Social Care Funding

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Tuesday 1st October 2019 Westminster Hall

[Sir Vince Cable]

That is the case, and I hope that when the Green Paper appears there will be a proper, objective look at free personal care. In the past this has been an ideological issue, but there is no reason why it should be. It is a practical proposition. As I understand it, the Scottish model has pluses and minuses—it is certainly very popular with the people who benefit from it, but there are much stricter tests for eligibility in terms of physical functioning—but at least let us consider it objectively. It is costly, however—about £8 billion a year over and above the other items I have mentioned.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

This was a flagship policy of the coalition Government in which I served in the Scottish Parliament, and I am proud of that. One problem that we never got around—I think this also applies to rural English constituencies and Welsh constituencies—is the issue of sparsity and distance. How do we deliver this service when there are vast distances between the various old people involved? When there is a low population base, how do we find the number of carers that we desperately need to tend to those elderly people, who deserve dignity at that stage of their life? It grieves me to say this, but in north-west Sutherland in my constituency we have a distinct problem with finding those carers. People have come to see me in the last few weeks who have not had a carer for three, four or five days, which is terrible.

[Sir Vince Cable]

My hon. Friend is right to point out the practicalities of this issue. That links to one of the current difficulties with domiciliary care, which is that providers are often not compensated for travel. I imagine that in a remote constituency that would be accentuated many times.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your stewardship in this important debate, Sir Charles, and I share the sentiment of many Members across the House in congratulating the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable) on securing it. I also wish to highlight the incredibly constructive and collaborative nature of the way that he opened this debate. He was right to highlight from the outset that the only way to find a solution to this thorny issue, which is not unique to our country but a challenge faced by countries around the world, is by working in a co-operative, collaborative, and constructive way.

The right hon. Gentleman rightly pointed out that successive Governments have tried and failed to deal with this thorny issue, and despite everybody recognising the need for consensus, for too long it has been weaponised. We have heard expressions such as “dementia tax” or “death tax” used by all parties over the years. That has not been helpful, and it is one reason why different parties and Governments have placed this issue in the “too difficult” pile. He was also right to highlight the sense of urgency, because we no longer have the luxury of time to place the issue in that pile.

Over the past couple of years the Government have responded to huge short-term pressures, and funding for local government has gone up, as opposed to being cut, as outlined by Labour Members. However, we must set out our long-term plans, and consider how to solve the thorny issues of long-term funding for adult social care. At the moment, one in 10 people face what we might call catastrophic care costs in excess of £100,000, and potentially lose their home to pay for their long-term care.

I thank hon. Members across the House who have spoken with great passion and, in most cases, an enormous amount of collaboration and desire to work together to find solutions to these problems. I join them in recognising and paying tribute to the carers, nurses, social workers, and unpaid friends and families of those who require care. Every day, carers work tirelessly to ensure that people live dignified and fulfilling lives, regardless of how tough that challenge is. In doing this job and fulfilling this role, it has been my greatest privilege to meet those people on an almost daily basis and hear their stories. The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) said that carers must be accorded the status that they deserve, and given resources to drive the right amount of quality, and she was absolutely right. She was wrong, however, to say that we have lost caring from the caring system. People may be driven to that point in some respects, but they care and they do so in the most beautiful way.

[Jamie Stone]

May I associate myself with what the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) said about young carers who go home and look after parents who may have an alcohol or drug dependency problem? In my constituency an organisation called The Young Karers East Sutherland helps to support them. My mother died four years ago, but she was cared for at home very well. The younger carers—those who had left school and gone into the profession for the first time—were the most amazing. They embraced this profession, and one could see they had a vocation. I suggest that one way to sort out this problem is to encourage the recruitment of young people by giving them taster sessions and letting them come from school and see what it is like. Often, we might get converts who will stay in the profession for life.

[Caroline Dinenage]

That is an excellent intervention, and the hon. Gentleman is right to say that we must do more to recognise and support young carers. The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport said that we must do more to help schools to identify young carers, and that was a key part of the carers action plan that was announced last summer. A young carers’ takeover day of Parliament is planned in the months ahead: every MP across the country will be encouraged to invite a young carer from their constituency, which will give us a real in-depth understanding of what an amazing job young carers do.

We all recognise the challenges that the social care system faces. As a population, we are getting older: by 2040, one in four people in the UK will be 65 or over, as the right hon. Member for Twickenham pointed out. It is also important to understand that social care is not just a service for older people; the number of people under 65 who have carers is growing and accounts for more than half of social care spending. That can have quite a disastrous impact on local authority budgets, as the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport pointed out. I will certainly take forward the points that he made.

These long-standing trends put increasing financial pressure on local authorities. In response, we have taken steps to ensure that the social care system has the funding to meet urgent challenges in the short term. In 2017, we announced an additional £2 billion in grant funding for social care, which we supplemented with a further £650 million in the 2018 Budget. Councils have responded by increasing their spending on social care, which has risen in real terms in each of the past three years.