Adult Social Care Funding

Matthew Offord Excerpts
Thursday 6th July 2017

(6 years, 10 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Steve Brine Portrait Steve Brine
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I am sorry, but I did not see that programme. I shall look out for it on “watch again”. What we can do is put in place the toughest, most rigorous assessment and inspection regime, and that is what we have. That has come from this Secretary of State, not from the previous Government, who ducked the issue. What we can do is ensure that there is rigorous inspection to root out poorly performing services. That is the same in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency as it is in mine.

Matthew Offord Portrait Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)
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With an increasingly ageing population, does the Minister agree that it is deeply cynical to pretend that there is some financial solution to this issue that does not involve very difficult decisions both within and across generations?

Steve Brine Portrait Steve Brine
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Yes, I do. There were many disappointing things for me about the recent general election—[Laughter.] To be serious, one of the more disappointing things was that the debate around the future of adult social care was reduced to the use of the words “dementia tax”, which did the sector, our constituents, our public life and this Parliament an enormous disservice. We do need to have a grown-up debate in this country about this issue, and that is why we will bring forward proposals for consultation.