Cost of Living

Debate between Jim Dowd and Baroness Keeley

Wednesday 16th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Barbara Keeley]

It is very disingenuous of a member of a Government who have just massively ducked this issue in the Queen’s Speech, causing huge disappointment across any organisation that is involved in social care, to talk about the previous Government.

[Jim Dowd]

Whether or not this goes back to the letter from the 78 charities before the election, the Local Government Association, on behalf of all the parties represented in social services authorities throughout England and Wales, wrote to the Government immediately before the Queen’s Speech highlighting the fact that there was this crisis which needed to be dealt with now, and that if they did not do so in the Queen’s Speech—not as a draft Bill but as proposed legislation—an already alarming position would be made far worse.

[Barbara Keeley]

I thank my hon. Friend for that clarification. The letter went on to say that “delay or half-measures” cannot be tolerated because of how hard it is for people to manage, as I have just outlined.

In July 2010, the Government promised that they would introduce

“legislation in the second session of this parliament to establish a sustainable legal and financial framework for adult social care”.

That could not have been clearer, but we do not have that legislation. All that was mentioned in the Queen’s Speech was a draft Bill on social care law, with no Bill on the funding of social care.

What does the delay in reforming the funding of social care mean? It means that people who need care will have to continue paying larger and larger bills or go without and struggle. There are also costs to the NHS and to the economy. That should concern us. The lack of appropriate social care for older people at home is costing the NHS £18.5 million a month, or more than £600,000 a day, in delayed discharges. Since August 2010, the total bill to the NHS of delayed discharges has been £324 million. Delayed discharges keep on increasing, which is an indication that the crisis in social care is deepening.

On the cost to the economy, a recent report by Carers UK suggests that failing to address the funding of care, as other countries have done, means that we are missing out on jobs and growth. The biggest thing that was missing from the Queen’s Speech and the Budget was action on jobs and growth. In France, a development strategy for the home care sector led to a growth of 100,000 jobs a year. A recent report by Dr Linda Pickard of the London School of Economics shows that it costs about £1.3 billion a year in lost tax revenue and benefits when carers give up work to care. The adult social care system has been pushed into crisis by cuts, and that is costing the economy more than a billion pounds and the NHS hundreds of millions of pounds. Surely that shows that we should do something about social care.

The Government’s distinct failure to deliver on their promise to bring forward legislation, which I think will become more apparent in the coming months, is hitting older people and those who need care. It has cost £324 million since 2010, and that bill is climbing by £18.5 million every month. As carers give up work to care, it is costing the economy £1.3 billion every year in lost revenue. It is time the Government delivered on their promise and addressed the vital issue of the funding of social care.