Marcus Jones
Main Page: Marcus Jones (Conservative - Nuneaton)Council Funding and Social Care
Marcus Jones Excerpts(7 years, 9 months ago)
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Jim McMahon
There is a world of difference between a cross-party delegation having an audience with the Prime Minister, who ignored what was said in that meeting, and a reach-out from the shadow Minister to the Minister in the Local Government Finance Bill Committee to say that we should work together.
There are two issues, one of which is public service delivery, responsibility for which sits with local authorities, social care providers and health providers. Fundamentally, however, it will come down to brass tacks—where is the money? In the Opposition, that question is the responsibility of the shadow Communities and Local Government team; and in the Government it is the responsibility of the DCLG. There has been an offer to work in a cross-party way to find a solution.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Marcus Jones)
indicated dissent.
Jim McMahon
The Minister shakes his head, but he should read Hansard or pay attention in sittings of the Local Government Finance Bill Committee, where I made that offer. The cost of doing nothing is delayed discharge and more than 1 million people not receiving the care they deserve, but also the Government letting down people who have worked all their lives and contributed to society, and who deserve better than the lot they are given.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Marcus Jones)
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) on securing this important debate. I know he has championed the issue of adult social care for some time. Social care funding clearly matters deeply to many Members from across the House, as we have seen today. That is not surprising, as it is a big and complex challenge.
As the right hon. Gentleman put it when he was Secretary of State for Health:
“We have no magic bullet to load and fire to solve this problem...there is no quick fix here.”
He was right. We are all living longer—which is a good thing. I do not agree with the assertion by the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) that any blame is levelled at anyone who is getting older and deserves good quality social care. This debate is precisely about the fact that we face the challenge of an ageing population, and need to provide for those people as they get older.
Mr Jones
I will make progress first.
Last year councils spent more than £14 billion on adult social care, including more than £300 million more than they had budgeted for. It is a significant and growing cost pressure, and, despite what some have said today, it is one that the Government are seeking to relieve. We have added to the package that was put in place at the spending review—a package of nearly £3.5 billion of additional funding for adult social care by 2019-20—by providing councils with access to almost £900 million of additional funding over the next two years. That includes a dedicated £240 million adult social care support grant in 2017-18, together with allocations from the improved better care fund and the additional council tax flexibility that we have given to local authorities, which will provide up to a further £208 million to spend on adult social care in 2017-18 and £444 million in 2018-19.
There has been some objection to the social care precept on the grounds that central Government should pay for adult social care, but it is important to consider where funding comes from; whether raised at a local or national level, in the end it is all taxpayers’ money. The social care precept means that council tax payers’ money is spent in their areas on supporting vulnerable members of their community. As the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle touched on, some councils will be able to raise more than others, which is why the improved better care fund, which will be worth £1.5 billion by 2019-20, will take into account councils’ ability to raise funding through the precept, so in that sense nobody loses out.
However, more money is not the only answer. The right hon. Gentleman predicted that I was going to say that, but it is important to point out that there are discrepancies between outcomes in different areas that cannot be explained solely by funding or demographics. All areas are facing significant challenges, but some are still performing better, driving innovation and putting in place the best practice approaches that have been proven to be effective. More funding is required, and it is being provided.
We have also seen greater improvements in ways of working. One example is in Northumberland, where £5 million has been saved through joined-up working, which has reduced the demand for residential care by some 12%. The better care fund is already supporting that, with £5.3 billion of funding pooled between local authorities and clinical commissioning groups last year. However, we want to make sure that local authorities learn from the best performers and the best providers, and we will therefore soon publish an integration and better care fund policy framework to support that.
I will deal now with numerous points raised by hon. Members. The right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle mentioned the national living wage, which is extremely important. It has been mentioned many times in the debate that we need to attract more people into the caring profession, and the national living wage will certainly do that, but as the right hon. Gentleman pointed out, it has to be paid for. The Local Government Association estimates that the national living wage increase will cost £49 million in 2017-18, with the adult social care precept, which it has been suggested on a number of occasions may not cover that cost, actually raising up to £1.23 billion this year. We can see that the actual precept that has been given to local authorities is significant.
Mr Jones
No, I will make some more progress and deal with these points before I give way to the hon. Gentleman.
The right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle also had concerns about the varying council tax bases across the country, which is an extremely pertinent point. That is why we have profiled the improved better care fund’s distribution—which is £105 million this year, £825 million the following year and £1.5 billion the year after that—based on an area’s ability to raise additional funding through council tax. I hope he is reassured by that. Taking into account his point about the short term, we have put in place the additional adult social care support grant of £240 million this year to give additional support to local authorities, bearing in mind that the improved better care fund is back-loaded, as the right hon. Gentleman said.
The right hon. Gentleman made another point about Hull and the implementation of 100% business rates retention. An assertion was made and, I think, a figure put on the amount that would be available to Hull under that system. At the moment, no allocations have been made and no baseline funding has been set. We have been clear throughout the process of setting 100% of business rates retention that we would take into account a local area’s ability to raise business rates. We certainly recognise that redistribution will need to be part of the new system, to ensure that just because one area does not raise as much in business rates as another it is not left behind.
The right hon. Gentleman also mentioned the difference in funding between Kingston upon Hull and Kingston upon Thames. I will deal with that issue head-on, because for 2017-18, putting together the potential 3% increase under the adult social care precept, the adult social care support grant and the improved better care fund, Kingston upon Hull will actually get £6.86 million from those sources, while Kingston upon Thames will get only £4.88 million from the same sources. I hope that deals with some of his concerns about how funding is being distributed.
My right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Sir Hugo Swire) almost said that my presence at this debate was an outdated model—I hope that Mrs Jones does not take the same view in due course—but I know he did not mean it personally. He made some important points, including about unpaid carers. The Department of Health is leading on the development of a new national carers strategy that focuses on raising awareness of caring and on helping carers to ensure that they have the right support. He also mentioned the business rates retention system and the additional £12.5 billion of business rates that will go to local authorities. We have been clear from the outset of that process that that will be fiscally neutral, with additional responsibilities therefore going to local government in that sense. We are in the process of determining what those additional responsibilities will be, and we are consulting on a number of things at the moment. However, we have ruled out devolving attendance allowance to local authorities.
The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) mentioned skills in the care sector, which is an extremely important point. The Department for Health is doing a significant amount of work to try to improve skills in that regard, and I think the national living wage will also help. The hon. Lady also mentioned a particular incident in her constituency relating to the national living wage. We are absolutely clear that the national living wage should be paid to people working for whatever company on the basis of the hours that they work. If there is any abuse going on, I encourage the hon. Lady to contact Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.
The hon. Lady also mentioned the allocation of funding in relation to deprived areas. I hope it reassures her that the average spending power per dwelling for the 10 most deprived local authorities is around 21% more than for the 10 least deprived local authority areas this year.
Alan Johnson
He already is, so just in case I lose my two minutes, I have a question for the Minister. He has a letter from the chief executive of Hull City Council, Matt Jukes. I have mentioned the disgraceful behaviour of the Secretary of State not committing himself to a meeting that he himself had suggested. Will the Minister commit to having that meeting, at which we can look at the latest round of figures? The first ones were not too good; we will have a stab at this one. That is the short-term problem, but will the Minister also say something about the long-term issue, which my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) raised from the Labour Front Bench, and which Government Members have also raised? This must surely be a short-term issue, with a vision of something better for the longer term.
Mr Jones
I will have that meeting to deal with the points that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned. I say finally that the Prime Minister was absolutely clear last week about the need to find a long-term, sustainable solution to this. The Cabinet Office is driving that work across Government, with my and other relevant Departments, to find that sustainable solution. Local authorities have a duty to care for our most vulnerable people, but we also have a moral duty—
Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).