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Mr. Atkins: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Your predecessor ruled a moment ago on a similar point of order that was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre (Mr. Mans). This debate, about social services in Lancashire, is at the behest of my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Hawkins). The debate is being widened well in excess of the subject that he raised and, as a result, other hon. Members who represent constituencies in Lancashire have been prevented from speaking. Will you rule on whether the hon. Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnham) is exceeding the brief?

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris): I have been in the Chair for precisely 60 seconds, and in that time the hon. Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnham) has been entirely in order.

Mr. Thurnham: The hon. Member for Chorley (Mr. Dover) referred to the pressure on budgets, and to the effect on education budgets as well as social services. The press release issued by the Minister's Department showed that there has been an increase in the provision for home help and home care services of 8 per cent. There have been similar increases in the provision for day care services and other personal social services. Such pressure for the provision of extra services occurs not only in Lancashire but throughout the country.

I hope that next week's Budget will take proper account of the rising need because, no doubt, there will be pressure on education budgets if there is not sufficient funding for personal social services. Local authorities will be faced with difficult decisions about how to balance those requirements if the Budget as a whole does not provide extra funding.

Mr. Dover: Will the hon. Gentleman explain in his own words why there has been an underspend on social services in the county of Lancashire this year, as there was two years ago?

Mr. Thurnham: I have no doubt that it would be a coincidence if any authority spent to the penny its exact provision. In avoiding overspending, there is always a possibility of an underspend. What is clear is that there is a great pressure on the budgets generally, and if there is insufficient funding for social services, there will be pressure to reduce spending on education--even if members of all parties agree that education should be a priority.

I hope that the Minister paid full attention to the joint local authorities' submission, which said that an extra £665 million--or 8 per cent. of the total budget--was needed to fund personal social services in the coming year. If that money is not made available, obviously there will be pressure to reduce spending in other budgets at local authority level, just as the hon. Member for Chorley described a moment ago.

The Minister's reply to my letter, following my parliamentary question asking when I would receive a reply, did not address all the points raised at the meeting

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to which I referred, or in the subsequent correspondence. I hope that he will be able to give full attention to the points that the delegation raised, especially those on cost shunting between health authorities and social services. The Bolton delegation felt that there should be an investigation--

Mr. Atkins: This is an abuse.

Mr. Thurnham: The issues that concern people in Bolton concern people not only in the north-west but in the country as a whole. Many people from Lancashire are in homes in Bolton and, no doubt, people from Bolton go to homes in Lancashire. It is absurd to say that people should not be allowed to go to a home of their choice. Bolton was, of course, in Lancashire for more than 800 years, and 99 per cent. of people in Bolton feel that it should be back in Lancashire. I should have thought that Conservative Members would welcome the prospect of Bolton being returned to Lancashire, as it should have remained in the first place.

The points that have been raised in correspondence with the Minister need a much fuller reply than he was able to give me in his brief letter of 18 November. I hope that he will be able to make further points in the debate, and that the White Paper that is due in February will not be delayed and will address the points very fully.

12.5 pm

Mr. Colin Pickthall (West Lancashire): Following the unnecessary and unwarranted speech of the hon. Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnham), I do not have time to elaborate on any of the points that I wanted to make in this debate, which has clearly been called for many reasons, including the usual one of trying to get at Joan Humble, who happens to be the candidate for Blackpool, North.

I want to talk about the issue of overspend. The management letter from the district auditors to county councillors in April said:

"prudence and accountability have been features of the financial arrangements in the County Council for many years. This tradition of excellence continues despite the challenge of present financial constraints."

It is true that, in 1993-94, 4.4 per cent. of the total net budget for social services in Lancashire was underspent and that in the following year, 0.13 per cent. of that budget was overspent. In 1995-96, 1.78 per cent. of that budget was again underspent. Although that is true, the reasons behind it are important.

The budget for Lancashire's social services in 1994-95 was drastically affected by the changes in the Government funding formula for community care, as no doubt the Minister will tell us. The estimated effect at the time was a reduction of £12.8 million for 1994-95. The county then expected a very significant overspend, and equally significant measures were taken by it to avoid that overspend and its knock-on consequences in subsequent years.

The effects of the process were painful and unpopular. It is true that there have been many complaints. Expenditure was squeezed in 1994-95 and 1995-96 and, at the same time, the effect in 1995-96 of the extended non-residential charging policy, which was brought in to counter the expected overspend, was being experienced.

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The result was a £3.4 million underspend on a net budget of £48.4 million, about which the hon. Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Hawkins) complained.

At present, the level of undercommitment is about £7 million, but the monthly increasing level of commitments for this financial year means that the treasurer expects that the spending target will be fulfilled by the end of the year. It is important to note in this debate that the underspend on independent sector purchases in 1993-94 was used to ease financial pressure on the same budget in 1994-95, and the same has been true of 1995-96, moving on to 1996-97.

Capping limits have necessitated budget reductions in social services of £19.4 million in the past five years. It is also important to note that Lancashire has exceeded the Government's figure of 85 per cent. of special transitional grant being spent in the independent sector in every year that that target has been in existence. The council also spends 8 per cent. more on social services than the figures calculated in its standard spending assessment.

I must sit down to allow time for the Front-Bench speeches. I suggest to the hon. Member for Blackpool, South that his next Adjournment debate should concentrate on analysing how the Government have managed to find the £4.4 billion that they did not know they had, and about which they were boasting in the press recently. Will he demand that they restore funding to the levels that existed before the cuts and extra charges imposed this year?

12.9 pm

Ms Ann Coffey (Stockport): I welcome the opportunity for a debate on community care, and the comments of those hon. Members who have raised issues relating to the implementation of care in the community, but I do not welcome the personal attacks on Joan Humble. The hon. Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Hawkins) would be the first to complain if I criticised him in the Chamber without giving him an opportunity to respond. I hope that the Conservative election strategy will not involve using the Chamber to attack the Labour opponents of sitting Conservative Members.

I know that the hon. Member for Blackpool, South is off to the safer Surrey suburbs, leaving the hon. Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Elletson) to struggle to hold his seat against our excellent candidate, Joan Humble. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Blackpool, South is aware that Surrey county council, where he is off to, wrote to all its private providers last year asking for free places because it had run out of money. I think that that happened at about the same time as he was castigating Lancashire county council for incompetent management of its budget. As he knows, several areas have community care problems.

My hon. Friends have dealt ably and thoughtfully with some of the specific criticisms on resourcing. As the Minister is aware, the problem for many authorities is dealing with issues of entitlement and choice for individuals within a limited budget, often with a fragmented system of health care in which resources are not being used strategically. The case that the hon. Member for Blackpool, South raised illustrates the challenges for local authorities in allocating resources for

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individual family needs, taking its budgetary considerations into account. The appeal process considers those issues.

A number of cases have been taken to judicial review. That is unsatisfactory for all involved because they all have to hold their breath. Perhaps the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990 could have been more thoughtfully framed. The consequence is that local authorities are attempting to deliver community care in the absence of guidelines. That is convenient for the Government, because they can blame everybody else, but it leads to unfairness, inequity and a deep sense of frustration for parents whose expectations have been raised. I sympathise with Mr. and Mrs. Gardner.

Conservative Members keep coming back to the issue of in-house services versus the independent sector. The public sector, the independent sector and the voluntary sector all have contributions to make to care in the community. It is unfortunate when they are put at each other's throats. I blame the Government for part of that problem. They seem to prefer to act in an atmosphere of competition and confrontation rather than in co-operation--the only framework within which matters can be resolved.

Conservative Members have said several times that they think that money could be saved by putting all the services in Lancashire into the independent sector, which is cheaper. They repeated that point today, but they also said that the primary considerations should be quality and choice. They cannot have it both ways, although they often try to. Last year, when Lancashire county council closed some of its homes--presumably in response to the pleas of Conservative Members that services should be shifted to the private sector--there was an immediate outcry from those same hon. Members. The hon. Member for Blackpool, South featured in the headline:

"MP joins battle to save rest homes."

Calling for a delay to the closure of one home, the hon. Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack), said:

"The most important reason for keeping the home open is the strong link it has with the local community."

The chairman of social services said, with great understatement:

"It is not easy to close down homes."

It is certainly not easy, particularly when Conservative Members on the one hand demand that the council does so and on the other hand criticise it locally when it tries to.

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