Care: Budget

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Wednesday 28th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jolly]

I am sorry that I failed to respond to the question yesterday. Quality, of course, is monitored by the CQC. Certainly, it looks at all local authority and other care providers and, indeed, the NHS. As I said earlier, the Government make decisions about how much funding to put into community local government, the whole pot then goes down to local authorities and it is local decision-makers who decide how much money goes into which budget.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

In this week that marks the 50th anniversary of Churchill’s death and state funeral, would we not do well to reflect for a moment on a few simple, eloquent words of his on this subject? In 1951, he wrote:

“The care and comfort of the elderly is a sacred trust”.

Must we not do all that we can in our time to meet that great man’s standard?

[Baroness Jolly]

I think that is highly laudable. However, the situation that we find ourselves in is that over the past five years we have had over 1 million more over-65s, and unfortunately that adds hugely to the care bill. So, I regret that we may not be able to meet some of Winston Churchill’s demands.