Health and Care Bill

Baroness Altmann Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Tuesday 26th April 2022 Lords Chamber

Motion D says that there must be an evaluation of the trailblazer and that assessments can happen as they go along, but there is a big risk to the Government there. If there are problems, which we believe there will be—not least the financial impact on some of the most vulnerable adults in our community—they will not surface until it is too late. Therefore, from these Benches we support Motion D1 and urge the Government, even at this last minute, to reconsider.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, I follow the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Campbell, and will confine my brief remarks to social care, which I have long worked on. Sadly, the measures in the Bill will not rise to the challenge as required to sort out the social care system in our country.

I accept and congratulate the Government on the concessions that they have made. I am delighted to see Motion C on modern slavery. However, as far as social care is concerned, I would like to understand from my noble friend, on workforce planning, whether private care homes and non-state care home staff will be assessed as to adequacy. At the moment, there are horrendous staff shortages, and the current immigration policy does not seem to include carers—an essential element of the workforce—because of the pay structures. If he could explain what the social care workforce elements of the Government’s proposals are for the non-state social care sector, I would be most grateful.

I am not planning to vote against the Government on Motion D1, but I am afraid that I cannot support them. I put on record that I agree with everything that has been said about the Government’s changes to the social care cap. I believe that the measures are regressive; they will damage the least well off—or the lower end of the middle range of people, shall we say. They may be better than the current system, but they are not a solution and are not satisfactory. We will end up having to revisit the support for social care. Having said that, and in view of the fact that this is financial privilege, I will not vote against the Government on Motion D1.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise very briefly to offer Green support for both Motions A1 and D1. Motion D1 has already been very amply covered, most notably by the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton, so I will just address my remarks to Motion A1.

I know that many Members of your Lordships’ House feel as though we do not want to be political about things—I might have thoughts about that—but this is not a political amendment at all. As the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, said, more than 100 of our major healthcare organisations have expressed support for this workforce planning approach. Just a couple of hours ago, and this addresses your Lordships’ House directly, the British Heart Foundation put out a press release saying that, without this amendment, it is

“unclear how ambitious targets laid out in the Elective Recovery Plan and other NHS delivery plans can be met.”

The chief executive said that

“the Government has missed an open goal by failing … to address the workforce shortage”.

In addition, just yesterday the King’s Fund put out a report saying that the Government—they can welcome this—are “on track” to meet their target of “50,000 extra nurses” by 2024. However, the King’s Fund points out that the level of vacancies is still the same as it was when that promise was made. Just plucking figures out of the air and going, “Hey, we’ve got this great figure”, is not enough; we need to plan for the future. That is why this amendment is absolutely crucial for our NHS.