Social Care

Chris Leslie Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

I am very keen to approach this matter through consensus. To be frank, I do not think that we can deliver change without consensus. We have written to all-party groups in the first instance to engage with them. Over the course of the next six months, I hope to engage in conversations and discussions with Members from all parts of the House.

[Mr Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

Of course, there is a short-term series of pressures. The Minister has cited the CQC’s state of social care report, which talks about decreasing numbers of beds in nursing homes and contracts being handed back to local authorities because of the acute financial pressure. She has also recognised that there is a longer-term issue that all Members have alluded to—the need to set aside some of the yah-boo party politicking and find a cross-party way forward. The hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) and my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall) wrote to the Prime Minister saying, “Let’s have a convention across all the parties on social care reform.” Please will the Minister talk again to the Prime Minister? Let us do that, because it is the only way that we will really crack through this problem.

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

I welcome the spirit in which the hon. Gentleman makes his comments. It is fair to say that we are hearing exactly the same sort of plea from local authorities, which are at the front end of dealing with this problem. He is absolutely right that we need to separate the short-term pressures from the long term, and we ought to be able to have a more sensible conversation on the long-term pressures. Yes, let us save the politics for the short term and have consensus for the long term.