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Reform of Social Care

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for the welcome that he gives to the report by Andrew Dilnot and his colleagues, and indeed to the report that Tom Hughes-Hallett and Alan Craft produced on palliative care. They are both immensely valuable. The right hon. Gentleman rightly says that it is important for us to move beyond many of the suggestions that have been made in the past. One of the essential purposes of the Dilnot commission was to seek something that was affordable and sustainable, that met tests of choice, fairness, value for money and ease of understanding, and that would be sustainable for the longer term. Dilnot has responded immensely well to the issues that we put to him, but that is part of a broader process of reform. In that sense we have not waited for Dilnot, because we have made progress on the wider aspects of reform. Now we have to ensure that we bring them together in a way that is coherent and works to deliver long-term, sustainable reform across the whole social care sphere. The right hon. Gentleman rightly points to the fact that we inherited a fragile system in which there had already been a substantial tightening of eligibility and loss of care and support, with increasing levels of unmet need. That was precisely why, in an interim report last year, Andrew Dilnot and his colleagues asked us to make additional resources available in the spending review. I set out in my statement precisely how we have done so. The concerns in relation to Southern Cross are particular to that company, and the Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow), has made clear to the House how we are interacting with those who are involved with the company. We are making it very clear to the public—I reiterate it today—that we are prepared to act to secure the interests of individuals if there were any threat to their position in care homes. We are working with the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services and local authorities to ensure that those contingencies are in place. What I said today in the statement, and which people have not previously recognised, is that as early as last year we set out in the Health and Social Care Bill that we were prepared for regulatory powers to be available to ensure the future viability of social care providers, as we intend to do in relation to health care providers. Let me may make one final point. I believe that my statement makes it absolutely clear that we will engage on the basis of the Commission on Funding of Care and Support, and that we will do so on a timetable that will work and that gives stakeholders and the public, and indeed the Government and the Opposition, an opportunity to come forward with a consensus. I discussed that timetable with Andrew Dilnot, and he is clear that he supports it. It will lead to a White Paper in the spring and an associated progress report on funding reform. I am clear that that assures stakeholders that we will take this forward as a priority.