Adult Social Care in Shropshire: Government Funding

Bill Wiggin Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd January 2020 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I am extremely grateful for those interventions from my hon. Friends and neighbours. I could not agree with them more. Shrewsbury is listed as one of the top 10 places to retire to in the whole of the United Kingdom because of the beauty of our town—we have more listed buildings than any other town in England. We have a larger number of senior citizens as a percentage of our total population, and that percentage is growing much faster than the national average. Governments of all political colours have poured money disproportionately into inner-city, metropolitan areas while leaving us in the rural shire counties as the poorer cousins, and it is vital that we now start to take action.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way on that point?

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I will give way for the last time, very quickly.

[Graham Stringer (in the Chair)]

Order. In half-hour debates on the Adjournment, people who speak have to have the permission of the proposer and of the Minister, and it is not good form to come in after the proposer has started speaking. I ask the proposer and the Minister whether Bill Wiggin has had permission to intervene.

[Bill Wiggin]

I am happy to withdraw my intervention, Mr Stringer.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I will follow your lead on that, Mr Stringer.

In the financial year 2019-20, the social care budget for Shropshire Council was £103.1 million. That represents 48.2% of the council’s net budget, up from 32.6% in 2015-16, which is extraordinary: our council’s budget for just dealing with adult social care costs has gone up from a third of its net budget to practically a half. I find those figures staggering, and my colleagues from Shropshire agree. Since 2015-16, Shropshire Council’s adult social care budget has risen by an average of £7 million per annum. In the coming financial year, it is projected to rise by approximately £10 million; £6 million of that is inflationary, meaning that only approximately £4 million is due to increasing demand.

As has been said, Shropshire’s senior citizen population is rising at a much faster rate than the national average, and Shropshire Council has become more efficient, which is the point that my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow was making. The Local Government Association has assessed our council as being very well managed, and as implementing new and innovative policies in this regard. Shropshire Council has become more efficient and innovative in an attempt to control rising costs in social care. Of all initial inquiries into adult social care, 85% are signposted to external support, and of the remainder, only 14.8% enter paid services. In total, 2.25% of all inquiries enter paid services; in 2014-15, the comparable figure was 32%. The financial pressures on Shropshire Council go beyond single-year budget increases. The most recent available analysis shows that if our council were funded at the English average per head of population, it would have an additional £20 million in its base budget.

I am grateful to have had the opportunity to raise this issue, and look forward to hearing the Minister’s answers. I am pleased that all the MPs from the Shropshire Council area have attended this debate, and I am very grateful for their support. They know as well as I do the huge pressures that our council is under at the moment because of its lack of funding, and will share those pressures with the Minister. Our hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin also mentioned serious problems with our local hospital acute trust, which we are trying to raise with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.

We in Shropshire are experiencing a unique combination of problems at the moment, meaning that our constituents are given services that are creaking at best. That is not something I feel comfortable with. We are the fifth-largest economy in the world; I read today that last year, we reduced our debt as a percentage of GDP by 0.9%, and I am delighted and thrilled that the International Monetary Fund is now forecasting that our country will grow at a faster rate than the eurozone over the next three years. We have turned a corner, so we can start to loosen the purse strings a little bit. We as Conservatives must demonstrate that we have a long-term solution to this issue, which affects so many of our constituents.