Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to speak in this vital debate on the NHS and social care.
I want to speak about social care, which is in the midst of a severe crisis. Tragically, 40,000 older people have died in care homes since the beginning of the pandemic. In response to this tragedy, only one sentence of the Queen’s Speech last week was afforded to fixing the care system. In the memory of those people, the Government must put in place a proper social care system that will prevent such an injustice from ever taking place again. Instead, another year goes by where the Prime Minister has nothing to say to the hundreds of thousands of older people neglected by a broken system that still denies them the care that they so desperately need. This Government have been in power for 11 years and have done nothing to act on the matter.
Over the past 20 years, there have been at least 12 Government reviews, royal commissions, consultations, and Green and White Papers, yet still we have no change. During this time, Germany, Austria, France and Japan have all solved the issue. Even the Scottish Government, under a Labour Administration, were able to institute free personal care. This Government have dodged the issue for 11 years to the detriment of the 400,000 older people who go without the care they need. This is a failure of leadership, but it is also a collective failure of our political class to solve one of the defining issues of our time by ensuring that the older generation, after a long life of hard work and contribution to our society, are afforded the dignity that they deserve in older age.
It cannot be right that more than 10% of older people spend virtually all of their life savings on care. When the Prime Minister came to office, he committed to
“fix the crisis in social care once and for all.”
Now, nearly two years on, he needs to do something to fix this problem once and for all.
When it comes to who needs access to care, it is often smokers, so we need to commit to support reduced-risk products as the best way to help people move off cigarettes. We cannot let those in deprived areas continue to suffer from further smoking-led health inequalities. We must establish two distinct categories of regulation to differentiate between the most harmful tobacco products, and the reduced risk products such as vapes and “heat not burn” cigarettes. I am deeply concerned that public health advice is not getting to my constituents. Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities must have access to the right information and advice to quit cigarettes or to move to less harmful alternatives—that could prove to be a distinct success.
As a result of these pressures, we see more and more care homes close every year, with fewer people able to find the beds they need. I urge the Secretary of State on behalf of the thousands who need help today to take two parallel courses of action. First, I urge the Government to immediately commence cross-party discussions in good faith to create consensus, not over the problems, but to find solutions. Over the past half century, at every turn, politicisation has disturbed what window of opportunity we have had available, and the adversarial nature of our politics has not solved this vital problem.
Secondly, the Government must have faith in local government, and give councils the tools and resources to build and then run a cohesive system of social care. Local authorities have performed admirably during covid-19, and have shown that they are truly capable of running such a system. We should take the lessons learned over the past 14 months and put them into action. Local government knows how to run programmes; the Government should give them the resources to do it. Acting now is not a political white flag. It is not compromise; it is showing decisive leadership. It is weak to leave this issue unaddressed. Strength is acting to save lives, and the dignity of everyone forced into the arms of social care. The Prime Minister is—