Adult Social Care

Sarah Owen Excerpts

Wednesday 8th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and may I also welcome you back? It is great to see you in the Chair.

Today we have been allotted time to speak about something the Government seem to do anything possible to avoid, and that is social care. It got barely a look-in in the autumn statement, and there is not much hope for next week’s Budget either. Every generation in this country is being failed by irresponsible, careless Conservative leadership—or, rather, a lack of leadership. Young people are having opportunities snatched from them by this Government. Working people are underpaid and cannot afford to buy their own home or pay the rent. Our older generation, who have toiled for decades, paid their taxes and contributed to our economy, are now being left in the lurch by the state when they need it the most. These are people such as the wonderful WASPI women whom I met outside Parliament today—women such as Josie from Great Yarmouth, Yvonne and Jane, who all told me to tell younger generations of women, “Look after yourself and plan for later life, because the likes of this Government won’t be there when you need them most.”

Our ageing population do not just deserve good social care; they should be entitled to it. It is their right, and in a country with the sixth largest GDP in the world, it is frankly mortifying that they are not afforded it. The social care sector is a problem the Tory Government have not just neglected, but actually made worse in their 13 years of power. There are currently record high levels of staff vacancies in adult social care—a staggering 165,000 vacancies. The existing workforce are burnt out, underpaid and overworked trying to cover the staff shortages. When I worked as a care worker, going into people’s homes to provide some of the most sensitive of support in sometimes less than 20 minutes, I knew the system was broken. Being pressured by managers to prioritise private patients over those who had support from the state, regardless of their need, was the wrong way of doing things then and it is the wrong way of doing things now.

It is worth noting that this debate is taking place on International Women’s Day. Later, we will hear a debate on childcare funding. While it might be a coincidence that these two debates are being held on this day, it is extremely meaningful. Some 80% of the care workforce are female, and that accounts just for the official staff. Under this Conservative Government, 2.3 million more people have given up some or all of their working hours to care for family members, because they cannot access professional support. That point was made eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley). The majority of those unpaid carers will be women, once again taking a hit to their careers, their finances and often their own health to provide care when the state has simply stepped back.

It does not have to be this way. As many as one in three hospital beds are currently occupied by patients who are ready for discharge, but who have nowhere to go. I am sure the Minister and his colleagues know as well as we do that these are not hospital beds going spare. Then there are the waiting lists. Many of us here will have a parent, a grandparent or a loved one in need of adult social care, or care for a younger person with disabilities. I wonder how many of us could say they have received the care they needed in a timeframe they are satisfied with.

Recent figures show a shameful trend of delays and let-downs in the social care sector. More than half a million people are waiting for an assessment, a review, the start of a service or a direct payment—half a million people. When will this backlog be dealt with and what are those people having to do in the meantime? I can take a guess at what some of them are having to do. As much as local councils, charities and places of worship try to plug the gaps left by this Government with food banks and warm banks, many pensioners are left shivering in homes, avoiding too much usage of their lights or televisions even, and watching their bills escalate. They are going to the shops to find no eggs and no tomatoes, and still coming back out of pocket. They are doing all this while dealing with their untreated health issues, and they are waiting up to 24 hours for ambulances to arrive in desperate situations.

Those people are wondering when exactly it was that this Government turned their back on them. Perhaps it was in 2022, when the Chancellor made it clear that social care was not a priority, allocating just £2.6 billion in new funds. Maybe it was in 2019, when a Tory party actually quite different from this one—we have gone through quite a few different leaders and Prime Ministers—promised that

“nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it”,

while, on their watch, 28,000 people have exhausted their life savings to pay for care. That point was made by the right hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green). But no, I think the betrayal of our older generation goes much further back than that.

In 2012, the current Chancellor was Health Secretary. He promised a cap on care costs, acknowledging the financial weight crippling individuals and families. The cap was legislated for in 2014, delayed until 2020 and then postponed indefinitely. After 10 years of being strung along, the hundreds of thousands of people needing adult social care were told in the autumn statement that any reforms of social care charges would have to wait until at least 2025. This is a heartbreaking and intensely frustrating situation for people waiting for answers and for security for the future. People are dying while waiting for state social care—150,000 over the last five years to be exact. I repeat: 150,000 people have died waiting for the care they never received. Will the Minister tell us how our constituents can really trust the Government to solve this crisis?

When he was Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, the Chancellor stated that an annual sum of £7 billion was needed to plug the gaps in social care. One year later, and now in the position of power to allocate the very funding that he demanded for the sector, he pledged £7.5 billion over two years and, as we have established, only a quarter of that is new funding.

As the deliverers of state social care, local government leaders are well placed to judge what is needed. The Local Government Association has calculated that £13 billion is required to address the severity of the pressures facing the social care service. It states:

“An investment of this scale is needed to support our national infrastructure, our economy and our prosperity.”

Does the Minister believe that the Tory-led LGA is wrong about that? The LGA has also been critical of the Government’s model that continues to rely on council tax revenue to pay for social care. Council tax brings in vastly different amounts in different areas, depending on the demographic of residents.

In some areas, particularly rural communities, funds coming in from council tax are heavily outweighed by the demand for social care. As the hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) eloquently put it, there are many different barriers to accessing social care—and good care—within rural communities, and that is just one of them. The hon. Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) also made it clear that that is an issue. In a debate in January, he argued against the funding model, with one third of his constituents aged over 65, compared with a national average of 19%, which presents a huge need for care. He stated that Dorset Council’s spending on adult social care had risen by 15%, but that that was not touching the surface of the problem, and 83% of the council’s income was reliant on council tax.

The problem lies with central Government and the lack of a sustainable funding model. Fortunately, one party has a plan for social care, and we will not be postponing it for years or decades when we are in power. A Labour Government will implement a 10-year plan for investment and reform in social care. We will increase access and prioritise prevention and early intervention with home care. We will present a new deal for care workers that delivers fair pay, training and working conditions to recruit staff and—most importantly—retain them. We will ensure that unpaid family carers are no longer overlooked or taken for granted. If the Minister can present anything to rival that, I would genuinely love to hear it. As a former care worker, and someone whose grandparents have wonderful carers, I would love to say that we could put politics aside and come to a solution for the good of our country, but I also question the likelihood of that, given the 13 years of failure that we have seen from this Government.

I have mentioned some shocking figures, but I want to make it clear that social care is not about numbers—it is about people. It is about people in desperate need of care, who are often towards the end of life. It is about young disabled people, and families when they are at their most vulnerable. It is about the people providing that care through long hours, hard graft and low pay. Our nation’s older generation depends on them, and so will we when our time comes. I hope for everyone’s sake that they will still be there, and that this Government will not be.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lee Rowley]

I am happy to confirm that the Government are trying, where we are able, to offer greater visibility of what is coming and greater long-term understanding. We will continue to try to do that across the local government finance settlement, and I hope this policy statement is an indication of that.

[Sarah Owen]

I appreciate the Minister’s generosity in giving way, and I completely agree on the kind of long-term futures that we talking about for local government, yet we are 23 days away from local authorities setting their budgets and they have still had no indication about their public health grants. If we are going to treat local authorities with respect on healthcare, surely they should be given that well in advance.

[Lee Rowley]

I know that my colleagues across Government will be working hard to get the final elements of the settlement out as soon as possible, but I hope the hon. Lady will acknowledge that, on the basis of my conversations with local government over the past few weeks, there is a recognition that the settlement has provided a good level of funds, that it will be moving in a positive direction and that it provides the stability and greater certainty that local government has requested and that we have responded to as a Government.

To conclude, I again thank the hon. Member for Sheffield South East for instigating and opening this debate. I also thank everybody outside this place who supports adult social care. It is an extraordinarily important part of local government and the state’s activities in general. As has been outlined in this debate, we need to support the most vulnerable and those in need, irrespective of age or condition. Through the changes that are coming in the new financial year, we are trying to provide additional funds, support and taxpayer subsidy to do that, and to ensure that local government can continue to build and improve for the long term in such an important policy area.