Mr Clive Betts
MP for Sheffield South East · Labour · United Kingdom
“I wholeheartedly welcome the Foreign Secretary’s statement, both its content and its tone. I would like to ask about his discussions with our colleagues and allies in other countries who are looking to implement similar sanctions.”
“I offer two congratulations: first, to my right hon. Friend and constituency neighbour, the First Secretary, on her well-deserved promotion—I am sure she will do an excellent job. Secondly, I congratulate her and the Prime Minister for their real commitment to devolution, which I have wanted to see for an awfully long time.”
“I apologise for the fact that—as I have explained to you, Madam Deputy Speaker—I will have to leave straight after my question to chair Westminster Hall. I thank my right hon. Friend for doing this very challenging piece of work. I think that the theme of fairness, for the people who need benefits and for taxpayers, is right.”
“On the other hand, so many constituents with really serious conditions get turned down for PIP, and can get it only if they struggle through the appeal system, sometimes without any help at all. So the system is not fair to anyone at present.”
“When the previous Government let the contract, we were in a situation in which procurement could not properly take account of the past record of companies, and I understand that the Government have now changed that.”
“I will dive very deeply into the question, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Chair of the Committee sends his apologies for his absence; he is presently in a Committee meeting.”
The complete record
Every one of 4,726 lines we hold for Mr Clive Betts, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 15 of 95.
“The Minister has made vague statements about all asylum seekers being moved out of hotels, but he does not have a plan for how to do it, does he? [ Interruption. ] Well, let us see it. As the Minister for Security announced yesterday, the only fall-back is to pass responsibility back to local authorities. Did the Minister see the Local Government Association’s response to that plan yesterday? It said that most councils have no social housing to offer, and in most areas the local housing allowance is not sufficient to pay for the cost of accommodation. What does the Minister expect local authorities to do when thousands of asylum seekers are simply passed back to them from the hotels they are currently in?”
“On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. In the Minister’s response to the question I asked him, he said that I had always opposed house building. I think the Minister knows that in this House—as the Chair of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee, as well as individually—I have argued very strongly for more house building, including hitting the 300,000 target. Only this week, I have been working with officers in Sheffield to try to get a scheme to build 800 homes at Attercliffe Waterside in my constituency, which I have worked on for many years. In the past I have known the Minister to be a fair and reasonable man, even when I have disagreed with them. On reflection, would he not accept that what he said was unfair and inaccurate, and maybe he would like to correct the record?”
“On the answer that the Minister has just given, I should say that the Select Committee recommended that when section 21 goes there has to be a means of dealing speedily with cases of antisocial behaviour. I am pleased that recommendations are made in the antisocial behaviour action plan to prioritise such cases in the courts. But antisocial behaviour also occurs in the social housing sector, and it can often take a year or more to get to court. Will the Minister agree that if we are prioritising such cases in the private rented sector, we should have a similar system for prioritising them for social housing as well?”
“At the same time as the cancellation of the HS2 route to Leeds, the route to Sheffield was cancelled, but we were told not to worry because plenty of other good things were going to happen. The electrification of the midland main line would be unpaused for the third time, and we would get the high-speed trains to Leeds, which we are now told we may know something about at some time in the future. All that has happened since then is the ending of the direct link between Sheffield and Manchester airport. May I return to the first of those promises, and ask the Minister to give a categorical commitment on when the midland main line electrification will be extended to Sheffield?”
“Whatever review is undertaken now, Richard Sharp is currently the chair of the BBC. The specifications say that one of his responsibilities is the “delivery of impartiality” at the corporation. Does the Minister have any confidence that, in his current situation, Richard Sharp can properly undertake that role?”
“Can the Secretary of State confirm whether that is true? Secondly, the Committee spoke to product manufacturers the other week, who said that they had had no contact with the Department for the last 12 months. Is that true, and if so, when will that contact be renewed, so that they can be held to account? Finally, the Minister says, “I’m going to look at this” every time I ask him. Kate Henderson of the National Housing Federation told the Committee on Monday that the cost of remediating these matters will be £6 billion for social housing providers. They have only had a tiny bit of money under the ACM cladding measures. Will the Secretary of State look at that again? Otherwise, there will be cutbacks to the house building programme that they all want to engage in.”
“I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. Clearly, any progress in this matter is welcome for the leaseholders who are still sat there, wondering when something is going to happen to their unsafe homes. The Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley), is coming to the Select Committee next Monday. I apologise in advance that, for personal reasons, I cannot be there, but I am sure the scrutiny will be just as effective under the oversight of the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman). A number of issues have been raised with the Select Committee. First, in terms of the agreement that developers are signing, it was said to us that the remediation standards developers will have to work to will not be as strict as those under the Building Safety Act.”
“Those parents are worried sick about what will happen to their children when they no longer have that parental support available. That demand must also be met and recognised.”
“We are asking more from people on low incomes with proportionately lower house values, and giving less to the poorest communities through the increases. That is not the best way to fund social care in the longer term. We know that, although funding has been going up, demand is rising. There are more unhealthy people in our communities, as we all know; we can see the figures for ourselves. Often forgotten, however, is the rising demand from people with disabilities. People with a whole variety of disabilities, both learning and physical, are living longer. Where they might have died in their 30s, they are now very often living into their 50s, to the point where parents who once looked after them can no longer help or support them.”
“Yes, the better care grants and the social care grants are welcome, but much of it is on a one-off basis. Much of last time’s settlement was on a one-off basis, with the extra money coming in those forms of grants, together with the increases in council tax I mentioned previously. We know there are two fundamental problems with increases in council tax: first, they raise far more money in the most affluent communities than in the poorest communities, and secondly, they are regressive—not my word, but the Secretary of State’s. I know the Minister has been charged with finding a solution to that problem. Good luck to him—we look forward to his report in due course, and we had an interesting dialogue with him in the Select Committee the other week.”
“We might think, “Well, it’s alright as long as social care is sorted out,” but it is not, is it? Let us just look at the particular problems with social care and social care funding. Before the autumn statement last year, the Local Government Association said that it thought that about £7 billion was the shortfall currently. I appreciate that the Minister will no doubt advise us of all the goodies that were delivered in the settlement for the next financial year, and, clearly, there were some helpful increases of money, but not the £7 billion that local councils were looking for. The problem is that that settlement contains some of the elements of the problems that we have been experiencing for a decade or longer now. First, so much of the funding councils get is short-term.”
“There have been similar falls in regeneration and economic development, which will be important for the levelling up agenda. Let us look now at libraries, buses and street cleaning, which are important services that everyone tends to use in some way. They have all fallen by between 30% and 50%. The real challenge for local democracy—the Minister on the Front Bench has responsibility for local government—is that people are now finding that their council tax is going up by amounts that I have just described, but, if they or their immediate relatives do not use social care, they are seeing all the services that they receive fall. That is a fundamental challenge for local democracy—people pay more and get less. That is not defensible in the medium term, but it has been going on for 10 years now, and something has to give.”
“In other words, council tax has been going up as the Government grant has fallen, but the totality of spending has fallen as well. Councils’ spending on social care—social care as a whole, including children’s care—has risen by 8.9% in real terms, but non-care spending by authorities has fallen by 32%. That is the knock-on effect—we must keep reminding ourselves of the consequences of this. Social care spending has now roughly risen from 50% of council spending to 60% over the period. Those are very dramatic changes in how councils spend their money. Let us look at services such as planning. I know that they are important for the future of our country, for future growth and for regeneration. Spending by councils on planning has fallen by about 50%. That is a staggering fall.”
“They have said that the cut in core spending power for councils in the decade after 2010 has been 26%. By comparison, the increase in funding for the Department of Health and Social Care has been 14%. So that is 26% down for local government and 14% up for the Department of Health and Social Care. I am not begrudging the extra spending on health, but, clearly, councils also do important work and that is not really reflected in the figures. The reason for that cut in spending power is that the revenue support grant has fallen by 37% over that similar period. A 25% increase in council tax has helped cover some of that fall. Council tax spending as a percentage of total local government spend—the percentage funded by council tax—has gone up from 41% of local government spend to 60%.”
“31.] I will not just be party political in this, because Gordon Brown said: “Alan Johnson and I will…bring…new plans to help people to stay longer in their own homes and provide greater protection against the costs of care.” The one thing that Prime Ministers have in common over the years is that they all promise to deal with the problems and funding of social care. The other thing that they have in common is that none of them has actually done that, and that is something of concern and it is why we still have the problems today. Let me put this in the context of local government funding. Local government has had the biggest cuts of any part of the public sector since 2010. The National Audit Office and the Library have produced some interesting figures, which are known to be authoritative.”
“Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) said: “I am announcing now—on the steps of Downing Street—that we will fix the crisis in social care once and for all”. Not to be outdone, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) said that her Ministers “will work to improve social care and will bring forward proposals for consultation.” —[ Official Report , 21 June 2017; Vol. 626, c. 35.] Let us go back a bit further. David Cameron said: “A commission will be appointed to consider a sustainable long-term structure for the operation of social care.” —[ Official Report , 25 May 2010; Vol. 510, c.”
“The Health and Social Care Committee has also done its own reports into these matters, as have many reputable organisations, such as The King’s Fund. Given the nature of the debate, I will concentrate on the impact on local government funding. Although social care, as a responsibility, lies with the Department of Health and Social Care, it is ultimately delivered through funding from local councils. I want to concentrate on the challenge that that poses for councils. This is not a new matter and is not without a lot of commitments. Only last year, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) said that she would spend £13 billion raised by the levy on social care. Well, the levy seems to have disappeared into other uses, as has the £13 billion. The right hon.”
“As you know, Mr Speaker, the advice is that Government should respond to Select Committee reports within eight weeks, so eight months seems rather a long time. I know that there have been quite a few changes of Minister during that period, so perhaps that explains some of the delay. If this was just a one-off, it would probably be excusable, but the Select Committee rarely gets a response within months, let alone weeks, of a report being produced, which is a little frustrating when we have put so much effort into them. We have not even had a proper response to the joint report that we produced with the Health and Social Care Committee back in June 2018—almost five years ago, which must get near a record for non-responses to Select Committee reports.”
“I thank everyone concerned for the opportunity to lead this debate on behalf of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee. Adult social care is an important issue, which the Committee has come back to on several occasions. Last year, we produced another report on long-term funding for adult social care. We were happy to receive letters, in the last couple of days, from the Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley), and the Minister for Health and Secondary Care, the hon. Member for Colchester (Will Quince), both saying why they have not yet responded to the report that was produced around nine months ago.”
“That is a great point from my hon. Friend. We recognise that that care is generally provided with a lot of love and commitment from people who do it, but very often they will reach breaking point without the additional support from local authorities, such as respite care. Families say to me, “If only I could just have a week where I could go away and relax a bit, knowing the person I am caring for is being looked after, that would make an enormous difference.” Sometimes that does not exist anymore, so that is an important point.”
“Where is our recognition of the funding needs? How will we bring about change? Could we, as the Joint Committee said, just possibly get a bit of cross-party thinking on this for the future? Whatever solution we come up with, we need one that will work for the long term, not just for half a Parliament or for one Parliament.”
“There will be bigger cuts to libraries, buses, planning, street cleaning and so on. The public, in the end, will simply not stand for that. I say to the Minister: please, let us just have a bit of long-term thinking and recognise that this is a serious problem that will not go away. Local government funding, as it exists at present, cannot take the strain any longer. We need an alternative source of revenue, we need to keep social care linked in to the rest of local government services, and we need, of course, to develop better contacts with the health service. Money to deal with the problem of people sat in hospital beds when they need to be in social care is welcome, but all that is short-term thinking. I say to the Minister—and, to be non-partisan, to the Labour Front Benchers—where is our plan for long-term care?”
“Councils said that the funding gap was £7 billion last year, but they have also said—the Health and Social Care Committee has addressed this, and other important think-tanks have confirmed it—that if we are to deal with the combination of problems, including the immediate funding gap, the need to address eligibility criteria and bring more people back into the social care system, the challenge to local government finance, and the need for a long-term workforce plan, the gap is probably about £14 billion. That is a big sum of money, and we cannot find it in the existing local government finance system, which cannot cope as it is. If we carry on as we are, and demand keeps increasing with no improvements to eligibility or workforce pay, there will be a consistent further increase in the pressures on other local government services.”
“That removes the unfairness of people with dementia paying all or most of the value of their home while those who do not have dementia paying nothing. With a small amount of inheritance tax, or another way of assessing people’s estates, we could raise a lot of money and deal absolutely with the problem of people having to give up most of their home to pay for their care costs. That is certainly worth a look. We need to find a long-term solution to the problem. It is not going to go away, is it? The number of elderly people will continue to grow; the number of people with learning disabilities will continue, quite rightly, to require more from our services.”
“I have to say to the Government that their arrangements to try to implement Dilnot are complicated and unfair. People may not pay until their assets reach a minimum level, but—and I have never heard a Minister address this point—the Government cap the amount that people pay in such a way that people with lower value houses pay a bigger percentage of their homes than people with the highest value houses. Someone who has a home worth half a million pounds pays a much smaller percentage than someone who has a home worth £100,000. That is not fair, so our Select Committee said that a percentage should just be taken from everyone’s estate. Then, the people with the most would pay the most, and the measure would not be confined to people who need care.”
“We said that there should be a social care premium as a percentage of income, but that we would raise the bottom level so that the poorest people would not pay. We would increase the top level in the way that national insurance does not, so that people on the highest incomes would continue to pay, and we would include unearned income and higher-level private pensions, but we would also exclude the under-40s, as they do in Japan. We felt that people under 40 were probably getting the worst of the deal after the financial crash in terms of the impact on their finances. That is how we thought we could raise the funds, and it was agreed by the 22 members of the two Select Committees as a way forward. What is sometimes missed, and what we also suggested, is that we have to deal with the issue of people’s homes being sold.”
“We did a lot of work with the focus group on this question and spent a lot of time on weekends away in a hotel in Birmingham. What people said was, “If we knew the money was going to social care, we would happily pay more.” That is what happens in Germany and Japan, two countries that we looked at. We said, “Let’s have a social care premium.” Immediately, it might be said that that is not dissimilar to the Government’s proposed increase in national insurance rates. The difference was that, at the time, we said that we had to target any payments. There will be different ways of doing this, I accept, but there has to be a way of raising extra money for social care that neither comes from the current local government system, nor takes care out of local government.”
“We should also remember that most people receiving care receive it not in a hospital or even in a care home, but in their own homes. The link that councils can make between their home service, providing adaptations and the like, and care, is key in that regard. The other thing I would say is that we cannot carry on relying on short-term fixes, with one-off grants here, one-off grants there, and a council tax system that is regressive and not fit for purpose, let alone for long-term funding of social care—or, as the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) said a few minutes ago, business rates, which bear little relation to demand for social care either. I go back to the 2018 joint report with the Health and Social Care Committee, in which we said two things.”
“They have been nearly started and then not started, and nearly started again and not started; I will refer in a couple of minutes to how we might take things forward. How might we change things to improve them, then? This debate is not just about making complaints; it is about providing solutions. I accept that, and that is what the Select Committee is trying to do. One suggested solution is, “Well, just amalgamate it—let’s have one big service. Put it all in the NHS and it’ll all be all right.” I think most would say that the NHS has enough challenges at present without taking on another great challenge on top. What we do not need is another mass reorganisation affecting both health and social care, the cost of which would probably be a lot more than the cost of doing things any other way.”
“There is evidence that the care market is broken, that many care providers have gone out of business or struggled over the years and that the level of fees in some areas probably does not reflect their costs. Then, of course, we have the issue of people having to give up their homes to pay for their care costs. It is a complete lottery. If in the end someone finishes the last years of their life with dementia, much of the value of their home will go to pay for their care. If they finish their life by having a heart attack and dying, they do not pay anything towards their care. That is an unfair system and it needs to be addressed. The Dilnot reforms have been around for some time.”
“We know that up to half of care staff tend to leave within a year, and many are on zero-hours contracts. There have been repeated requests for a long-term workforce plan. There has rightly been a request for a long-term plan for the health workforce, but we need one for the social care workforce as well. I think that the Chancellor, the right hon. Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt), when he chaired the Health and Social Care Committee, argued that case very strongly, and quite rightly. There is a question of pay: these are skilled people with a real commitment that should be recognised, and not at a minimum pay level. There should be a system with proper career progression and training, so that people can realise the benefits of their skills and commitments.”
“More and more people who would have got social care in the past do not get it now. Age UK says it is 1.5 million—an estimate, but probably not an unreasonable one. There is also less prevention work going on, which means that people who have small needs to help them live in their homes do not get those needs addressed until they become serious needs. Then they end up in hospital, which is much more expensive and a much worse outcome for the people concerned. It results in more pressure on the NHS, more cost and a less good service. On the other hand, there is the pay and conditions for care staff. People doing the same job in care get less money than people in the NHS. That is true of nurses, for example, where we can make direct comparisons.”
“The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, and he has been through some of those discussions on the Select Committee—I think the County Councils Network also made that point strongly to us—so he is absolutely right. I was not going to go too much into the long-term reforms of local government funding, but as a Committee we have said that there is a real challenge with the reforms of both council tax funding and business rates, and we have produced reports on that. There is not a clear linkage between how much money a council might get in from business or non-domestic rates and how much demand for social care is going up. Demand for social care is going up that much faster and the tax base needs to be adapted to recognise that, so his point is an important one. To some extent, that demand is being met by tightening the rules on exemptions.”
“Figures are bandied around, but I think that the figure is somewhere between £7 billion and £14 billion. It depends—the right hon. Gentleman is addressing this point properly—on whether we include the rise in demand, the need to have a real review of the workforce and pay, and the eligibility criteria. That is the way in which costs have been dampened in the past. We really need to revisit that whole issue.”
“The hon. Lady is talking about the fair cost of care. I declare an interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association, where there is a real concern that the money that the Government made available was not based on the detailed assessment that councils had done about the difference between what people pay for their care privately and what councils are paying. If councils suddenly ended up with that extra cost, the Local Government Association’s view is that the amount would be much more than the amount that the Government were putting to one side in their initial reform proposals.”
“I thank the Minister for giving way; his further comments were quite helpful because they lead on to the intervention I was going to make, which comes back to local funding for social care. The joint report by the two Select Committees in 2018 said: “There should be a continuation for the foreseeable future of the existing local government revenue streams.” That was accepted, but we went on to say, very clearly, that a new source of funding is needed for social care to recognise the gaps that exist. Does the Minister accept in principle that the Government must come up with a new, discrete source of funding for social care? The Government sort of got there two years ago, then backed off. Are they going to come back to that at some point?”
“We must reach some sort of agreement on a way forward that brings an additional funding stream into local government to take the strain off the rest of local government finances, put social care on a proper footing, increase the eligibility criteria, get a long-term plan for the workforce, and ensure, ultimately, that the people who need social care get it and get it to a proper and decent standard. Question deferred (Standing Order No. 54). Department for Education”
“We are dealing with a workforce under enormous strain and pressure, not properly paid and sometimes not properly trained, with far too much expected of them. Councils are struggling to do their best to represent their local community. Councils across the board of all political persuasions are having to make impossible choices to deal with social care and the people who need it, as against having to sweep the streets and run bus services that are vital to their communities. This is an issue that needs to be addressed. I come back to what I said in my last intervention on the Minister. We cannot carry on believing that the existing local government finance system, with occasional top-ups from Government on an ad hoc basis every year or so, will sustain adult social care for the longer term or even the medium term.”
“Madam Deputy Speaker, you came into the Chair as I was halfway through, so let me, too, welcome you back. This has been a good debate. Whether it has taken us forward, only time will tell. The challenges are there and hon. Members, certainly the co-chair of the all-party group on adult social care, the right hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green), expressed it. We spoke in very similar terms on very similar issues. The concerns are there. As was said in the debate, it is about individuals: individuals getting care that is often not to the standard they need; individuals not getting care at all because the eligibility criteria have changed; people sitting in hospital beds for days on end because the care is not available to them. In the end, this is a very human issue we are dealing with.”
“I do not know whether the Minister is aware of the plans being developed at the University of Sheffield’s advanced manufacturing research centre, with Boeing, to research and potentially to manufacture ultra-lightweight materials for planes. If not, would he like to visit Sheffield to meet the relevant parties and better inform himself of a development that could be really exciting not just for Sheffield, but for the whole UK?”
“The Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee held an inquiry into social housing regulation. I think we are waiting for a Government response to our report from several months ago, although we have had one from the housing ombudsman and the regulator. It was far from clear whether inspections by the regulator will go further than simply inspecting the framework of the organisations, instead going into properties and looking at what is done. The regulator had not quite taken that step in its response.”
“In an earlier intervention I mentioned the Select Committee’s report and the fact that we are still waiting for a Government response, several months later. One of the issues that arose was the need to address problems such as damp and mould in properties. Some housing associations and councils will need to regenerate whole estates substantially and probably rebuild them, but in doing so they will be hit by Homes England’s “no net additionality” rule. Homes England cannot fund any scheme that replaces poor homes with good ones if more homes are not provided. Will the Minister agree to look into that? It can be an obstacle to many important ways of addressing these problems.”
“The regulator needs a steer from the Government and from this House on what those issues should be. Does the Minister accept that the issues are twofold? We should have a fair distribution that, first, ensures the sustainability of all clubs throughout the pyramid and, secondly, prevents the cliff edge of parachute payments, which create unfair competition at various points in the pyramid.”
“I welcome the White Paper, which contains most of the important recommendations of the fan-led review. Most football fans in this country will not read the White Paper, and probably do not have an understanding of our deliberations here, but if we do not implement this and get it right, the same devastating consequences will befall some clubs over the next few years as have already befallen clubs such as Bury. One of the most important things is that the enormous wealth of football is distributed more fairly through the whole pyramid. The Minister says the regulator’s powers will be a fallback, but I think they will be necessary. Paragraph 9.12 of the White Paper talks about the regulator deciding on the “issues that any financing would need to address.” Is it not more than that?”
“We move on to the Front-Bench spokespeople. They have about 20 minutes each if they really want to take it, but that is entirely up to them.”
“If I go to the polling station at the local government election, I can produce my passport, which I do not normally carry, or my driving licence. If I do not have either, I could produce my pensioner’s travel pass issued by South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority. However, if I were a young person—”
“I thank my hon. Friend. If I were a young person with a travel pass issued by the same authority, I could not produce it at the polling station. Quite simply, what do the Government have against young people? Why are they discriminating against them? Why are they finding every reason to disqualify their forms of ID? Is it because the Government do not expect that many young people will vote for them?”
“The trailblazer deals in the West Midlands and Greater Manchester imply that everyone else will have to sit and wait, and not get extra devolution. Will the Minister disabuse me of that by setting out a timetable—nothing in her response indicates a timetable—for when the Mayors of other combined authorities will be given the same powers as Greater Manchester and the West Midlands?”
“Will the Minister just stop trying to deflect attention by saying that football will sort itself out? The mess that the game is in is because football has not sorted itself out. That is why we need the Government to come in with a clear statement, a White Paper and a commitment to legislate speedily. The message is simple—he must have talked to the English Football League, which says there is no chance of an agreement on funding with the Premier League, because the Premier League holds all the money and all the cards and it will never give to the rest of football that which is enough to make the rest of the game sustainable.”
“I congratulate the Minister on a valiant attempt at deflection. He has said that the budget and the policy had not changed, and they have not; what has changed is that the Treasury no longer trusts the Department to spend the money without Treasury approval. That is the change, isn’t it? Normally, surely this would be a matter for conversation between permanent secretaries, or between the Secretary of State and the Chancellor—“Bring yourselves into line, and sort yourselves out.” That presumably has been done, but now there is the strongest public condemnation from the Treasury of the Department’s ability to spend money properly. How can the Minister ever again admonish a council leader, or hold them to account, for not spending money properly?”