Social Care and the Role of Carers

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, we know what the problem is. We have just heard that the Lords Economic Affairs Committee spelled it out in detail in July 2019, and the House debated it in May this year. In the meantime, of course, the Prime Minister has more than once told us that he has a plan—famous for social care plans is our Prime Minister. I will use just one speech, made in Dudley, on 30 June last year, as an example, when the Prime Minister said

“we won’t wait to fix the problem of social care that every government has flunked for the last 30 years … We are finalising our plans and we will build a cross-party consensus”.

There is another chance today to hear from a Minister the excuses for no action being taken on the plans that the Prime Minister has more than once said were finalised.

The Lords Economic Affairs Committee said that an injection of £8 billion was needed—of course, that was two years ago—just to restore the level that the coalition Government of Tories and Lib Dems inherited from the Labour Government in 2009-10. The Mencap brief for today’s debate gives one example of a £180 million gap in local authorities for people of all ages with a learning disability to be able to live a decent life.

The question is: how do we get the cash? Not from people selling their homes, as the Prime Minister is against that—but it is happening every week. It has to be a national effort, shared as we share the funding for the NHS. The Government want to be consistent with their manifesto, so here is my solution. Yes, it will involve more tax, but it will save money and misery in the end. My bid is simple: the over-40s pay an extra 2% on income tax as a social care supplement. As for national insurance, why on earth does it cease at the age of 65? I was on a salary until I was 72, and paid no national insurance after the age of 65. Today, I am an 80 year-old, 40% taxpayer, yet I pay no national insurance. You could keep the rate the same, or tweak it after 65, and stay in line with the Tory manifesto, and you could get this social care supplement from employers as well. The extras for pensioners, such as winter fuel and bus passes, are all great and convenient, but we should make them taxable. As the Minister who introduced the 75p pension increase in 2000, while ensuring that the poorest pensioners got £3, I say we need only the double lock introduced by Labour; the triple lock cannot be justified any longer.