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

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 7th September 2020 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

2: After Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
“Duty to commission an independent review of the social care sector in regard to the effects of section 1
(1) The Secretary of State must commission an independent review of the matters under subsection (3) and lay the report of the review before each House of Parliament within six months of the day on which this Act is passed.(2) The Secretary of State must appoint an independent panel to undertake the review.(3) The review under subsection (1) must consider an assessment of the effects of section 1 on—(a) the social care workforce;(b) the adequacy of public funding for the social care sector;(c) the ability of care sector employers to improve the pay and conditions of their employees; and(d) such other relevant matters as the independent panel deems appropriate.(4) A Minister of the Crown must, no later than six months after the report has been laid before Parliament, make arrangements for a motion relating to the report to be debated and voted on by the House of Commons and the House of Lords.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new Clause would require an independent review of the impact of section 1 of this Act on the social care sectors to be produced and laid before Parliament.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of the General Medical Council board.

I want to return to a major theme from Second Reading: the decision of the Home Office to exclude the great majority of care workers from the new health and care visa, as they do not meet either the income or the skills threshold. At Second Reading, the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, justified this by saying that employers had to end what she described as “the easy option” of using migrant labour to undercut our own workforce “for far too long”. She also pointed to the advice of the Migration Advisory Committee, which has maintained that the problems in the care sector are caused by a failure to offer competitive terms and conditions, in itself caused by a failure to have a sustainable funding model—quite.

I certainly do not need reminding of how important skilled care worker jobs are; I want to see more people training and entering the care sector at a decent wage. However, surely it is disingenuous for the Government to call for better wages and conditions, when they have so much influence on the financial health of care services. The Government are the main source of funds for local authorities; they are the direct funder of the National Health Service; and they set the conditions under which the private care market operates. The Home Office, which I have always thought of as being a bit semi-detached, is essentially saying that the Government—of which it is a part—has neglected the care sector over many years. They have been in government for 10 years now and have had a series of reviews, none of which has come to fruition.

Our own House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee reported that, in 2018, 1.4 million older people in England had an unmet care need. It found that publicly funded social care support is shrinking, as diminishing budgets have forced local authorities to limit the numbers of people receiving public funding. Just as demand goes up with the demographics, the funding of social care gets lower and lower in real terms.

When we turn to the workforce, we see a diverse range of nationalities and backgrounds. Some 83% of the workforce is made up of British nationalities, with 7% coming from other EEA countries and 9% from non-EEA countries. As such, the UK is reliant on a fair and balanced immigration system. Overall, however, the social care workforce is already facing a crisis, with more than 120,000 vacancies and a growing level of demand among people who need to access care services. This is a real problem for the future.

We also have the problem that the Government classify social care workers as unskilled. Unskilled? As Mencap points out, their colleagues are trusted every day with people’s lives. They are trained to provide medication, to undertake feeding, to deal with seizures and to administer first aid. They help people manage their finances, their health and their well-being, and they provide emotional support. Unskilled they are not. Yet as Unison has pointed out, many migrant workers are not included in the category of people who have had their visas extended free for a year. Many are struggling to save the large amounts needed for visa renewals.

The Minister says that staff should be paid more. I agree, but is she going to will the means? Will she commit to increasing the level of support to local authorities? Is she willing to see self-funders pay more? If she is, I remind her that if you took the current lifetime pension allowance of £1,730,000 and bought an annuity with it at age 60, you would not have enough to pay the average nursing home fee.

We are in a vicious cycle. After decades of reviews and failed reforms, the level of unmet need in our care system is increasing and the pressure on unpaid carers is growing stronger. The supply of care providers is diminishing and the strain on the care workforce is continuing. And that is before these new immigration controls are imposed at the end of the year.

At Second Reading, the noble Baroness said that she would not be drawn on the details of the long-term social care plan which apparently the Government are still promising to bring forward. She did refer to various sides in the Commons trying to sort a consensus on the way forward, but there is not much sign yet of the Government reaching out, and given the state of the public finances, I would not bet on immediate action in any case. I refer the noble Baroness to the letter in July from the Chancellor to Secretaries of State on the forthcoming comprehensive spending review. From that, it is clear that spending will come under a huge squeeze. It is noticeable that, while the Chancellor said then that he would prioritise the NHS, no mention was made of social care at all.

The argument I put before noble Lords is this. If the Home Office is convinced that the woes of the care sector are entirely down to the sector itself, let it produce the evidence. Let Ministers agree to the quick review that I suggest in my amendment, looking at the funding of the sector and the impact of Clause 1 before shutting off an extremely valuable source of labour for this important but vulnerable part of our society. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

I hope that noble Lords can see that there are a range of options for those working in health and social care. Ultimately, it will be for individuals to consider the most appropriate route for them based on their specific circumstances. The sector, as my noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts says, needs to rise to that challenge. I hope that with those words, the noble Lord will feel happy to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been an excellent debate, and I am grateful to noble Lords who have given their support to my and other noble Lords’ amendments.

The Minister and the noble Lords, Lord Lilley and Lord Green, say we should not be using migrant labour to undercut our own workforce. Let me make it clear: I absolutely agree. I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, that the current turnover of care staff is appalling and cannot possibly be defended. But, as my noble friend Lord Rosser said in his marvellous winding-up speech, you will not solve the care sector’s problems by suddenly snapping off its ability to recruit staff from abroad from the end of the year. All you will do is tip it into an even bigger crisis than it is in. This is complete madness. We know what is going to happen; towards the end of the year, or at the beginning of the new year, there will be a total panic in the Government and they will reverse the decision. They have had practice at reversing decisions in the last few months, have they not?

On those pressures, noble Lords who oppose what I am saying seem to think it is the care sector’s fault. This is a government-controlled sector. The Government are the main funder and regulator; they set the whole context in which the sector operates. They have had countless reviews but will not face up to coming forward with a costed solution. We all know that the Green Paper, if it eventually comes, will be about funding the sector 20 to 30 years in the future. It will not deal with the issues as they now are.

The noble Baroness, Lady Williams, says that, if you go for my noble friend’s amendment, which I commend, a transitional arrangement will become permanent. That is the point: it is down to the Government to make sure that it is not permanent. The beauty of my noble friend’s amendment is that it sets the challenge to Government. Let us go for a transitional arrangement but, if the Government want it to end, they have to come forward with effective proposals to reform and sort out the care sector, once and for all.

I do not see the Migration Advisory Committee in the same way that the noble Baroness does. She quoted the chair of that committee presumably proclaiming the rise in unemployment that he foresees as the solution to the care sector problem. I have been trying to ponder the Government’s Brexit strategy. Clearly they are prepared to let the automotive and aerospace industries go to the wall and, presumably, they are happy about that, because the care sector’s problems will be solved as a result of the decimation of people working in those sectors. You could not make it up. This is the worst Government there has been in my lifetime. From issue to issue, they clamber around with some ideological nonsense about what the British people were supposed to have voted for in the referendum, and we end up in this dire situation. Having said that, it has been a great debate, and I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 2 withdrawn.