Care Bill [HL]

Lord Sharkey Excerpts

Tuesday 16th July 2013 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Sharkey]

89E: Clause 15, page 13, line 46, at end insert—
“( ) The Secretary of State has a duty to ensure that there is, through national public awareness campaigns, a high level of public awareness and understanding of the terms and implications of the cap on the cost of care.”

[Lord Sharkey]

My Lords, my Amendment 89E covers the same ground as, and is very similar to, Amendment 90 in this group standing in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross. I entirely agree with the spirit of the noble Baroness’s amendment except that I do not think that it goes quite far enough.

The question of public awareness of the terms of the cap on care costs is obviously critically important. However, as I said at Second Reading, the Dilnot report views communication to be central to the success of the entire scheme. Dilnot makes two recommendations in this area. The first is:

“To encourage people to plan ahead for their later life we recommend that the Government invests in an awareness campaign”.

The second is:

“The Government should develop a major new information and advice strategy to help when care needs arise”.

In his reply at Second Reading, the Minister said:

“Legislation is not required for that but the Government agree on the need to raise public awareness. The Government will adopt a strategic approach to maximising the public’s understanding of the new care and support system, and that is a crucial part of our plans to implement Dilnot”.—[Official Report, 21/5/13; col. 827.]

I was very glad to hear that the Government plan to maximise public understanding of the new system. Maximisation is a strong word and this is a very strong and very welcome commitment. I agree that legislation is not necessary in order to implement an awareness campaign. However, while legislation may not be necessary, I think that in this case it is highly desirable and probably even essential.

I believe that it is highly desirable for four reasons. First, it is a binding and unambiguous commitment; secondly, it allows for a national campaign, so that there should be no unsatisfactory variations in achievement by local authority area; thirdly, only central government is really likely to spend the amount of money needed to truly maximise public understanding; and, fourthly, it is the only efficient way of holding someone to account for failure to achieve maximisation. As I mentioned, where I slightly part company with the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, is over whether her amendment goes far enough.

I have had a great deal of experience of devising and running very large-scale information and advice campaigns, some of the largest being for government departments, and I know that successfully providing information and advice is never enough. It is critical that this information is understood but it is also critical that there is awareness and understanding of the implications of that information and advice. Awareness of facts is not in itself worth very much if we do not understand what those facts mean or what their implications are for you. That is why my amendment is slightly stronger than Amendment 90. It imposes a duty on the Secretary of State not only to run a national awareness campaign but to ensure that there is a high level of public awareness and understanding of the terms and implications of the cap on the cost of care.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, potentially, everyone in need of care and support may benefit from these reforms. We want to make it as widely known and as apparent as possible that planning is an important matter, whatever a person’s means. If I have misunderstood the noble Lord’s question, I will review that answer and write to him, but that is the main point.

I come back to the point I made earlier: this is just the beginning and it is why we will shortly be consulting on all these implementation issues. With those comments, I hope that my noble friend will feel able to withdraw his amendment and that other noble Lords will not press theirs.

[Lord Sharkey]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in favour of a comprehensive, national and centrally funded information and advice campaign under the direct control of the Secretary of State. I am sorry that my noble friend the Minister did not seem entirely convinced by that. I was very puzzled by one thing that the Minister said about the cost of an annual report on how well we were making progress in generating awareness of the terms and implications of Dilnot. I cannot see that the cost could be anything but essentially trivial. I may be wrong about that, but I should be very grateful if the Minister would clarify, perhaps in writing later, why he thinks that the cost would be substantial at all.

I continue to feel that the whole issue of providing information and understanding is much too important to be left to local authorities and for the Secretary of State not to have direct responsibility for it. The task facing any information campaign in this area is enormous. The last survey that I saw showed, for example, that only 17% of UK adults understand what a percentage is—even that may be an overstatement—and Dilnot’s implications are much more complicated than that. We need the best communication with the most money and we need obvious accountability. That means central government and the Secretary of State having responsibility.

Given the opinions expressed around the Chamber today, we may well want to return to this issue on Report. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 89E withdrawn.