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26 Feb 2009 : Column 179WH—continued
Many hon. Members will know that my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble) has had a distinguished career in matters to do with social services. She chaired Leicestershire county council’s—
Jonathan Shaw: Did I say Leicestershire? Good grief; I meant Lancashire, the proud red rose county in the north-west of England.
My hon. Friend chaired the county council’s social services committee for a number of years. She spoke about the need for government to join up, an important matter. She referred to my predecessors, my right hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Mrs. McGuire) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, South (Mr. Lewis), now the Under-Secretary of State for International Development; they took the disability and social care roles respectively. I assure my hon. Friend and the House that I and the Minister of State, Department of Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Phil Hope), who is responsible for social care, will continue to work closely together. Indeed, on the care and support first principles consultation, he and I attended public meetings and had a public discussion with a range of stakeholders, seeking their views on the future shape of services.
Members referred also to advice and guidance, another important topic. Carers have complained to me and to the Committee—and to us as constituency MPs—about the complexity, the not knowing where to go, the being pushed from pillar to post, the form-filling and so on. I referred earlier to providing members of the Committee with a letter in order to ensure that we got it right. I regret that no fee will be involved, as we have to prioritise expenditure, but I am sure that they will give us their comments on a pro bono basis. We are attempting to improve. We are providing a new service, and the carers’ support helpline will go live from April. We are putting about £2 million into it.
Another service that I wanted to bring to the attention of the Committee—a little indulgence, Sir John—is the Tell Us Once pilots that we instigated, particularly for the bereaved. Earlier, we heard that if the cared-for person dies, carers may find themselves, in that bereaved state, having to deal with various agencies. We have been piloting a scheme with a number of authorities whereby people can attend a council centre and tell only one person once, and that person will take care of all their national and local benefits. The work has been done in partnership between the Department for Work and Pensions and local authorities. I have met the staff members who have been operating that service, and they were so enthusiastic about it. The feedback that they have received from customers has been really positive. I hope that we can roll that out; people such as carers will benefit from that service.
My hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood referred to USDAW, members of which I met at a conference last year. I spoke with carers, many of whom want to work. Indeed, half of those carers not in work say that they want to enter paid employment, and we will develop services through Jobcentre Plus to provide support for them. We always need to improve the knowledge base of our Jobcentre Plus staff,
who, as has been said today, must acquire a range of different skills. The hon. Member for Henley raised that point, and I recall him talking, in the main Chamber, about when he visited the Jobcentre Plus office in his constituency. He praised the staff in that office. At the moment, they are working very hard, given the current economic situation. However, we intend to develop services for carers, so that we can understand their needs and help them to find employment, because that is what they want.
We do not want to pilot care vouchers, because we do not think that it is the best use of resources. They would be very poorly targeted and regressive, so we do not intend to do that, either nationally or in the Department. That returns us to the point about the carer’s allowance and universality versus targeted benefits. The hon. Member for Eastbourne talked about resources, and we must make such decisions. However attractive some employers think that vouchers would be for their staff, we do not want to use them ourselves.
Mr. Rooney: I am not especially in favour of care vouchers—there are all sorts of issues there—but there is a strange contradiction between the Government’s attitude towards care vouchers for adults who need care and care vouchers for children. Tax advantages are available for workplace provision of child care, but not of adult care. Does the Minister not find that a contradiction?
Jonathan Shaw: We must consider the infrastructure, as well as how we apply the benefits. A move towards vouchers, given the time and cost implications, and the apparatus that would need to be put in place, would not produce a situation more desirable than that resulting from the reforms to the benefits system that we want. The analogy with child care vouchers is also imperfect, because children are rarely financially independent with an income source, whereas generally adults needing care have some financial resources at their disposal, as well as state-provided care or benefits, which I referred to earlier. The circumstances, therefore, are different.
Our ambition is to move to a single benefit. I have referred to remarks about putting this matter in the context of care and support. Having listened to carers, we decided not to move carers on to jobseeker’s allowance, as we had originally proposed in the Green Paper. Carers told me in no uncertain terms at the Carers UK conference that they thought it would be an insult to do so—actually, there were a few expletives—so we are not going to do that. We do want more simplification, but we need to consult on that and take people with us before we introduce our proposals.
The personal account given by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg) provided an insight into what it is like to be cared for. She also told us how her parents had to endure some of her less than reasonable moments—not that she is like that now. She rightly pointed out the need to support young carers, and talked about the difficulties faced by families often in a chaotic situation. She talked about parents who might be drug dependent. Albeit only in England, we are introducing support for families as part of the aiming higher for disabled children initiative. We have invested £370 million to support, and increase the number
of, short breaks for parents caring for a disabled child, which I am sure will make an enormous difference to the lives of many families. It is for her to talk to the Scottish Government to see whether they can match that. I shall not respond in detail to her point about Aberdeen council, but obviously she is no fan of that particular local authority and some of its decisions.
My hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich, West (Mr. Bailey) spoke eloquently about the need to improve services for young carers, as did a number of others—I am pleased that the service in Sandwell is there. He talked about the question that he put to young carers in his constituency and about a national organisation. He asked me to pass on those points, which certainly I shall. However, we need to recognise that the Prime Minister has set up a cross-cutting body to look at carers that will take account of children.
My hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Harry Cohen) was his usual direct self and invited me to go and live with Rab Nesbitt—if he does not mind, I shall decline the offer. However, I shall provide him with a note on the point that he raised on behalf of the Parkinson’s Disease Society. I can provide him with the details that will allay his concerns. He also mentioned someone who had suffered a stroke, which brings me back to one of my original points. NHS stroke services have improved vastly in recent years. I am sure that that goes for his patch as much as mine. That will have lowered the dependency of some on carers as well as the requirements of carers.
The hon. Member for Leeds, North-East—
Jonathan Shaw: Heavens above! Thank you very much.
The hon. Member for Leeds, North-West (Greg Mulholland) rightly took a moment to congratulate the Committee and himself on the work that they have done. The earnings limit has risen considerably, although one must take a decision about balancing the complexities of a taper and what is admittedly a crude system at the moment.
I am grateful to hon. Members for introducing this debate and for their hard work. They can be assured that the Government are very committed to this issue, as we have set out in our strategy, and I am grateful for the support that hon. Members have given to that work. I look forward to working with the Committee, and I am pleased that its members are champions. It is my job to listen to the Committee so that I can take forward its concerns. We all want to ensure a better quality of life for the 4 million carers who do such sterling work. We have made good progress already, but of course more remains to be done.
Sir John Butterfill (in the Chair): I congratulate the hon. Member on what I thought was an excellent debate on a fascinating subject. If any hon. Members are ever in Bournemouth, I urge them to visit the Youth Cancer Trust, of which I am president and a leading fundraiser. It provides wonderful respite care for young people with cancer, many of whom have terminal conditions.
5.30 pm
Sitting adjourned without Question put (Standing Order No. 10(11)).
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