Social Care
Debate between John Grogan and Kevin Hollinrake(6 years, 7 months ago)
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John Grogan (Keighley) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to follow the detailed analysis of my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (Faisal Rashid). As a Yorkshire MP, it is always good to follow a Member from the other side of the Pennines—it is early season yet, Mr Deputy Speaker, but particularly when Yorkshire is at the top of the county championship and Lancashire is at the bottom.
I want to take up two points directly from the seven principles that the Secretary of State outlined when he talked about the Green Paper in March. One of them is about a valued workforce, which many hon. Members have spoken about, and the other is about a sustainable funding mechanism for the future.
Every morning in the villages and towns of Airedale and Wharfedale—some of which I am lucky to represent—very early, before the commuters have got up and even thought of going into the great cities of Bradford and Leeds, another workforce have just finished their night shift and are getting the first buses and trains into those cities, where they live. They have the characteristics of the social care workforce, who number about 1.4 million in our country. They are a massive workforce. About 80% are women and 80%—the overwhelming majority—are British, with 11% coming from outside the European economic area and about 5% from within it. There is a massive turnover in the social care workforce, as Unison has illustrated, with more than one in three care workers in care homes leaving their job in the course of the year. It is higher in domiciliary care.
Members on both sides of the House have talked about valuing these workers more. They are undervalued, underpaid and in many cases undertrained. The right hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green) and particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall) talked about building a consensus, so that in the future we value more this extremely important workforce, who look after the most vulnerable people in our society at the time they need it most.
I have a couple of suggestions for the Government. It was good to hear from my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) that a Labour Government would abolish 15-minute care—the idea that social care workers have to provide for the most intimate needs in 15 minutes, tick a few boxes and then rush off to the next appointment. It makes me proud to be a Labour MP that we are committed to ending that sort of thing and to paying people properly.
There are things the Government could do, and some are little things. I notice that there is an advisory council on the Green Paper. The great and the good are on that advisory council, but it would be good to have a figure from the workforce on it. I remember the Prime Minister speaking on the steps of Downing Street about involving the workforce more. Unison is a union you can do business with, and it would be good to have an additional person from the unions on that council. The Library’s list does not indicate that there is any such person on it at the moment.
If there ever was an industry crying out for a sectoral council, with the Government, the trade unions and the industry, to improve skills and the quality of the workforce, it surely is the care industry. Those are just a couple of ideas.
My hon. Friend the Member for Leicester West spoke passionately about the need to get consensus on a long-term funding model that all parties can agree on. I would stop talking about a “dementia tax”, and the bargain would be that the Conservatives would not talk about a “death tax”. We have used both those terms in the last 10 years, and I agree that they have not particularly enhanced our politics.
The letter from Members of all parties suggested raising and hypothecating national insurance. I would like to keep on the table the idea of an increase in inheritance tax, which the now Mayor of Manchester mentioned in the latter days of the Labour Government. Only 4% of people currently pay inheritance tax. It raises £5 billion. It is a potential way of achieving intergenerational fairness. A national insurance rise at the moment would hit many workers whose real incomes have been cut in recent years, so we should consider the option of raising inheritance tax. I think that many people in our society who are lucky enough to own their own home would accept that bargain—a guarantee that they could pass on the bulk of their estate to members of their family or to any good causes they wanted to support, in return for which I think they would be prepared to pay an additional inheritance tax.
The hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) reminded us that one in four of us will end our days in a care home, but of course we do not know which of us that will be. We have to face up to the fact that, under the current system, those of us who are lucky enough to own our own home would lose most of it, if we were in a care home for a prolonged period. I see that as a life tax, rather than a death tax.
Kevin Hollinrake
The hon. Gentleman talks about one in four of us ending up in a care home, but we do not know which of us that will be. Does that lead him to conclude that we should pool the risk through social insurance, as they have done very successfully in Germany, having moved in 1995 from a local authority-funded scheme to a social insurance scheme, which also has great community benefits?
John Grogan
I certainly agree that we have to pool risk, but it has to involve everyone in society, from the poor to the rich, so that whatever our circumstances we get the care we need in those days.
We heard a lot from the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Scott Mann) and other hon. Members about the potential of technology. That is a worthwhile point to make. Age UK has provided all hon. Members with the number of elderly people in our constituencies who need care. For example, in Keighley there are 3,500 long-term disabled people and 16,000 people with long-term illnesses. One way of helping them is through telemedicine from Airedale General Hospital. Even when the “beast from the east” was raging at its worst, people in Keighley, Airedale and the dales, even in remote areas, could still have tests and get treatment via broadband. That kept them out of hospital, even in the depths of winter.
This has been a great debate and I look forward to the Green Paper—may it come sooner, rather than later.
Devolution: Yorkshire
Debate between John Grogan and Kevin Hollinrake
John Grogan
I am afraid so, Minister, as one day you might find out.
I returned to my former constituency to knock on doors in Heslington in support of a former council colleague. I wondered whether the resident at the first door I knocked on might recognise me. He opened the door, gave me one look and said, “The return of the living dead.” I want to be as frank as that former constituent in my comments to the House this evening, but I also want to suggest a way forward and possible compromises and conciliation. I will also speak about the Sheffield city region deal, much diminished though it now is.
Let me start by examining a proposal that has been signed by 17 Labour and Conservative councils—when last I checked, not one had withdrawn its name. They are proposing a single mayor and a single combined authority for the areas they represent, which is perfectly in line with the current law, as the Minister has agreed in a parliamentary answer. I want to consider not what might happen in future Parliaments, but what we can achieve in this Parliament, because, representing God’s own county, we all have a responsibility to do that.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman feel that we have a responsibility to consider all the options? He mentioned 17 local authority leaders. The nine across north Yorkshire, who did sign up to the One Yorkshire deal in principle, are keen to explore the option of Greater Yorkshire, which is a deal on the table that we could progress today. Does he not think that we should be exploring that option?
John Grogan
Interestingly, none of those nine local authorities has yet withdrawn its name from the 17 that signed up to explore the Yorkshire deal. Some have admitted to me that they have benefited from re-education at last week’s Conservative party conference and now better understand the Government’s position, but Councillor Carl Les, who is a very good friend of mine from my days in north Yorkshire, said today that he still favours the widest possible deal. He doubted whether he could persuade the Minister, but I am more confident that we can do so.
It is interesting to look at the geography, because it includes the north of the Humber but not the south, and I recognise that there would need to be strong links between the north and the south however this plays out. The proposed combined authority would control things such as transport. On the basis of deals elsewhere, it might have £150 million to spend that is currently spent by Whitehall. It would look after skills, and there are some imaginative proposals, including that the regional schools commissioner should report to the mayor because we need to improve the performance of Yorkshire’s academies. The mayor would also oversee the team that promotes international trade in Yorkshire.
There are lots of exciting ideas, but it is Yorkshire’s identity that matters to me. Whether at Keighley Cougars, Sheffield United, Sheffield Wednesday or Leeds United, people do not chant, “Sheffield city region!” or “South Yorkshire!”; they chant, “Yorkshire!” [Interruption.] Anytime that my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) wants to intervene, I will obviously take that intervention.
John Grogan
I am slightly disappointed, as I was hoping that my hon. Friend would announce his candidature for Sheffield city mayor, but I will give way if he decides to make such an announcement tonight. The plain fact of the matter for my hon. Friend and for the Government is whether they are seriously going to impose an expensive mayoral election on the people of South Yorkshire when two of the four authorities are opposed to it. Are they seriously going to do that for a mayor who will have no powers and no money?
I am all in favour of all-party talks and I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East has been working closely with the Government on this, but I would ask him, the Government and John Mothersole, who is the chief executive of South Yorkshire and a distinguished public servant, but perhaps a little too associated with one deal, whether we could try another plan—the best chief executives always have a plan A, a plan B, a plan C and a plan D—which I will suggest in a spirit of compromise. Members of all parties at a local and national level have been ringing me up over the past few days. Some have suggested a staged approach if there was a commitment to all-Yorkshire devolution. My hon. Friend has said himself that he would not rule that out in the future. Our good colleague, and former MP, Richard Caborn, has said the same. He would not rule that out. Could we not do it now? We could bring it in very rapidly. Perhaps we could have that staged approach with a mayoral election in South Yorkshire followed by an all-Yorkshire election a couple of years later. Those are possibilities.
I have one more suggestion to make to the Minister in a moment, but I just want to look briefly at one other factor. I said yesterday that an idea is serious once people start betting on it, and I noted today that a book has been opened on the first Yorkshire mayor. I was rather surprised that I was at 4-1. I am not sure whether anybody, even a member of my family, has put a bet on today, but I am ruling myself out. Various other hon. Members are on the list, but I will not embarrass them. I will say only that Jessica Ennis-Hill is at 33-1 and it surprises me that she is the first woman on that list, because there are many, many strong candidates. I can think of four women council leaders in Yorkshire off the top of my head, and it would be something if Yorkshire were to have the first female major metropolitan mayor.
Kevin Hollinrake
When the Select Committee took evidence from Lord Kerslake about devolution, he made it clear that a stepping stone approach may well work in terms of different devolution deals. Why would the hon. Gentleman not now commit to moving ahead with Greater Yorkshire? What is it about Doncaster and Barnsley that is so attractive to Keighley that he needs those in a deal in order to move ahead with it? Why is that?
John Grogan
In direct response to that, let me conclude with a suggestion to the Minister. It is possible that he will not initiate talks tonight. I hope he will—I have great hope and faith—but he may just not do so. This Minister from a Lancashire constituency—I put it delicately —may tell us a lot about his three happy years as a student in Sheffield, and we are looking forward to hearing about that, but it is just possible that to solve this problem we need a higher authority than the Minister—the Secretary of State, the Prime Minister or even the Prime Minister’s hero, Geoffrey Boycott. I am secretary of the all-party group on Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire and I have written to the Archbishop of York asking him to consider calling a meeting of all those involved in the devolution process to try to make some progress, which the people of Yorkshire sorely need. The Archbishop of York’s office has told me that he is supportive of the process of Yorkshire devolution, and he will closely examine the proposals of the 17 councils involved and will be in contact with the bishops of Leeds and Sheffield about the most appropriate course of action to take.
So I leave the Minister with two questions. Are the Government against the principle of One Yorkshire devolution or, as various hon. Members have suggested, would they be prepared to accept it as the final destination on an agreed staged process over the next two or three years? Secondly, if it is forthcoming, would the Minister accept an invitation from the Archbishop of York, even if he will not initiate talks himself, to take part in talks on Yorkshire devolution and how the people of Yorkshire can get what many of the great cities of England already have?