Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chris Leslie and Caroline Dinenage

Tuesday 19th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

I do not agree with the hon. Lady. What the Government have done is try to tackle the geographical inequalities in care across the country. We have increased councils’ access to funding by up to £10 billion. That is a 9% real-terms increase in funding, but in addition to that, we have established a national threshold that defines the care needs that local authorities must meet under the Care Act. That has really started the work of eliminating the eligibility postcode lottery across England.

[Mr Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Ind)]

It is two years since the Government promised the social care Green Paper. In that space of time, we have had a lot of words from the Government, but we have also had a lot of neglect from them on this particular issue. Does not this delay, this prevarication, putting long-term issues to the back burner, typify what is wrong with the broken politics in this country?

[Caroline Dinenage]

First, I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his new location in the Chamber. From that location, he might recognise that actually, there has been a failure of successive Governments to get to grips with this very thorny issue of the long-term funding of adult social care. We are the Government who have decided to tackle the issue. We will no longer put it in the “too difficult” pile, and we will be publishing this document shortly.