Health and Adult Social Care Reform

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Monday 6th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

My hon. Friend is right, and that is why the vaccination campaign has been so important this winter. He is also right about the importance of community-based teams. One of the Darzi conclusions was that since 2019, we have significantly increased staffing in our hospitals, but because we had the wrong people in the wrong place, we ended up with falling productivity in hospitals. We need a shift out of hospital into the community, which is what our 10-year plan will deliver.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

Most residential social care in England is delivered by the private sector. Is the Secretary of State able to give local authorities the resources necessary to allow them to reopen residential care facilities, or to open the new facilities that are so desperately needed? Will he assure me that in the review that Baroness Casey is undertaking, the primary objective will be the delivery of a public sector national care service, not a privatised service?

[Wes Streeting]

Thanks to the decisions taken by the Chancellor in the Budget, we are boosting the spending power of local authorities significantly, and £880 million has been ringfenced specifically for social care. I appreciate that a single Budget cannot undo 14 years of Conservative failure, but this is an important start, and of course we want year-on-year improvement in the delivery of social care. Baroness Casey will consider all these issues, and also how we can improve ease of access and care quality across the public and private sectors.