Covid-19: Social Care Services

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Thursday 23rd April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very glad to speak in this debate and to pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Wheeler for her excellent introductory speech. I very much agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, in her praise of the amazing work being undertaken by care workers at the moment. They have been left almost defenceless by the lack of preparation and I am afraid that this is yet another indication of how far down the food chain the care sector is in the Government’s concerns.

I am particularly concerned about the financial vulnerability of so many care homes. The noble Lord, Lord Astor, asked the Minister to ensure that the money being routed through local government actually gets to those homes. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, said, even that is not enough to ensure their financial viability in the future. I hope that the Minister will reassure us on that point.

There is a great risk, with all the focus being put on the crisis today, that the fundamental reforms needed in the care sector will be put on the back burner. Yet we know from the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee that we have a huge amount of unmet care need and that the demographics mean that that need will grow. We have a vicious cycle here. After decades of reviews and failed reforms, the level of unmet need is growing, the pressure on unpaid carers is getting stronger, the supply of care providers is diminishing because of their financial vulnerability and the strain on the care workforce just gets worse and worse. Moreover, that is before the new immigration cap comes in towards the end of the year. The Government have agreed to extend the visas of doctors and nurses due to expire on 1 October but, inexplicably, this does not apply to care workers.

We have long been promised a government response to the long-term care crisis. It was promised in 2017 and again in the 2019 general election. I urge the Minister to ensure that the Government do not backtrack on ensuring that we shall see very soon strong proposals for the kind of care system we need so that never again will we see a dreadful situation where people in the care sector are neglected and, frankly, treated very much as second-class citizens.