Health and Social Care Levy

Tom Hunt Excerpts

1st reading
Wednesday 8th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

One thing that concerns me is that I saw some polling earlier this week showing that only about 25% of the population know that social care has to be paid for. That in itself is something we need to address through a certain level of engagement. If a lot of the people who are dismissing and opposing the national insurance rise truly understood and comprehended the devastating consequences of out-of-control social care costs, they might think differently.

Where are we right now? We are in a situation where we have spent £400 billion since the start of the pandemic. We have waiting lists growing and spiralling out of control as a result of the pandemic. We all have constituents who are waiting in pain for hip and knee replacements and more serious operations. We have constituents, including mine, who are not able to see their GP face to face and all the consequences of that. That needs to be addressed urgently. My constituents should be able to see their GP face to face when they need to do that.

We are in this appalling situation, and I take issue with the dismissive way that Opposition Members have spoken about many of the individuals who could benefit from the social care cap, referring to them all as millionaires in Surrey. The people I know who have been clobbered by social care bills are not millionaires in Surrey; they are people who have worked hard their entire life, paid tax on what they earned and at the end of their life, they have something to show for it. It is not just bricks and mortar; it is a home that they love and that they raised their kids in. Not unreasonably, they want to pass that on to their kids. When their mental and physical health is deteriorating, to see everything they have worked hard for whittled away in a matter of years is utterly depressing and morally wrong. I am proud to support a cap that addresses that, and I make no apology for doing so.

In terms of the manifesto point, I stood on a manifesto—we all did—and there was a pandemic straight after we had the election. This is an extraordinary situation, and probably nothing has happened since the second world war that has had such a dramatic effect on cost and spend. We spent £400 billion. People make this inaccurate comparison with George H.W. Bush and “read my lips”. Over the summer, I had a few days off, and I read a very long book about George H.W. Bush. He did not have a pandemic happen a year after he stood for election. It just simply did not happen. It is like writing a manifesto in 1938 and then realising that thousands of Spitfires have to be built because the second world war is starting. The money has to be raised somehow, and to say, “We cannot possibly do that, because we cannot change the manifesto we stood on a year ago”, would be absolutely absurd.

What are we dealing with right now? We are dealing with a situation where we have a cap of £86,000. We need to know more. We need to know more particularly about those with £20,000 to £100,000 and how their care costs will be subsidised. We understand that the councils will help with that. I need to know more about how that will work in practice. I sympathise with my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison) and others who represent areas with hard-working constituents where house prices are very different from those in London. We need to know more about that.

Ultimately, we have seen the Prime Minister speak on this issue, and we have seen his passion. He is right to be passionate about this. The easy thing for him to do would be to use the pandemic as an excuse to push this issue into the long grass, but he has not done that. He has done the difficult thing and grasped the nettle. I am proud that he is our leader and our Prime Minister. He is doing that. What else was in the manifesto? Sorting out social care. No one should suggest we push that into the long grass. The Labour party does not want to decrease international aid, it wants us to make the universal credit increase permanent and it wants us to spend £16 billion on this and that. Labour never says no to a pay increase. I know what will be in my manifesto: you voted against—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order.