It started with a series of bizarre reports from my grandmother. My grandfather had started to put on his coat in the middle of the night and insist on going for a walk. She found plates of cheese in the airing cupboard, instead of the fridge. It was not long before he needed constant residential care for the last four years of his life. I have always thought that dementia is one of life’s cruellest diseases, both for the sufferer and their family. The reality is that you lose your loved one long before they actually die.
Sufferers of dementia and their families have their lives turned on end, sometimes in quite short spaces of time. The last thing they need is uncertainty and financial worries to add to that. Here in the UK, we have an ageing population—and with that come complex, long-term physical and mental health conditions—which means that the length of time people may require care if they are hit by dementia or similar conditions later in life is increasing, as are the numbers of people needing that care.
It is an urgent problem, yet for decades, Governments of all parties have pushed the issue down the road or to one side. Our health service and councils across the country have started to see the impacts of this increase in demand without an increase in ring-fenced resources. I am therefore glad to see the Government tackling this head on, both with the social care levy set out in this Bill and the planned White Paper in the autumn. Only through a system that encourages long-term planning for social care will we achieve a sustainable care sector.
Like with pensions, we should be thinking about care provision, planning and taking responsibility for that provision from the start of our working lives. We need to change the culture around how we talk and think about care, and this Bill is the first plank of that new platform. It has been written in a way that means that people on higher salaries will pay more. It is also the first part of a broader new care settlement that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Paul Bristow) said, must see reform and innovation throughout the NHS and our social care system, and proper integration between the two, if it is to have public support.
Raising taxes is not something I take lightly, but the public know we have just been through the most unprecedented 18 months in more than half a century. Those on the Opposition Front Bench have criticised the Government for taking two years to put forward a plan. They have taken 24 years, and they still have no plan, unless we are counting the broad shoulders tax, which I am sure we all look forward to hearing more details on. Will it be a tax on income, on assets or on literal shoulders? I wait to see.
Words are easy; decisions are hard. That is why the public voted this Government into office: to make those tough decisions and plan for the long term. That is what we are doing today.
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