Southern Cross

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Thursday 16th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My noble friend raises an important issue. As she knows, care providers have to be able to demonstrate to the Care Quality Commission that they have the financial resources needed to continue to provide services of the required quality. We have embarked on a wide-ranging programme of reform for social care. We are currently considering the Law Commission’s recommendations for modernising social care law and, as my noble friend mentioned, the report of the Commission on Funding of Care and Support is imminent. There are many lessons that have to be learnt from the events of recent weeks. We want to reflect on them as part of our wider reform agenda for social care.

On private equity finance, I simply make my own observation to my noble friend: I do not think that private equity finance is at the root of the problems that we have been seeing but the business model, which is rather a different issue. It was the choices and decisions made by the management of Southern Cross that made the business fundamentally unsustainable. I do not see that as a reflection directly on private equity providers. We have been clear that we were going to take action to ensure that there was proper oversight of the market in social care. That is why the Health and Social Care Bill specifically allows us to extend to social care, if we chose to do so, the proper financial regulatory regime that we are putting in place for the NHS. However, I suggest that regulation is not the only solution; we need to approach this in a measured way, not least because there are complex negotiations under way. We need to look at social care reform as a whole, which is exactly what we have committed to doing.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, on the question of the business model that the Minister just referred to, does not this whole sorry saga reveal how completely out of touch with the world of reality were the main board and executive directors of Three Delta, who advised the Qatar Investment Authority to spend billions buying property in the healthcare sector on the back of inflated and totally unrealistic rent levels paid by companies such as Southern Cross? Were the Qataris made aware of the huge risk involved? What were the so-called great and the good like Sir Peter Middleton, Nick Land, Sir Christopher Howes and David Mellor—a former government Minister—doing when any estate agent in the commercial property sector could have told them that the commercial care property market was both overgeared and overpriced?

Finally, will Messrs Scott, Murphy, Sizer and Colvin, formerly directors of Southern Cross, be prosecuted for insider dealing in Southern Cross shares when they privately promoted the sale of shares in the months immediately prior to their profits warning and collapse in the share price? Is this whole affair not riddled with greed and stupidity?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I fear that I am unable to answer the noble Lord’s questions, for which I apologise, but I understand why he has asked them. If I have some concise answers that I can send him, I will certainly do so by way of a letter.

I think that the noble Lord and I agree that we are looking at a fundamentally unsound business model. As I understand it, it is a unique business model in the care home sector, where a deliberate decision was taken for the company not to own its own care homes but rather to pay the rent on them. The market clearly moved against it in more than one sense. The company’s problems are partly attributable to the occupancy levels of some of their care homes. Southern Cross occupancy levels have gone down, I understand, more than those of other care homes. It is not about fee levels; other providers of residential care are not in the same position as Southern Cross. I believe that Southern Cross’s problems relate to the rental agreements—the leases—that they entered into. It is those things that the restructuring aims to fix.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Howe]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, and I am also clear about the position of the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. She is of course right. Our first concern should be for the safety and welfare of residents. That is why, as I said earlier, some time ago we asked the Care Quality Commission to engage in close discussion with Southern Cross when the news of the impending redundancies was made public. We did that precisely to ensure that standards would not be compromised. My understanding is that there are no concerns on that front. Southern Cross has, in that sense, behaved impeccably in ensuring that residents have not suffered, other than from the inevitable uncertainty that the publicity over this matter has generated. Going forward, the principles that the noble Baroness has articulated are absolutely right. However, she would agree with me—as I think she did—that questions need to be asked about the financial models adopted by care homes or, indeed, by any independent business providing public services.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Were we not told after Jon Manel of the BBC's exposure of what was going on in care homes in 2008 that lessons would be learnt and that there would be a review; and was not an inquiry set up by the department at the request of the then Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton? Were we not given assurances that that would not happen again? Is not the reality that these reviews and statements about lessons to be learnt all end up in the long grass, because this area of care is basically out of control?

[Earl Howe]

I do not agree with the noble Lord that this area of care is out of control. The situation that arose at the time to which the noble Lord refers was of quite a different nature from the one we are looking at at the moment. As I recall, it was about the quality of care delivered in particular care homes. We now have the CQC, which is responsible for policing quality of care across the NHS and social care. The previous Government put that arrangement in place. We are content with it. We think that the arrangements are robust. The CQC does very good work.

Of course, with the best will in the world, mistakes occur. One can easily point the finger at the CQC. As I said, in the case of Winterbourne View, that would be an easy but unfair thing to do. All that the CQC can be expected to do is to take a snapshot at any given moment of what it sees and hears. When I say that lessons need to be learnt, I reiterate to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, that my counterpart in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is considering the lessons to be learnt about the business models that apply not just to the care home sector but generically where public services are provided.