Local Government Finance Settlement — House of Lords, 2016-12-15
Topic: Social Welfare
Roy Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, for repeating the Statement made in the other place earlier today This is a settlement that will leave the people of England paying higher taxes and getting worse public services for their money. It will not pay for a single extra carer this winter. With a current crisis in social care and care budgets stretched to breaking point, we have heard nothing from the noble Lord that will give any comfort to those who need good-quality care or to their anxious loved ones The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services was already raising the alarm this summer, but the response from the Government was to refuse to accept that adult social care was underfunded. Even now, have we really seen anything that leads one to believe that the Government are serious about dealing with the crisis in adult social care? We have seen £4.6 billion axed from social care budgets since 2010; 1.2 million people not getting the care they need, according to Age UK; and the service at tipping point, according to the Care Quality Commission. In addition, as the noble Lord, Lord Porter, the Conservative chairman of the Local Government Association, has made clear: "Services supporting our elderly and vulnerable are at breaking point now" So what do we have? We have blame put on councils, a fair funding review and an increase in council tax. Can the noble Lord confirm how much new money is available to tackle this winter’s social care crisis? Will he also confirm that the further increase in council tax next year will not plug the funding gap for next year either? Does he regret that before the 2010 general election senior figures in his party chose to kill off cross-party talks on how to fund social care going forward? Then there was the Dilnot commission, whose recommendations have been shelved until at least 2020 Why should we have any confidence that the noble Lord and his party are serious this time about sorting out social care funding? Can he tell us more about the fair funding review? What is the timetable for it? This is, after all, an immediate crisis and we have elderly and vulnerable people who need action now—they cannot wait for the review Will the review also address the worsening postcode lottery for social care and other services? In the most deprived areas of the country, social care spending fell by £65 per person as councils were hit particularly hard by government funding cuts, but it rose by £28 per person in the least deprived areas. And will not the social care precept only further entrench inequality? Blackpool, one of the most deprived unitary authorities in the country, faces a 31% reduction in spending between 2011 and 2019, while Wokingham, one of the least deprived areas, faces a fall of just 4% over the same period. When will the Government address that injustice I pay tribute to local authorities, councillors and local authority staff up and down the country who are doing their best to plug the funding gap to cope with huge rising demand for care and increasing costs. In 2014 alone, councils diverted £900 million from other services to maintain adult social care services Since the Prime Minister came to office, there has been much talk of help for those who are just about managing their finances, However, that seems to have gone out of the window today. The fact is that we need deeds as well as words. The Prime Minister has decided to put up council tax in every part of England again. She told us: "If you’re from an ordinary working class family, life is much harder than many people in Downing Street realise" I think we can all agree with that statement. She also said: "You have your own home, but you worry about … the cost of living", the state of your area and the services you rely on, and you worry whether you can pay the tax bill at the end of each month. Today, the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State and the noble Lord have decided to make things just a bit harder for those hard-working families. On top of council tax rises this year, there will be a 3% rise in 2017-18 and another increase in 2018-19—a 17% rise in council tax compared with 2015, all decided in Downing Street The Conservative Party, which once claimed to be in favour of low taxes, is putting up taxes every year until the next election. If you are a band B council tax payer in Blackpool, this will take twice as much as a proportion of your income as it will if you are a band B council tax payer in Wokingham. For some, it will mean the support they had hoped would be there for an elderly relative will not be, while for others visible public services such as street cleaning will be cut ever closer to the bone. There will be even fewer youth centres and more libraries will close Can the noble Lord say more about the proposals to, as he says, encourage more effective local planning by making positive decisions on planning applications and housing growth? I have to say to him that it is not councils being slow in approving housing planning applications that is the problem—that is just political dogma from the Conservative Party. We need to deal with the problem of land-banking by developers that just sit on land with planning applications but do not build the houses. What we need is real, urgent action so that the homes that we need are built quickly to deal with the housing crisis. What we have seen here today is too little, too late, with needs unmet, hopes dashed and social care in crisis, and complete and abject failure on the part of the Government to get a grip on the situation. It is not good enough In conclusion, I apologise that I did not at the start make my usual declaration of interests as a local councillor in Lewisham and a vice-president of the LGA.