Social Care

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

The hon. Lady will not be surprised to hear that I did not agree with much of what she said, but I will address some of her points.

Fundamentally, we are setting out, as has long been established, how to get a longer-term, sustainable system for funding our social care. It is absolutely clear from our debates during the past year that, as far as the public are concerned, there is a real lack of understanding about how, at present, the cost of care has to be met by the person who requires it. That is what leads to catastrophic care costs, and the dementia tax that she keeps mentioning, and that is exactly what we are going to tackle by having a cap on the overall cost. In doing so, it is very important to take the public with us and to have a fully informed public debate. It does not matter how far we think we have had such a debate in this place when legislating in the past, because it is quite clear that the public do not understand this. [Interruption.] We are only going to get public consent for a long-term solution if we have a public debate that is handled with maturity, and so far we have not seen very much of that.

The hon. Lady raised the issue of carers, and she suggested that carers’ voices are not being heard in this debate. [Interruption.] I say to her that they very much are being heard. [Interruption.] She can sit there and chunter, or she can listen to the answer to the question. It is entirely up to her, but it is rather a waste of my time in coming to this place if I am just going to be talked over. [Interruption.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I say to the Government Whip that I think I can control the Chamber. I thank him for his help, but I have already told him once that he does not need to worry. [Interruption.] Order. The Whip is well aware that he is testing my patience. I do not need any help.

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

Carers’ voices very much are being heard, and there is no way we can actually tackle the broad picture of how we fund and manage social care need without properly considering the needs of carers. I am very grateful to the 6,500 people who responded to the call for evidence. We have listened to them, and we will consider what they have said in bringing forward the Green Paper. In the meantime, it is very important to pull together exactly what support there is at present and then respond to that, and we will publish our action plan in January.

On working-age adults, the hon. Lady is right to some extent in that there are some common issues in the adult social care system that affect both care for the elderly and care for working-age adults, and those common issues will be considered as part of the Green Paper process. At the same time, however, we are going through massive change in how we deal with people with disabilities. We have the very brave ambition of getting more and more people into work and we are on a journey of getting people with learning disabilities out of long-term residential care and into work in the community, and that brings a separate set of challenges. That work will go on in parallel, but the work on the Green Paper will look at the common issues as well as at the specific area of care for the elderly. I hope that gives her some reassurance. We cannot look at this in a silo—[Interruption.] She says this should all be looked at together, but care for the elderly and care for working-age adults face very distinct challenges, and I do not think we should diminish either constituency by grouping them all together.

On the funding gap, as the hon. Lady is well aware, we have made £9.25 billion available to local authorities to meet their needs over three years. The reality is that if we are to tackle social care in this country so that everyone gets the care they need as they come to the later part of their life, we need to build a longer-term, sustainable funding system. That is why we are taking forward this debate in the Green Paper, and I hope that everyone with an interest in this subject will get involved in that debate, because we can fix this problem in the long term only if we can take the public with us.