Social Care

Marcus Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 25th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Marcus Jones)]

This has been a wide-ranging and important debate on one of the most important social issues and challenges we face in our country.

Delivering good-quality care for our most vulnerable people is a clear priority for this Government. To ensure local government has the resources to fund adult social care through to 2019-20, the Government have given councils access to £9.25 billion of dedicated funding for adult social care over the next three years.

Beyond the immediate term, there is also the need to address the challenges of social care for our ageing population. Therefore, the Government will bring forward proposals for consultation, to build widespread support for reform. The consultation will set out options to improve the social care system, put it on a more secure financial footing, support people and their families to prepare for old age, and address issues related to the quality of care and the variation in practice.

Overall, local government spent £14.9 billion in 2016-17 on adult social care—up by £500 million from 2015-16, and over £500 million more than budgeted for. This year, councils are budgeted to spend £15.6 billion.

The Government continue to provide local government with the additional resource it needs to deliver care. At the spring Budget, an additional £2 billion of funding in England was announced, of which £1 billion has been provided in 2017-18. That was in addition to the resource made available in the local government finance settlement, where we provided £240 million for adult social care. It was also in addition to the £2.5 billion put through local authorities in the improved better care fund.

Alongside Government funding, more flexibility has been provided. Local government has been able to raise more income through the adult social care precept, with the flexibility to increase it by 3% this year. That adult social care flexibility was subsequently used by 147 out of 152 social care authorities, with 109 using the full allocation, or close to the full allocation, of 3%. I should point out that it is also down to the Government that, overall, council tax remains lower in real terms than it was in 2010.

In terms of the integration of health and social care, we should remember that the better care fund is the first national mandatory integration policy. We should not shy away from the fact that integration is not easy, but the Government are supportive of the best-performing systems, where local government and the NHS work together to tackle the difficult issue of delayed transfers of care. We understand that delayed transfers of care are only one part of what authorities deal with to deliver social care in communities up and down the country, but we also understand that improving working between local government and the NHS is absolutely key to delivering better joined-up care for local people.

It is also right that, in November, we will consider a review of the 2018-19 allocations of social care funding provided at the spring Budget 2017 for areas that are not performing well. We expect that that would encompass only a small number of local authorities, although we are clear that the funding will remain with local government to be used for adult social care. We also favour, if needed, the option that places conditions on how a proportion of the 2018-19 funding is used to support an authority’s delayed transfer of care performance.

[Barbara Keeley]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Jones]

I will in a moment, but I want to make a little more progress and mention some of the people who have spoken in the debate.

The hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) finally hit the nail on the head right at the end of his speech in saying that we needed to approach this important, difficult and delicate subject in a non-partisan way. I was very disappointed, though, that 98% of his speech was spent on the politics of fear and, in some ways, misinformation. That was very much out of kilter with much of the debate across the House.

My hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), the Chair of the Health Committee, made some very important points. She was absolutely right first to pay tribute to careworkers and carers—that is absolutely the right thing for us to do. She mentioned the remuneration of care work, as did other hon. Members across the House. It is important to point out that careworking is an extremely important job. The national living wage, which was £5.93 an hour in 2010, is now £7.50 an hour, and lower-paid workers pay £1,200 less in income tax than they did in 2010. We are well on the path to rewarding careworkers far more than they have been in the past, although we would acknowledge that there is more to do.

[Barbara Keeley]

If the Minister values care, would he comment on untrained members of the public being offered £1,000 a month to rent out rooms as an alternative to care for patients recovering from surgery? Do he and his Government support that, because it is frightening from a safeguarding point of view?

[Mr Jones]

It is important that we always have workers who are trained, and we are providing care in good-quality settings. We heard several times that 80% of our care homes are providing quality of care that is either good or outstanding.

My hon. Friend the Member for Totnes mentioned the integration of health and social care, and the importance of the health service in the context of the review that is going to be done. She spoke about future planning of the workforce, which is also very important.

The hon. Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall) made some very sensible points and comments about the politics of dealing with long-term funding of social care, and said that it does not serve people or their carers if we are partisan. Even so, she slipped into a bit of partisanship towards the end, showing how difficult this situation is. On the whole, however, she made some very sensible points.

My hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup) was right to point out that this is a long-standing issue that many Governments over decades have ducked. She mentioned the situation in Derbyshire with her council, which seems to have been left a difficult legacy by its Labour predecessor. I am certainly willing to meet her to discuss that issue.

My hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris) mentioned the positive impact that the £2 billion of additional funding that was announced in the Budget for the adult social care precept has had in his area. He also made a sensible point about the potential for devolution to bring more integration between health and social care. My hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) said that health and social care is not just a responsibility for national Government because there is a responsibility on us all, particularly at a local level within the health service and in our local authorities.

My hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) raised the importance of suitable accommodation to enable older people to live independently and help us to avoid many of the healthcare costs that we face. My hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr Fysh) mentioned the pressure that the national living wage puts on the system. It is quite right that we pay our careworkers more, and that is why we have given councils access to up to £9.25 billion of extra funding by 2020.

Many positive speeches were made during the debate, but unfortunately I have not got time to mention them all. The problems in social care have developed over many decades. The Government are absolutely right to recognise the challenges of adult social care and tackle them head-on. That is why we have provided further funding up to 2020. We need to address the issue, and that is why we will work across the sector to bring about change and a sustainable solution for the future so that the most vulnerable in our society can get the care that they deserve and need.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House notes the Conservative Party’s manifesto commitment to a funding proposal for social care which would have no cap on care costs and would include the value of homes in the means test for care at home; further notes that this proposal would leave people with a maximum of only £100,000 of assets; calls on the Government to confirm its intention not to proceed with this commitment; and further calls on the Government to remove the threat to withdraw social care funding from, and stop fines on, local authorities for Delayed Transfers of Care and to commit to the extra funding needed to close the social care funding gap for 2017 and the remaining years of the 2017 Parliament.

[Barbara Keeley]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Again we see the Government refusing to vote on a motion—[Interruption.]