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Health and Social Care Bill

The hon. Lady is right. Individual care homes perform very differently in both the public and private sectors, and since that session there have been public reports of serious failings in the private care sector too. Many people, particularly those who cannot speak for themselves, have been suffering inadequate care. I think that we do not care enough, or properly, for our elderly and vulnerable, and that comes down to resources. The public sector care homes were starved of resources for a long time. Many of them are not modern, and they have been understaffed and under pressure. The local authorities, which have been under the financial cosh for a long time, have been doing their best, but perhaps they have been squeezing funding for care homes to the point where some of those homes have not been very good. My own experience of a care home in my constituency, where my mother-in-law spent the last days of her life, was wonderful: the staff were directly employed and lived in the community, and the people in the care home came from the community. The care home was warm, friendly and caring, and my mother-in-law was as happy as she had ever been, given that she was nearing the end of her life.