Adult Social Care: Long-term Funding

Debate between Clive Betts and Philippa Whitford

Thursday 28th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Betts]

I completely agree. If we are still talking about this in two or three years’ time we will have failed. We have to get some decisions and get on with it. As politicians, we are often very good at coming up with ways to spend money. In this report we have actually come up with ways to raise money, which is the difficult part. We have done the heavy lifting for both the Government and the Opposition Front Benches. We now say, “We’ve handed the pass over to you. Get on and run with it and make it work.”

[Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)]

I, too, welcome this cross-Committee report and note that it aspires to provide free personal care, as we have in Scotland, and to extend it to those in need under 65, which we will start next April. While that has significant costs, does the hon. Gentleman agree with the assessment of the Scottish experience by the King’s Fund and the Health Foundation, which suggested that overall it saves money, because people can remain in their own homes rather than care homes and rather than being admitted to hospital?

[Mr Betts]

I saw the King’s Fund report and I have seen the analysis. That was an aspiration eventually. However, the Select Committees’ felt that the immediate pressures of the funding gap, which will grow if we do not do anything about it—because of the demographics over the next few years, the fact that we are not meeting the needs of those with moderate care needs, the fact that we are not paying our workforce properly and that many care providers are in financial difficulties—mean that those issues have to be addressed and then, eventually, we can move on to the free care aspiration set out in the report over the longer period.