Local Government Funding

Debate between Liz Kendall and Steve Double

Wednesday 3rd February 2016 Westminster Hall

[Liz Kendall]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Once again, we see the difference in the funding deal that social care gets compared with the NHS, where the money is more front-loaded. The social care funding is back-loaded, and what are councils supposed to do in the meantime?

These cuts to services are morally reprehensible and economically illiterate. They will leave elderly and disabled people without the help that they need. They will push families to breaking point and force even more people to give up their work so that they can look after elderly or disabled relatives because they cannot get the support that they need. That will deprive the economy of their skills and increase the benefits bill, and all of that will pile further pressure on an already struggling NHS, which will cost the taxpayer more.

We now have the second highest ever number of delayed discharges from hospital since data were first collected. One third of those are due to a lack of social care. In the last year alone, there has been a staggering 65% increase in delayed discharges due to a lack of care in the home. That makes sense for no one. The Government must urgently rethink their immediate support for council care services in the upcoming Budget, to ensure that people get the support that they need, and they must grasp the nettle of the long-term reforms that we desperately need to truly join up the NHS and social care, so that we finally have a single budget for these local services that people depend on and we stop the farce of continuing to rob Peter to pay Paul, pushing the costs up for everyone.

[Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making a passionate speech highlighting what she thinks the problem is. Will she enlighten us on what the solution is? Will the solution be more borrowing, or which other Departments will she take the money from?

[Liz Kendall]

If the hon. Gentleman had listened to what I said, he would know that the first point is that we are spending more money unnecessarily because we do not have a fully joined-up NHS and care system. We are spending more on elderly people ending up in hospital and getting stuck in hospital when they could be cared for at home. Also, we need a fairer funding formula. If the most disadvantaged communities, who most need publically funded care, do not get it, we will increase costs and demands because people will end up in the NHS. We need proper reforms of the system to get the best results for the people who use it and the best results for taxpayers’ money. My worry is that the Government are thinking, “The NHS and social care? Job done,” which is to be completely ignorant of the crisis that is unfolding and not take seriously the reforms that we need for the future.

I know that many hon. Members want to speak, so I will finish by asking the Minister some questions about the Government’s plans to change the way local councils are funded in the future and to give councils additional new responsibilities as a result. As a strong supporter of devolving more powers to local councils, I welcome the spending review announcement that councils will be allowed to keep 100% of their business rate growth by 2020. That will help to give councils some of the tools that they need to boost jobs, growth and investment and for which they have been arguing for many years. However, there is a real risk that that change, combined with the total abolition of grants, will exacerbate existing inequalities between different parts of the country and further harm deprived areas, which have already been hit hardest by the Government’s cuts. Once grants are abolished, how will the Government ensure a fair distribution of resources, especially when more deprived areas, with higher levels of need, may be less able to raise funds from business rates and council tax?

Can the Minister confirm that the additional responsibilities that the Government are considering giving councils by 2020 include funding all of public health services, attendance allowance and the administration of housing benefit? How will the Government ensure that future revenues from council tax and business rates keep pace with demand for the services for which councils already have responsibility, such as adult social care, and the new responsibilities that they may gain, such as attendance allowance, especially when our population is ageing?

The Government must work closely with local councils to provide proper answers to those questions and, crucially, to hardwire fairness into the system to ensure that the local services that my constituents and those of all hon. Members here today value and depend on continue to get the support that they need in the future.