argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Social Care Funding — House of Commons, 2018-10-17
Topic: Social Welfare
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend’s work in this area. He is incredibly thoughtful and has been prepared to ask some of the difficult questions and give his answers to them. I agree that this is something that we should take forward on a cross-party basis wherever possible. I will come on to the long-term funding in a moment, but I just want to address directly the question of short-term funding I query the Labour party’s motion because 80% of local authority funding was reliant on the central Government grant in 2010, and that is no longer the case. Looking only at the central Government grant is an inaccurate way of assessing the question. For instance, we introduced the social care precept directly to address some of these costs. It would be far better if this debate took place in the context of the available budget for social care, which is increasing by 8% in real terms over the four years from 2015-16 to 2019-20. The debate should be based on facts rather than partial facts, and that is how I will seek to proceed Quality is important, too, and 83% of adult social care settings are now rated good or outstanding by the CQC. The figure has risen from 79% in just the last year, and it is the highest since measurement started in 2014, but I want to see it rise further still The links between the social care system and the NHS are important, too. No one should stay in hospital longer than necessary.
Social Care Funding — House of Commons, 2018-10-17
Topic: Social Welfare
Julian Carlton Knight (Conservative, Centre-right): My constituents and my local council are thankful for the funding increase of £870,356, which will help the adult social care situation in Solihull. We have a lot of people over the age of 65, including 40% of the Silhill ward alone.
Social Care Funding — House of Commons, 2018-10-17
Topic: Social Welfare
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): That is an interesting proposal, and I have seen others similar to it. We are looking at the link with housing as part of the Green Paper, and I have been discussing that with the Department concerned. The point the hon. Lady raises is important. I note that £731,800 has been allocated today to improved adult social care in York, to take the pressure off the NHS in York this winter. I hope that she will acknowledge that fact.
Social Care Funding — House of Commons, 2018-10-17
Topic: Social Welfare
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): That need not necessarily be the case. It was slightly disappointing that the hon. Lady, who is normally a great champion of cross-party working, did not welcome the £780,000 extra for Grimsby, but you can’t win them all. The people of Grimsby need to know that we are there to support them and to support their local NHS I now turn to the long-term funding pressures. The lifetime care costs of a 65-year-old today are about £45,000 on average, but those total average costs that people face are not distributed evenly. Some people face no care costs at all, whereas the care costs for someone with dementia who lives into their 90s can run into hundreds of thousands of pounds. As a society, that is the challenge we face, yet right now there is no way to predict or insure this potential financial burden. We are committed to ensuring that everyone has access to the care and support they need. However, as has always been the case, that must be based on the principle of shared responsibility. With sensible planning, people should not have to fear the risk of losing everything. The adult social care Green Paper, which will be published later this year, will bring forward a range of ideas to address the long-term challenge. We want to learn from what has been proven to work, with one example being the auto-enrolment pension reforms, which have been taken forward on a cross-party basis over a decade. The rate of opting out has been remarkably low, and this has put in place the foundations for the strengthening of our pensions system over time. The Green Paper will propose a range of options and ideas, learning from both the UK and from around the world.
Social Care Funding — House of Commons, 2018-10-17
Topic: Social Welfare
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes; I enjoyed reading that report on my summer holidays and thought the research that underpinned it was very interesting. Of course, the taxpayer does contribute to the system, but we cannot rely only on the taxpayer to support the growing cost. Some people propose the answer that the taxpayer should simply fund everything, but I do not think that that is a valid solution Alongside the reforms to the funding, we need to transform our care system, so we will look into how the Government can support innovation and encourage new models of care provision. That will include looking at the role of housing and how we can replicate the very best models that combine a home with quality of care. For instance, I love the examples of combing care provision for the young and the old. I pay tribute to the doctors behind the "Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds" project, which is good viewing on Channel 4. We also need to better support people through well-designed aids and adaptations, and we must ensure better support for carers, too.
Social Care Funding — House of Commons, 2018-10-17
Topic: Social Welfare
Kevin Paul Hollinrake (Conservative, Centre-right): The Secretary of State is making some good points, but may I press him on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer) about the social insurance recommendation in the Select Committee report? The shadow Minister refused to confirm whether she would consider the findings in that report; will the Secretary of State agree at least to consider the proposals and recommendations that were delivered on a unanimous cross-party basis?
Social Care Funding — House of Commons, 2018-10-17
Topic: Social Welfare
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes, absolutely. I am considering them. In fact, I shall go further and say that I am attracted to the insurance and contribution model. There are many different potential details in how such a model can be delivered, but I am very much taking that Select Committee report into consideration as we draft the Green Paper Alongside ensuring that the funding is in place, we need to make sure that we support carers. In June, we published the carers action plan, a two-year package of support for carers to ensure that they are properly recognised, helped and valued in a way that supports their health and wellbeing. The Green Paper will go further and propose how society can strengthen support for carers as a vital part of a sustainable health and social care system The guiding principles behind the Green Paper will be sevenfold: first, improving the quality and safety of care; secondly, integrated care, with the NHS and social care systems operating as one; thirdly, giving the highest possible control to those receiving support; fourthly, better practical support for families and carers; fifthly, a sustainable funding model supported by a diverse, vibrant and stable market; sixthly, greater security for those born with care needs or who develop those needs in later life; and seventhly, a valued NHS and social care workforce. Those will be the principles behind the Green Paper, and I hope that we can build cross-party support for it As a society, we need to rise to the unprecedented social care challenge that our generation faces. For the sake of future generations, we must act now to build a better and more sustainable social care system, in the short term and the long term, that ensures that people are properly valued: a system both for those in need of care and for their carers, a system that supports carers—not only those who work in care homes but those who care for loved ones at home—and with the goal of building a sustainable health and social care system of which we can all be proud.
Social Care Funding — House of Commons, 2018-10-17
Topic: Social Welfare
Julian Carlton Knight (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist), who made a very good speech. It is a shame that we have such a short time to debate this, because it is one of the key issues of our lifetimes and will impact all of us in many different ways—it is impacting my life. I am absolutely blessed with the most wonderful in-laws, and I am saying that not just because I am having dinner with my wife in an hour, but because, frankly, they are absolutely golden people. We are dealing with issues of social care as a family, often from far away. The challenges, which are multifarious, varied and deep, affect every part of our life in ways that cannot be understood until one is in that situation We are part of the sandwich generation, and my town is at the frontline in that respect. We have an ageing population. I was told by a member of my staff that we have an older population than Eastbourne—I am not sure what that is supposed to imply, but we do. According to Solihull Council, by 2036 one in four of our population will be over 65 and fully 5% will be over 85 Time and again I encounter on the doorstep what Age UK has dubbed the "silent crisis"—people quietly trying to look after elderly loved ones behind closed doors. They often do so just out of pure love and decency, and often they have care issues themselves. My experience, from knocking on some 30,000 doors across my constituency and from my family, has driven home how essential it is that Members on both sides of the House, despite dogma and party politicking, try to come to a long-term solution. We have to work together to find the bold solutions needed to put social care on a stable, sustainable footing. That is why I welcome the report from both Select Committees. Many of its recommendations make a lot of sense. It is essential that we accept that this problem cannot be met with a patch-and-mend approach, yet providers and local authorities need support to ensure that the level and quality of social care provision match need in the short and medium term. However, unless these measures are accompanied by a serious root-and-branch strategic review of how we fund and deliver social care services—one that recognises that many of the problems currently facing the sector are not down merely to insufficient funds —they will provide, at best, only a temporary reprieve That is the challenge we all face. We will have to debate this for many years to come, but we have to get there. We owe it to our kids; we owe it to our parents.
Social Care Funding — House of Commons, 2018-10-17
Topic: Social Welfare
Kevin Paul Hollinrake (Conservative, Centre-right): A former US President once said that there are no easy solutions, but there are simple solutions. What we need to solve this problem is a simple, scalable and sustainable solution Ideally, when people look for a solution, they try not to invent a new one but to find one that somebody has already used for that problem. That is exactly what the Joint Select Committee inquiry did. It looked at the German system. We looked at it twice, in our earlier report and in the joint report between the Health and Social Care Committee and the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee. We looked at it cross-party and unanimously came to the conclusion that this was the right solution for us. It is a social insurance, not a tax The hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) mentioned that national insurance would be a suitable vehicle. National insurance went the same way as every other hypothecated tax—it was spread around general taxation. That is not the right way; it must be separated from government This solution is simple and scalable. It is not easy, but it is simple and cross-party, and I very much hope that both the Opposition and the Government will support it.
Social Care Funding — House of Commons, 2018-10-17
Topic: Social Welfare
Matthew Robert Warman (Conservative, Centre-right): I pay tribute to the work not just of the social care workers in my constituency, but of the ambulance service, with whom I recently spent a day on a shift. Over about 10 hours, we saw a mere four jobs, thanks to the geography of Lincolnshire. Three of the four jobs dealt with the consequences of people needing a different social care package from that which the current system is able to provide them with. We need to see the White Paper, but when we look at the reform of the current system, we need to work with the ambulance service and the police, and crucially to bear in mind that this is not simply a problem of ageing. One of the three jobs I mentioned that were about social care support involved a mental health issue. In the current set-up, we are not dealing with the respite care and social care needs of people with mental health problems as well as we are dealing with physical problems. I appeal to the Minister to pay tribute in her closing remarks to those workers—I am sure that she will—and to look at this system in the round.
Public Land for Public Good: Bootham Park — House of Commons, 2018-10-17
Topic: International Affairs
Robert Ben Lobban Wallace (Conservative, Centre-right): On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Last Thursday, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) asked an urgent question on foreign fighters and the death penalty. During the questions, I was asked whether there had been any previous occasions when the UK Government had shared evidence without seeking or securing death penalty assurances from a foreign Government. In my reply I stated that on two occasions previously such exchanges had taken place under successive Governments. However, I wrongly asserted that the hon. Gentleman himself was a member of the Government at the time of one of these. He was a member of the governing party in the early 2000s, when the occasion happened, but he was not in the Labour Government. For this I apologise to the House and to the hon. Gentleman, and I hope this point of order will serve to correct the record.
Drug Trafficking: County Lines — House of Commons, 2018-10-17
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert Ben Lobban Wallace (Conservative, Centre-right): First, let me congratulate the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock), a near neighbour, as I do not live that far from his constituency, on raising an important issue. Not only has the right hon. Member for Enfield North (Joan Ryan) held a previous debate on it, but I spoke in the good and important Westminster Hall debate held by the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown). What strikes me about county lines is that sometimes the debate goes from the ground up—from the vulnerability of the young people up—and sometimes it is about the organised criminals at the top coming down. That is the challenge we face with county lines County lines gang activity and the associated violence, drug dealing and exploitation has a devastating impact on young people, vulnerable adults and local communities. That includes the impact on the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. As has been reported, last week brought the sentencing of two south London men, drill rapper Daniel Olaloko and Peter Adebayo, who ran a county line from London all the way to Barrow—that is 300 miles. Other areas in Cumbria are also affected: Connor Halliwell and Kieran Howe were sentenced in September for county lines drug dealing in Kendal; and there is an ongoing trial of a 16-year-old London schoolboy for dealing in Carlisle. The plus side of those convictions is that some of those people were the leaders of organised crime groups in London, and it was not just low-level individuals who were taken out. One reason we have seen a shift of London organised crime groups to Barrow—the hon. Gentleman will be interested in this—is the work that was done regionally, through the organised crime unit, to take out some of the Merseyside gangs that were blighting north Lancashire and Barrow. The gap left by their displacement has been filled with London organised crime groups. With the technology that they use, they can be quick to exploit gaps and vulnerably Let me try to answer the point made by the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) about North Yorkshire police. All the work we have done on tackling county lines shows that some of the best ways to respond to the organised crime group is through the region, rather than just through the home force. The home force can play a role at spotting exploitation and cuckooing, but if we are to cut the head of the snake in the organised crime groups, it is often best done through the organised crime unit. I am sure that if she were to engage with her regional organised crime unit, the people there would be able to show her some of the work going on across the whole of Yorkshire. I do not think that it would be a case of the police not doing it; I suspect they have moved it into a regional or even a national response as a way to tackle some of the challenges and ensure they have the specialties needed to take on some of the secure communications these people use.
Drug Trafficking: County Lines — House of Commons, 2018-10-17
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert Ben Lobban Wallace (Conservative, Centre-right): I know that the hon. Gentleman has called for that. The national county lines co-ordination centre is about trying to fill that space. It is not just a couple of desks; it is more than 40 officers and staff, centred, pulling together not only the intelligence, but some of the investigations and response. They are making sure the investigations are in the right place, so that where we pick up someone who is low-level, we can trace across to an organised crime group that is already under investigation by the Met, for example. That is one of the main aims of this co-ordinated approach—the county lines co-ordination centre. I have arranged for some hon. Members to get a briefing by the National Crime Agency on that, and I am happy to facilitate that for the hon. Gentleman if he would like Time is tight, so I will not be able to deal with all the points, but I will write to the hon. Gentleman about some of the figures. We recognise the figures that he used. We assess around 1,500 lines in service as of July. The improvements from the national county lines co-ordination centre’s work with the National Crime Agency and the National Police Chiefs Council has started to have an impact already. Last week, the centre co-ordinated the first in a series of regular intensifications of activity targeting county lines. In one week alone, there were more than 200 arrests; 58 vulnerable people, including a number of children, were identified and safeguarded; deadly weapons, including hunting knives, a firearm with ammunition, an axe, a meat cleaver and a samurai sword, were seized; tens of thousands of pounds of suspected criminal cash were seized; and significant quantities of heroin, crack cocaine and other illegal drugs were seized. That is in one week, which shows the benefit of that co-ordination. Whether it is a single force or, I would venture, a co-ordination centre, that shows what can be done when we focus and bring our efforts to bear We need to be clever about how we prosecute these individuals. In some cases, we prosecute them under the Modern Slavery Act 2015 for in effect trafficking the children up and down the country. On 4 October, Zakaria Mohammed was sentenced to 14 years for human trafficking offences, but he was leading a county lines drug cartel operation. That was an important way to deal with it.
Police and Fire Services: Collaboration — House of Commons, 2018-10-29
Topic: Law and Crime
Michael Alex Burghart (Conservative, Centre-right): As the Minister will know, Essex is a pioneer in this area, where Roger Hirst, our police and crime commissioner, has brought fire services in. Will the Minister consider allowing the pooling of capital budgets to enable better joined-up working of back offices?
Police and Fire Services: Collaboration — House of Commons, 2018-10-29
Topic: Law and Crime
Nicholas Richard Hurd (Conservative, Centre-right): I completely agree with my hon. Friend. Roger Hirst is doing a fantastic job in seizing the opportunity to get more out of existing resources, and I completely understand the point about capital budgets. There are restrictions in place for good reasons, but Roger and other PCCs can already use police and fire budgets to invest in shared functions, such as joint back offices, although both fire and police budgets need to make an appropriate contribution to the shared service.
Police and Fire Services: Collaboration — House of Commons, 2018-10-29
Topic: Law and Crime
Nicholas Richard Hurd (Conservative, Centre-right): I join the Home Secretary in his remarks about the performance of the Leicestershire emergency services. Leicestershire is an excellent example of where services are going the extra mile to explore ways of working together and making the best use of existing assets and resources. As they are public assets and public resources, there is a duty to make the most of them.
Police and Fire Services: Collaboration — House of Commons, 2018-10-29
Topic: Macroeconomics
Nicholas Richard Hurd (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady could not be more wrong. We are not talking about mergers; we are talking about the imperative on those deploying public money to use it in the smartest possible way and to make the best possible use of the public resources at their disposal. It is about value for money, which of course the Labour Front-Bench team has no interest in at all.
Modern Slavery — House of Commons, 2018-10-29
Topic: Law and Crime
Victoria Atkins (Conservative, Centre-right): The Government are tackling the abhorrent crime of modern slavery both at home and overseas. We have strengthened the law enforcement response and introduced new requirements for businesses to report on slavery in their supply chains, and are transforming the support we provide to victims. Internationally, we continue to work to stop modern slavery wherever it occurs.
Modern Slavery — House of Commons, 2018-10-29
Topic: Law and Crime
Questions: I welcome the fact that UK Border Force recently conducted spot checks at hand car washes in Wakefield, but the Environmental Audit Committee’s inquiry into the issue has heard that these criminals are breaking the law in other ways: avoiding their taxes, underpaying wages, and discharging chemicals into nearby watercourses. When will the Minister take a cross-departmental approach to tackling modern slavery, which is hidden in plain sight throughout the nation?
Victoria Atkins (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the hon. Lady for chairing the Environmental Audit Committee’s inquiry into this important subject. It was a pleasure to appear before the inquiry some weeks ago. She is absolutely right: these criminals do not restrict themselves to exploiting human beings, but break every rule going. That is why we are leading a cross-governmental approach, having regard to environmental offences as well as offences of labour exploitation, such as failing to pay the minimum wage. We want the message to go out to these criminals loud and clear that we will not tolerate modern slavery, whatever form it takes.