Here we are discussing this issue again when we discussed it just before the summer recess. That shows not only its importance but the fact that we are not making progress. We were promised the Green Paper last year. Then it was late last year, then early this year, then autumn 2018. I gently point out that it is now autumn 2018.
The five year forward view talked about managing demand in the NHS if there was an absolute game-changer of an increase in public health to try to reduce the demand at the front door of the NHS, an increase in funding and provision of social care to stop funding haemorrhaging out the back door of the NHS. Unfortunately, what we have seen over the past five years is ongoing cuts to social care. I am sure that the £240 million for the winter from the Secretary of State is very welcome, but it is not nearly enough, and we will just keep on having this debate unless we can move forward and have a serious debate around the Green Paper.
As was mentioned earlier, Age UK estimates that more than 1.2 million people are not getting the care that they require. Need has increased by almost 50% since 2010, and yet there has been a decrease of 26% in England of local authority funded places. One third of people needing care are totally dependent on their family. It is estimated that 6.8 million—that is one in 10 of the UK population—are involved in caring for a loved one, either full-time, part-time, or topping up care. Age UK also estimates that one third—700,000 people—receive no care whatever.
Despite an almost 9% cut in their budget, the Scottish Government spend £163 per head more on health than the UK Government—the Minister might actually want to listen to that, having made snide remarks about the Scottish Government—and £157 per head more on social care. Scotland is the only country in the UK that provides free personal care, and we have sustained that since 2002. That has led to less than one third of the increase in A&E attendances and emergency admissions in Scotland over the past five years compared with England. The system is really expensive and it is challenging, but it reduces delayed discharges and it reduces emergency admissions, and the estimate is that it is still cost-effective. I suggest that the Government might want to look at that in the Green Paper.