Adult Social Care

Virendra Sharma Excerpts

Monday 16th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak in this important debate.

I am often contacted by my elderly constituents and their families about social care and its funding, and I can tell the House that it is a massive worry to many of them. While I welcome many of the “in principle” recommendations in the Government’s White Paper, their lack of commitment to reforming the long-term funding of social care means, in effect, that they are kicking this urgent reform into the long grass. Dilnot recommended capping social care contributions at £35,000 and increasing the means-tested savings figure to £100,000. Supporting that in principle is all well and good, but the fact that the Government are not proposing anything specific until the 2013 comprehensive spending review and not implementing anything this side of the general election means that thousands of my constituents will continue to face anxiety about the potential cost of their social care and a substantial loss of their lifetime savings. One in 10 of them will face catastrophic social care costs of over £100,000. That is not acceptable and shows that the Government are out of touch and ducking the issue.

Social care funding is in crisis. Councils across the country have been forced to cut £1 billion from social care. In Ealing, the Labour council has had its overall budget cut by 30%. With a substantial proportion of its budget being spent on adult social care, it is struggling to protect the most vulnerable, who depend day in, day out on the social care that it provides. It has found 70% of the £85 million that it must cut over four years from efficiencies and has cut a smaller percentage from adult social care to try to protect the vulnerable.

The spend on social care is decreasing while the number of elderly people in need of social care is increasing. The Local Government Association recently released a report on local government financing that made it clear that with the elderly population and the cost of social care both increasing, unless the Government reform social care funding urgently, by the end of the decade, councils will be able to pay only for social care and all other council services, such as refuse collections, will have to stop. That is not a sustainable situation for social care or for other council services. The Government cannot afford to do what they have done in this White Paper. They have not grasped the financial nettle, but have kicked social care funding into the long grass.

One action that the Government could take immediately would be to use some of the £1.7 billion underspend from the NHS—£1.4 billion of which has been returned to the Treasury—to tackle the funding crisis in social care. Labour is sensibly calling for £700 million of that underspend to be given to councils immediately to tackle the crisis in social care funding. That would be a significant step that would help my constituents who have social care needs. The need for a long-term funding solution is critical. I hope that the Government will engage urgently in all-party talks so that a solution can be found without further delay. I therefore support the motion.