Local Government Funding
Debate between Neil Coyle and Liz Kendall(8 years, 9 months ago)
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Liz Kendall
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but I know where I believe responsibility lies. It lies with the current Government. They say more money for social care will be provided, first, through the better care programme, although this money is not what it seems and is arriving far too late, when the sector is already in crisis. There will be no increase in better care programme money until 2017 and even then there will be only £105 million extra. The full additional £1.5 billion that the Government said social care is getting will not be available until 2020.
That will not all be new funding, because £800 million of it is supposed to come from savings in the new homes budget. Due to the way the money is distributed, a handful of councils will receive no additional better care programme cash and others will lose more in their new homes bonus than they gain. It is completely unclear whether the full £1.5 billion extra in the better care programme will still be allocated if the Government do not achieve the saving in the new homes bonus.
New powers to raise council tax by up to 2% to spend on social care—my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) referred to this—were announced in the spending review, but they will be nowhere near enough to fill the gap in social care funding.
Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. Having faced £156 million of cuts over the last five years, Southwark Council has to find £70 million in cuts over the next three years, and that is expected to include about £30 million in social care services. Is she aware that the social care precept will contribute only £1.7 million per year if Southwark Council chooses to implement it?
Liz Kendall
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. He is absolutely right, and I will say more about that in a moment. In Southwark Council, like mine, there is no way that the social care precept will fill the gap.