Founded 1980
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Graham Smith
Jan Thompson
Graham Mumby-Croft


Paul Laxton
NOW LET'S GET SOCIAL CARE DONE


The Conservatives won the election under the slogan “let’s Get Brexit Done. Whether Brexit really is done is another argument, but the Government’s majority trumps not just the desire of opposition parties to remain in the EU, it also trumps Mr. Johnson’s own Brexit ultras. It may be, therefore, that the inevitablity of the parliamentary arithmetic will puncture the passions and thus bring about a much needed lowering of the politicial temperature as our politicians digest the new reality, thus allowing them to finally get back to the desperately neglected domestic agenda. Perhaps the government will now pay attention to a running sore that has been left unattended by successive governments since a Royal Commission reported way back in 1999; that of social care, that is if it does not want another dam of public anger to burst. Post-election both Labour and Conservative politicians have talked about restoring the trust they have forfeited. They need to realise that social care is the acid test of that commitment. 

As long ago as the Labour party conference in September 1997, the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, said "I don't want our children growing up in a country where the only way pensioners can get long term care is by selling their home." Ten years later when Mr Blair left office, pensioners were still selling their homes to obtain personal care. At the last election in December, the current incumbent at Number Ten, Boris Johnson, twenty-two years later made the same promise that was so casually broken by his predecessor but three. In between successive governments have ducked and dived like Arthur Daley, or more accurately fiddled like Nero while the assets so carefully accumulated by older people unfortunate enough to find themselves in residential care, drained away. Mr Blair's government also failed to implement a key recommendation of the Royal Commission, that personal care should be free at the point of use.

 
At the last election the Labour party made exactly that promise to pensioners if it were elected. Free personal care is already provided in Scotland, where Health is a devolved responsibility. It is important to remember that this is not a hugely generous concession to those forced into residential care, as board and lodging charges can make up as much as three-quarters of the cost of a place, now averaging around £34k per annum. Thus there is real difference between the two parties; one that has pledged to safeguard the rights of property owners and their heirs, and one that believes that the better off should continue to pay up front as much of their wealth is derived from property, the rising value of which has massively outstripped inflation, and is, therefore, unearned income. Respectively these are classic conservative and socialist positions, but both in their own way clash with electoral and economic reality. Mr Johnson has to somehow reconcile the interests of home owners in marginal constituencies as disparate as Barnet and Burnley, the former the seventh wealthiest borough in the UK by income, the latter second only to Middlesbrough in the top ten of England's most deprived towns and cities, and part of the much vaunted 'red wall' that crumbled at the last election to hand victory to the Tories. 

The problem for Mr Corbyn's successor is similar to the one with Brexit, where something like 2/3rds of Labour MP's elected in 2017 represented leave constituencies, in that around 63% of voters are owner occupiers, many of whom have adult children for whom an inheritance may represent their only hope of getting on the property ladder. Last year self funders paid out £10.9 million in care costs, a good chunk of which will have come from home sales. As the Tories won the election, the economic reality of that figure is their problem.

The other significant promise in the Tory manifesto was to seek a cross party solution in the House of Commons. If passions really do cool after Brexit, that may be possible. It is also the policy of the Civil Service Pensioners Alliance, for the very good reason that they want a solution which endures for a generation, one that in effect becomes de-politicised by an outcome owned by all the major political parties. Can it happen? Well, the Conservatives will in my view need to move towards a public sector solution, with social care provided either under the umbrella of the NHS, a parallel organisation with its own distinct identity, perhaps known as the National Care Service, or alternatively by local authorities. The Labour party will need to take a more accommodating approach to property owners and potential heirs. Critically, both parties will need to cease hurling insults at their opponents and using hyperbolic language to decry proposals made by their opponents in good faith. Cries of 'death tax' and 'dementia tax' have demeaned the debate for squalid electoral advantage. 

It was Jeremy Hunt's idea when Secretary of State that his fiefdom became the Department of Health and Social Care. That now needs to be given real substance. I note with interest that the very same Jeremy Hunt has been elected as Chair of the House of Commons Health and Social Care Select Committee. The Guardian was much exercised by potential conflicts of interest and the prospect of Mr. Hunt marking his own homework from an influential backbench position, but I prefer to take a slightly more generous view. Mr.Hunt was indeed Secretary of State for six years, but progess on the vexed question of funding social care was first blocked by David Cameron’s all-powerful Chancellor, George Osborne, and wrecked completely under Theresa May’s leadership when the manifesto policy on social care fell apart on the day of its launch, in part contributing to the election of a minority government which found itself completely bogged down over Brexit. This is Jeremy Hunt’s opportunity to hold Mr Johnson’s government to account, and to see that Social Care does get done. If that coincides with Mr.Hunt getting some of the credit and restoring his position in the Conservative party, then that is a by-product about which we should not be concerned.

It will be a moral outrage if this parliament ends like its predecessors over the last two decades, with social care still chronically underfunded and in the hands of private companies who are not fit for purpose. I would go further and borrow from Gladstone and call for the private companies ’to be expelled bag and baggage from the land they have desolated and profaned.’ 
If our politicians are serious about regaining trust then these cross party talks need to begin now, and be under the same time pressure as our future trading relationship with the EU. There is no good reason why Mr. Johnson cannot make the same promise to the nation about delivering an agreed plan for the future of social care similar to the one that he has made about ending the transitional relationship with the EU on 31 December 2020. If government and parliament can deliver this, then we might just start to take them seriously again. The cynics among you might now be looking for flying pigs, but democracy will only survive if politicians understand that they are our servants, not our masters. 

PAUL LAXTON

Issue 82 Spring 2020