Lord Bradley (Lab)

My Lords, I declare my interests as in the register. I broadly and warmly welcome this first Labour Budget for 14 years, presented so clearly by my noble friend Lord Livermore, particularly the changes to fiscal rules relating to capital investment, which should help drive up growth, prosperity and productivity. I would like to comment today on two specific issues relating to social care, the first of which is the North Manchester General Hospital redevelopment in my city. This was one of the 40 new hospitals promised but not delivered by the last Conservative Government, and understandably called in for review by the current Government. This redevelopment is a perfect example of how capital investment can be a driver for economic recovery. The 15 to 20-year £4.5 billion investment programme presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to mobilise at pace a health-led regeneration, alongside the local authority, other housing providers, industry, and academic and community partners, both public and private sector, and to use investment in key services to stimulate civic renewal in an area that experiences some of the highest socioeconomic disadvantage and health inequalities in the whole country. I believe that this hospital-led project should now be approved. It provides a rich opportunity to tangibly demonstrate a successful Labour Government’s first term by 2029. I hope the Minister will support this at the conclusion of the debate. Secondly, I will briefly make two points on social care. The Adult Social Care Committee, of which I was a member, published a report entitled A “Gloriously Ordinary Life”, which focused on unpaid carers. It made a number of recommendations about financial support for carers. They were not progressed by the Conservative Government, but I am pleased that this Government have made a start in this Budget by increasing the earnings limit for carers to the equivalent of 16 hours per week by April 2025, and future increases will be in line with national living wage increases. However, the carer’s allowance itself is, in essence, the lowest benefit of its kind, at a mere £81.90 a week—an amount that bears no relationship to the extraordinary work undertaken by the millions of carers across the country. I understand that next April it will be increased by 1.7%, or £1.40 a week, which I am sure the House will agree is a dreadfully small amount. Will this Government look again at the committee’s recommendations that the Department for Work and Pensions must review the carer’s allowance in order to value our tremendous carers properly, and bring forward proposals in next year’s spending round? Finally, I am pleased that the Chancellor has injected additional resources into both health and social care, but as the excellent report by the noble Lord, Lord Darzi, recognised, the health and social care system must be reformed in an integrated way. The Government have accepted that premise. I welcome the intention to produce a 10-year plan for the NHS by next spring, but social care must also be reformed at the same time—not separately and not in a silo, but as an integrated system. I urge the Government to bring forward plans for social care reform when the NHS 10-year plan is published, so that the ambition to shift fundamentally from ill health to well health, and from hospital to local communities, can be successfully achieved. I certainly look forward to the Minister’s views on these matters.