tough days in the office, and nights when we lose sleep thinking about a vote, a decision, the options and the choices that we have in front of us. However, in this speech I am going to look on the bright side. I am going to try to be optimistic, and pull out the good things from the situation and the hard choices that we face. One good thing is that owing to the timing of this, I only lost one night’s sleep, but I am going to be very positive about the policy itself as well. I am going to choose three things that I want to improve, and I am glad that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury is here to listen. Those three things are how the revenue is raised, the quantum and the period over which it is spent, and how it is spent.

There are never any good options for raising taxes, but I happen to think that raising taxes on having a job should possibly be at the bottom of the list when we look at new areas of income. We have spent billions on furlough, keeping people in jobs. That has been borrowed from future generations, and will be paid back. We have kept people in jobs. We have kept the economy going. We have kept the show on the road. We have avoided the economic death spiral of mass unemployment while we have all these additional rising pressures on spending on public services, including, of course, social care—the very problem that we are here to fix. There are, I think, other less bad options. My right hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) suggested a cocktail of taxes and levies. Normally, I instinctively avoid complexity in taxation—

[Jake Berry]

But not cocktails.

[Ben Everitt]

No—not cocktails!

We have to recognise that the simple option is not always the right one, and I look forward to the debates that will follow as this policy evolves.

As for the quantum and the period over which the revenue is spent, I must ask whether it is enough to fix the care sector. The hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), the Chairman of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, referred to the previous report of the Health and Social Care Committee, which required an additional £3.6 billion for the sector. Are we going to get that, and is it going to go through at the right time? We need to solve the broken economics of running a care home, which mean that providers must fund the services off the back of private clients to subsidise the clients who are referred by local authorities. I think we need a big conversation about that as well.

Let us turn to how the money is spent. The additional funding must be supported by meaningful reform. We must address the issue of funding allocation, and the allocation of responsibility within the sector. Currently, the system is set up to incentivise referrals. The system is split between local authorities, care providers and the NHS.