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Care and Support (Reform)

Care of the elderly is sometimes the hidden and often the unrecognised industry in my constituency and hundreds of others, but it cannot be delivered without a vigorous private care home sector. Will the Secretary of State recognise that the Government have their role to play in ensuring that they do not load costs on to that sector—for example, through the minimum wage or holiday entitlement—knowing that, in the decade of public expenditure austerity that we are about to enter, they have no hope whatever of recovering those costs from local authorities?