Carers in England

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Monday 6th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, the Treasury does not seem to understand that by spending more money in one area, you can save even more in another area. If we spend more money in care homes, we can save a lot of money in the health service. As my noble friend Lord Haskel said, if we spend more money on carers, they can go out to work and help the economy. I have great faith in the noble Baroness. She has a lot of experience and is very persuasive. Will she go back to the Treasury and try to persuade it of this truth?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

Perhaps I can persuade the noble Lord to have a little more faith in the Treasury’s attitude towards these things. I set out in an earlier answer the additional money that is going into social care this year and next, which was announced alongside healthcare spending. But the amount that we were putting into social care was precisely to acknowledge the role it plays, for example, in reducing delays to discharge that are affecting our health system.