Reform of Social Care

David Rutley Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

Yes I do, and one of the essential reasons why the Dilnot commission was rightly established is that there are many people who have worked hard, saved and accumulated assets and expected to be able to enjoy them in their older age or to pass them on to their families, but who instead found that all those assets were destroyed as a result of the sheer chance event of, for example, long-term disability or dementia. That is a tragic situation, and as Andrew Dilnot well puts it, if people have a health care need and are seriously ill the NHS will look after them, and if their house burns down or they have a car crash there is insurance for that, but here we have a potential catastrophe in people’s lives for which the state will not provide and nobody else is willing or able to offer them that similar kind of protection. It is therefore vital that we take forward the Dilnot recommendations in the way we are proposing.

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

I welcome the statement, and it is particularly welcome in Cheshire east where we anticipate a 120% increase in the number of people living beyond 85 in 10 years’ time. The Dilnot report stresses the importance of the awareness campaign. Does my right hon. Friend envisage an active role for third sector organisations such as Age UK and Citizens Advice not only in delivering the awareness campaign, but in helping to shape it, and is there also a wider role for such organisations within the Dilnot framework?

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point, and I hope we will be able to take up and develop that during the coming weeks.