Economic Update

Paula Barker Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

I thank my hon. Friend for that. I wholeheartedly agree with him about gyms, and have hope on that, as the Prime Minister has indicated previously that he is keen to see progress made there. On the issue of early years and children, my hon. Friend knows this better than many others—other than perhaps one colleague sitting behind me—and he is right in what he says. He will know the work we did on the troubled families programme, and I was grateful to him when I was a Local Government Minister for his advice and support on that. I know that the early years working group has put forward a range of suggestions that we can take forward into the spending review.

[Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab)]

The coronavirus pandemic has laid bare the deep and systematic inadequacies of the current social care system and revealed the true extent of the impact that underfunding, structural issues and market instability have had on the system’s ability to respond and protect older people at a time of crisis. Despite the Prime Minister seeking to flagrantly blame our incredible social care sector for excess deaths this week, when will the Government get serious about caring for our most vulnerable and fund local authorities properly to bring social care services back in-house?

[Rishi Sunak]

In our manifesto, we committed to an extra £1 billion a year for social care, and that is what we have delivered this year and will continue to deliver. During this crisis, we have provided £3.7 billion to local authorities and an additional £600 million for infection control in care homes. But as the Prime Minister has said, we remain committed to ensuring that local authorities and care homes get all the support that they need.