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Mr. Harold Elletson (Blackpool, North): Does my hon. Friend agree that social services brochures and documents are unreliable? Does he recall the document that I produced in last year's social services debate which featured my constituent Geraldine Robinson on the cover? She suffers from cerebral palsy and was told that, as a result of Lancashire county council's mismanagement, her budget for domiciliary care would be cut from £700 to £300 per week and that her 24-hour care package would be reduced to only 34 hours of care per week. That is disgraceful.

Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes): Order. The hon. Gentleman is making a short speech. Interventions, by their nature, should be short.

Mr. Hawkins: I am grateful to my hon. Friend and I pay tribute to the way in which he continues to pursue--

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as all Conservative Members seek to do--the manifold sins and wickednesses of Lancashire county council under Labour. It is extraordinary that both my constituent's case, which I am highlighting today, and the case raised by my hon. Friend involve cerebral palsy sufferers. The Labour group on Lancashire county council social services committee appears to have learned nothing from my hon. Friend's splendid debate, to which many hon. Members contributed, in November 1995.

Mr. Atkins: Conservative Members of Parliament from Lancashire are conscious of the importance of this case in raising the profile of the debate. Does my hon. Friend accept that Conservative Members who represent Lancashire constituencies each week come across instances of the council's churlishness, incompetence, downright rudeness and its failure to care about people who need attention? That is a most damning indictment of Lancashire county council.

Mr. Hawkins: I could not agree more with my right hon. Friend. About half the cases presented at my surgery each week relate to complaints about Labour-controlled Lancashire county council social services. The real problem is the difference between the fine words in the pamphlets and the actions of the social workers on the ground--the two simply do not match. All the fine words in the world will achieve nothing if the actions do not deliver on the promises.

In Lancashire county council social services documents, one sees not only fine words but political propaganda. I have an official social services document that is supposed to be factual. The document about financial assessment entitled, "Guidelines for Completion of FIN 96", refers to cutting home help services almost overnight--a point that my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Sir M. Lennox-Boyd) mentioned earlier. In the third paragraph, it states:

"However, they"--

that is, the social services committee--

"were mindful of the Government under-funding of Community Care".

That assertion is not only inaccurate and disgraceful, but political propaganda presented in a supposedly official form about financial assessment. We must continue to highlight that sort of disgraceful behaviour.

I shall complete my quotations from the letter from Mr. Perona-Wright, the director of services in Lancashire for the Leonard Cheshire Foundation. He concludes:

"I hope these comments will help you pursue the Gardners' case. One would like to see"--

as we all would--

"the interests of individuals--particularly those with disabilities--and their families being of paramount focus. Regrettably in this instance David's best interests appear not to be being served by an unnecessary and enforced change of carer agencies--a change to which no-one, apart from Social Services personnel, appears to subscribe. Please do not hesitate to come back to me if you feel I can be of any further help."

I immediately faxed that letter to social services, which picked up one or two minor details in its reply but failed to address the substance of the points raised.

However, there was good news this week for the Gardners, who applied for a review of their son's case. My Conservative colleague, John Woolley, the county and

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Blackpool borough councillor, presented the Gardners' case at the hearing and he managed to win the review on their behalf on Monday. I pay tribute to his achievement. It was a case of the social services department maintaining its fixed opinion in opposition to the views of the charity that was involved in the child's care and against the interests of the family. The Gardners managed to retain that care only through the diligence of a Conservative councillor. That case is yet another object lesson in the practices of Lancashire county council.

Mr. Atkins: The council's reaction to an independent charity is not confined to social services. In education, the county council has refused to accept the existence of dyslexia, and has ignored the specialist, charitable and professional advice of Conservative Members' constituents about children with dyslexia.

Mr. Hawkins: My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point about dyslexia, which relates closely to the David Gardner case, because one of his problems was with speech therapy. Under Labour, Lancashire county council constantly lets down the people whom it represents.

I was extremely grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister when, shortly after he took up his new post, he sent us a copy of a letter, which he had sent to the deputy clerk of Lancashire county council, headed:

"Implementation of Community Care in Lancashire".

I pay tribute to the Minister for stressing that it was essential for Ministers to know what action the authority was taking to address the issues covered in a previous letter that had been sent during the summer. The Minister wrote:

"Those were serious concerns requiring a constructive response. I look forward to receiving a full account of your action plan".

It is essential that we keep up the pressure.

Mr. Keith Mans (Wyre): Does my hon. Friend agree that, although Lancashire county council received the Minister's letter asking what it was going to do, there is little evidence that it is doing a great deal? Indeed, rather than doing anything, it is prevaricating and stretching matters out so that none of the recommendations is implemented.

Mr. Hawkins: My hon. Friend is right. The purpose of today's debate was to keep up the pressure and to draw attention--as my right hon. and hon. Friends have done--to the fact that Lancashire county council seems to take no notice of evidence from charities, of what people who need care say and of what Ministers or the social services inspectorate say. We have had repeated reports from the social services inspectorate and the district auditor containing savage criticisms of Labour-controlled Lancashire county council.

To emphasise the final lesson to be learnt, I shall use some of the words that were used by another party in the past. Under Labour, do not be old, do not be young and disabled, do not be any age and disabled and do not suffer from cerebral palsy, because all that the Labour party will do is publish fine words in expensive brochures, provide social workers with huge travel allowances and increase the budget for, and the number of, administrators at county hall. The one thing Labour will not do is provide

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people with care. The country should know that Labour in Lancashire shows what it would be like if the country were ever unwise enough to elect a Labour Government. Do not be old, disabled or young and in need of care, because Labour will provide only glossy brochures and highly paid social workers, but no proper care when it is needed.

11.23 am

Mr. Peter L. Pike (Burnley): I am glad to have the opportunity to speak in this debate and to paint a different picture from that painted by the hon. Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Hawkins). Whatever the hon. Gentleman's fate may be, he will not be a Member of Parliament representing a Lancashire constituency after the general election. He has chosen the chicken run and has fled Blackpool before he loses his seat at the next general election.

It is a tragedy that every time Conservative Members initiate a debate about Lancashire, all that they do is to attack, criticise and paint an untrue and misleading picture. They know that I am a strong supporter of unitary local government. I would like Lancashire county council ultimately to go, and social services to be provided at borough council level. Having said that, I fully support the work of Lancashire county council. It does an extremely good job, and social services is one of the important services that it provides.

It was regrettable that the hon. Member for Blackpool, South and the right hon. Member for South Ribble (Mr. Atkins) chose to have a totally unjustified go at Preston borough council. Their allegations against Labour councils, including Burnley--their allegations went wider than Preston--were unjustified. I hope that they will repeat some of their remarks outside the House. Whatever the criticisms in the report that was published on Monday, the leader of Preston borough council, David Borrow, and his predecessor, Valerie Wise, are most anxious that any allegations against officers or members of the council are fully investigated, even if they concern activities which took place eight or nine years ago.

Mr. Atkins: The hon. Gentleman mentioned me by name and yesterday I asked the Prime Minister a question about Preston borough council. If the hon. Gentleman has seen the independent auditor's report, he will know that the criticism was directed specifically at Preston borough council--I made no allegations against Burnley or anywhere else. Labour councillors and some officers were accused of, among other things, corrupt and criminal practices. I do not care when that was: Labour was in control whenever that took place, and it has cost Preston taxpayers millions of pounds.

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