Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 22nd July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, as noble Lords have mentioned the medical profession, I declare my interest as a member of the GMC board. I reflect on the irony that, as we seem to be curtailing the migration of doctors from the EU to our country, we are repeating history, as my noble friend Lord Adonis said, and returning to the developing world big time to recruit doctors for the NHS. It is also ironic that the new health and care visa excludes a great majority of care workers, who will not meet either the income or the skills threshold.

In the Minister’s opening remarks, there was surely a sense of irony too when she said how much the Government value social care. I do not think the Bill shows much appreciation of that profession. Ministers point to the Migration Advisory Committee, which said that the problems in the care sector are caused by a failure to offer competitive terms and conditions. I do not think we need reminding of how important skilled care worker jobs are, and we certainly want more people training and entering the care sector at a decent wage.

However, as UNISON said in its evidence, it is disingenuous of the Government to call for better wages and conditions in the sector when the Government are so influential on the financial health of care services. The rate paid by local authorities to care homes for people whose income is below the means-test threshold is highly dependent on grants from central government, which has been going down just as demand as has been going up. These rates have been tightly squeezed in the last decade and, as a result, self-funders pay exorbitant fees, which are in effect a subsidy for council-funded places. These self-funders get no support at all from the state and can see their assets run down considerably.

It is a Catch-22 situation. Essentially, the Home Office says that the care sector should recruit staff from people living in this country and pay them more, but the Department of Health, by its actions, is ensuring that there is no funding to enable this to happen. The Government have now had 10 years to sort this out. They had the Dilnot commission, they legislated for it and then would not put it into place. We had Mrs May’s promise in the 2017 election, which she withdrew. We keep hearing from the Government about a plan that will be brought forward—let us see it.

The thought that this plan, at a stroke, will deal with the immediate issues of the care sector is just blowing in the wind. We have 100,000 vacancies in England alone and, though I do not know in how many months it will be, at some point soon the Home Office will be forced to change this ridiculous policy. I hope the House will help the Home Office do that.