Queen’s Speech

Baroness Campbell of Surbiton Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton (CB)]

My Lords, I propose to speak about social care for disabled and older people, which of course impacts on their health and well-being. This area has been deeply neglected in recent years. We are, sadly, looking at a series of failures in this sector: failure to invest in older and disabled people’s participation in, and contributions to, families and communities; failure to make decisions about how to secure long-term funding; and failure to create a positive narrative around the fact that we are living longer—I know I do. The result is poor-quality and inadequate support services which we would not want for ourselves or those we love.

Users of care and support services are deeply fed up with successive Governments’ “all talk and no action” approach to social care reform, and the general reference to social care in the Queen’s Speech adds little to restore public trust. It is not acceptable in a modern society, and as one of the largest economies in the world, to limit social care to life-and-limb services. This is about all of us: our families and ourselves, not mythical “others”.

While we need the Government finally to act on ensuring sufficient investment in social care, which is so important to the health and well-being of our society, we must equally look beyond government to bring about the transformative change necessary to reshape care and support. Many people and groups are trying to take action to make things a great deal better. Their common aim—our common aim—is summed up by Social Care Future, a network of people receiving, providing and commissioning social care. As it says:

“We all want to live in the place we call home with the people and things that we love, in communities where we look out for one another, doing the things that matter to us. That’s the #socialcarefuture we seek”,


not life-and-limb services.

Government financial investment to achieve this is critical, but it has to be done differently. Currently, it is targeted at propping up creaking services that most of us fear having to use. As noble Lords know, my area of greatest knowledge is disabled people, who account for 50% of social care expenditure, yet they say this does not give them what they want or need to live and participate effectively in the community. This group is completely unable to accumulate wealth to pay for their own care, yet Governments continue to raid their meagre benefits and entitlements, which they need to survive, for this purpose. This is wholly unfair, counterproductive and highly questionable financially.

Only person-centred support to live as others do, funded through central taxation, will break the cycle of fear and inaction. There is great public support for this. I and others are proposing new ways to invest in support for people of all ages. We must move away from institutional practices by shifting power to people and communities. We must recognise the case for realistic investment in a fundamental right to independent living, as argued for by the Reclaiming Our Futures Alliance, a growing movement of disabled people’s organisations.

This year, the Independent Living Strategy Group, which I am privileged to chair, will embark on an independent inquiry into current support for disabled people, with recommendations for progressive change. This will underpin a Private Member’s Bill which I hope to table in the near future. I intend to call it the “access to living Bill”, because, after all, that is what everybody wants and deserves. They just want a life: they do not want a service and they do not want to live by handout to survive. They want a life and they want to participate. I will look for support for the Bill from the Government and from across the House, because I believe that this is the new future that we want for older and disabled people.

Social Care: Free Personal Care

Baroness Campbell of Surbiton Excerpts

Wednesday 26th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

I thank the noble Baroness for an important question. She is absolutely right that the Green Paper must be a priority. It will set out our sustainable plans for reform. We have welcomed the contributions that have been made by a number of recent reports. The noble Baroness rightly pointed to the IPPR, the Joint Select Committees, the Health Foundation, the King’s Fund and the Resolution Foundation. They have made some important proposals which are being considered as part of the Green Paper’s work going forward. The noble Baroness is right that we cannot wait for that, because there are people who need improvements in care now, and that is part of what the better care fund has been set up to do—to improve the spreading of best practice and the new models of care work which have been put front and centre for the long-term plan improvements. That was introduced in 2015, and has brought in the funds required, taking the total of increased funding to £7.7 billion by 2018-19. We are looking at how we can make sure that that improves. It has brought changes across the system.

[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton (CB)]

My Lords, research carried out by the Independent Living Strategy Group, which I chair, concluded very recently that charging for the support disabled people need to go about their daily lives is unfair and counterproductive and undermines the primary purpose of the Care Act. Will the Minister tell me whether the Government have considered implementing the recommendations of the Darzi report, which called for extending the NHS’s “need, not ability to pay” principle to social care, especially for younger disabled people who have no savings and who want to save, to get a life, to get a house, to go to university and so on?

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

I thank the noble Baroness for the important point she has raised. The Government have established an interministerial group for disability chaired by the Secretary of State for DWP on exactly this point to identify barriers for those with disabilities and to drive forward co-ordinated action across government to try to address this. We are identifying organisations required to provide quality and comprehensive services based on clinical need which do not discriminate between patients on the basis of disability. I will take away the points the noble Baroness has raised because they are hugely important.

Disabled People: Social Care

Baroness Campbell of Surbiton Excerpts

Tuesday 20th February 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have plans to improve social care for disabled people below retirement age in the light of the change in title of the Department of Health.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord O'Shaughnessy) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are committed to making sure that everyone who is assessed as having a care need can access high-quality support to maintain their independence. While the social care Green Paper will focus primarily on care for older people, it will also address questions relevant to adults of all ages with care needs. In addition, the Government are taking forward a parallel programme of work so that issues specific to working-age adults are considered in their own right.

[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton (CB)]

I thank the Minister for his reply—but, as he will know, the Government have transferred responsibility for the social care Green Paper for older people from the Cabinet Office to the Department of Health. Will he confirm that the Government will use this opportunity to review the scope of the Green Paper to include younger disabled people, because the proposed parallel process, which is not a Green Paper, is simply not acceptable when half of social care spending now goes on working-age disabled people? Please will the Minister confirm that both older and younger disabled people will receive parity of status and attention from the Government?

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question. She is quite right to highlight the importance of reform for this group of people. We are talking about 250,000 people now, but that is projected to rise to 400,000 working-age adults in the next 15 years. I want to reassure her that, while the Green Paper itself is focused on care reform for older people, a parallel programme of work is going on. There is an important round table coming up which is being chaired by both the new Minister of State for Care, Caroline Dinenage, and the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Communities and Local Government, with Mencap, Scope and others. We are giving the issue equal seriousness, as it deserves.