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Archive for June, 2011

Supporting carers is not just right, it’s rational

16/06/2011, 07:28:46 AM

by Peter Watt

This week is “carers week“, when the fantastic contribution and role played by the millions of carers in the UK is celebrated. It is all very big, or even good, society. The numbers of those with a caring role is on the increase. But there is one particular group of carers whose numbers are increasing fast, and that is older carers who care for very old relatives. The reasons for the increase are clear. According to the ONS, the fastest population increase has been in the number of those aged 85 and over, the “oldest old”. In 1984, there were around 660,000 people in the UK aged 85 and over. Since then the numbers have more than doubled reaching 1.4 million in 2009. By 2034 the number of people aged 85 and over is projected to be 2.5 times larger than in 2009, reaching 3.5 million and accounting for 5 per cent of the total population. This is, of course, a fantastic success story with people living longer and living healthier for longer. But it also means that there are many older people who are themselves caring for very old and frail relatives.

The statistics are not even half the story. Behind them are hundreds of thousands of human stories of love and care that are a source of pride and inspiration. But they should also be a source of shame that as a society we are still allowing people to struggle so appallingly. Take Mrs M who is 80 and cares for her husband, Mr M, who is 87.

They have been married for forty years and until Mr M was diagnosed with dementia 6 years ago they had plans to travel in their retirement. He was once a pre-eminent science lecturer and it has been difficult for Mrs M to adjust to the changes in Mr M’s behaviour. On top of all of this, Mrs M has arthritis and has been suffering from exhaustion due to her caring role. She loves her husband but is struggling to support him – she will not give in willingly though.

She is not alone in this. It has been reported that 75% of carers have suffered with health issues as a result of their caring role. Unfortunately, reductions in the budgets in Mrs M’s London borough mean that her husband has had his needs reassessed by the local authority. Because it is not seen as a “critical” need to go to a day centre, Mr M will no longer have his one day a week outing. This break gave Mrs M three hours of time to take care of paper work, do the shop, and possibly attend GP appointments for her arthritis.

The problem is that Mrs M’s own health is deteriorating because of her arthritis and the decreasing amount of support she gets from her local council. Losing just three hours a week in respite means that pretty soon Mrs M won’t be able to take care of her own needs. This could, and in fact often does, lead to a crisis where two people end up very ill and without support.

If Mrs M couldn’t care for her husband, then the state would have to step in. And that costs. In fact, the replacement value of a carer is £18 an hour. With an estimated 6,440,713 carers in the UK, people like Mrs M, pound for pound, save the UK economy £119 billion per year by caring for a partner or family member. Even if Mrs M only cared for her husband five hours a day, instead of her usual 12 (including being woken up each night), she would have saved the economy £32,850.00 a year. That is for five hours a day. The fact is, most carers report that they care for someone for over 50 hours a week, saving the economy, on average, £52,560.00 a year per carer.

According to carers week:

76% of carers are worse off financially since taking on their caring responsibilities;
75% of carers have suffered with health issues as a result of caring;
49% of carers have a disability, condition or illness themselves;
48% have been a carer for more than 10 years;
78% are female.

So carers are a massive and undervalued resource. They save us all money and provide the ultimate welfare state to their loved ones. Successive governments’ track record in supporting this group is pretty poor – none of us has much to be proud of. But as we look at making savings in the public purse, we should take care that we don’t make the situation even more difficult. The long term cost to the taxpayer would be much more than the savings. The human cost would be incalculable.

Remember that in the future Mr and Mrs M could be you.

Peter Watt is the chief executive of counsel and care, a national charity supporting older people, their family and carers. He is also former general secretary of the Labour party.

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Thursday News Review

16/06/2011, 06:55:55 AM

Balls warns Osborne of “permanent dent”

George Osborne will create a “permanent dent” in the British economy by pressing ahead with a damaging fiscal deficit reduction plan that will do little to promote economic growth, Ed Balls will warn on Thursday. Britain’s slow economic recovery risks leaving Britain £58bn worse off by 2015 at a cost of £3,300 to every family, the shadow chancellor will say as he points out that Britain is struggling behind the US, France and Germany. This will happen if the economy continues to grow at its current rate of 0.5 percentage points below trend in every year for the rest of this parliament. In a speech at the London School of Economics, Balls will say that Osborne’s plan to eliminate the structural deficit over the course of this parliament poses a major risk to Britain’s economic recovery by failing to encourage growth. – the Guardian

Milburn: health reforms are car crash

The Government’s health reforms are the biggest car crash in NHS history. From the outset they were devoid of advocacy and advocates. The screech of skidding tyres has been audible for months. This week, with the publication of the NHS Future Forum report and the Government’s response, the stench of a sharp U-turn has become overpowering. It leaves both health policy and British politics in a very different place. The temptation to elevate short-term politics above long-term policy proved too much for both David Cameron and Nick Clegg. Cameron has returned to his original strategy of playing safe on the NHS in order to decontaminate the Tory brand. A combination of his own neglect and his Health Secretary’s foolish bout of policy-wonking had put that at risk. It had managed to conflate in the public mind precisely the four words Cameron was desperate to avoid – cuts, privatisation, health and Tory. Clegg has had a different motive: to differentiate his Liberal Democrats from their Conservative Coalition partners by saving the NHS from “Tory privatisers”. Many in both camps inside the Coalition consider the U-turn a triumph. But it has the makings of a policy disaster for the health service and, maybe in time, a political disaster for the Government. – the Telegraph

Northern Rock to be sold?

George Osborne announced his intention to sell Northern Rock to a single bidder tonight, calling it “a sign of confidence in the industry”. But former Chancellor and architect of the bank’s public takeover Alistair Darling said he was “surprised” at the timing of the sale. “I’m slightly surprised at the Government putting northern rock on the market now. They’ve got to justify whatever price they can get for it. I was always clear that at the end of the day the taxpayer would get its money back. We need to make sure that happens.”- Politics Home

The nasty party strike again

No one believes you can raise a child decently on £3 a day, and yet the House of Commons today passed a law that will impose that hardship on youngsters across much of the south of England. This prospect flows from a crude £26,000 cap being applied to all of a family’s annual benefits, which will bite hard wherever households are large and rents are high. Designed to win George Osborne Tory conference cheers and tabloid plaudits, it achieved both these things before anyone had bothered to think it through. The rhetorical logic is ensuring that benefits should never exceed typical pay, and this line has been parroted in the Sun. But there is no real logic, since the whole argument rests on wilful misunderstanding. For one thing, the policy deliberately confuses average individual pay with family income. Only a truly nasty party would want to visit the sins of the fathers and mothers it deems to have too many children on the children themselves. Yet, by ignoring the number of mouths that a family has to feed, the cap does precisely that. – the Guardian

Tony’s Tories

For David Cameron there is a much more significant alliance than the one with Nick Clegg, a coming together that has defined his leadership from the beginning and will do so until the end. The alliance is not formal and never will be, but it is at the heart of his project as leader in a way the Liberal Democrats are not. I am referring to the informal alliance between Cameron and Tony Blair, one that extends to some of those who worked closely on policy with the former Labour prime minister. The partnership started when Cameron as the new Conservative leader supported Blair’s school reforms in 2006. Cameron went on to make the mischievous yet sincere observation that the Labour leader evidently wanted to go further and would do so if it were not for his wretched party and chancellor. The heir to Blair assured him that he would carry on with the reforms when he won a general election. He has done so. The rapport goes well beyond two leaders. The Education Secretary, Michael Gove, a close ally of Cameron’s, describes himself without irony as a Blairite. Famously he and others at the top of the Conservative Party regard Blair’s memoirs as the equivalent of the Bible. Blair reciprocates – the Independent

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A chance to do the right thing

15/06/2011, 03:30:04 PM

by Tessa Jowell, Sadiq Khan and Jim Murphy

When the government does the right thing it is important that we support it, basing our judgement at all times on actions and not words. We are dismayed at the government’s decision, announced yesterday, to abolish the chief coroner’s office (CCO), a decision with damaging consequences for ordinary people up and down the country. We hope the government’s new-found capacity to listen will soon again be on show.

Legislation in 2009 received cross-party support in establishing a CCO, seeking to deal with some of the difficult issues that arise from complex fatalities through a system based on independent expertise. Tragically, it’s often military inquests which require such a service and this is therefore an issue close to the heart of many bereaved military families. But it’s not just families of military personnel who suddenly suffer tragedy that brings them into contact with the coronial system. Abolition of the CCO is opposed by various charities and organisations including CRY (cardiac risk in the young), which supports bereaved families who have lost loved ones suddenly through undetected cardiac problems. Sue Ainsworth, whose son Jonathan tragically died suddenly at the age of 21 last year, has joined CRY in calling for the creation of the CCO, following failings in the inquest held into Jonathan’s death. Sue said:

“Currently, the coroner is not answerable to anybody so if there’s any delays, and any inequalities in the system, you have not got any comeback at all”.

The job of a chief coroner is to ensure that families and friends of all victims are sufficiently involved in the coroner’s investigation; improve training; add quality controls and independent safeguards on inquests; and add consistency of oversight, leadership, independence and expertise to the coroners who are dealing with military inquests.

Establishing such a system is a central obligation under the military covenant, the bond between the nation, the state and the services which says that no member of the service community, including dependents, should suffer disadvantage arising from service and that special provision should at times be made to reflect their sacrifices. That is why, in government, we legislated for a coroner’s office. Scrapping it undermines the covenant which the government claim to want to uphold. Indeed, the Royal British Legion has called this act “a betrayal of bereaved armed forces families and threatens the military covenant.” (more…)

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Commons sketch: PMQs

15/06/2011, 02:00:47 PM

by Dan Hodges

Ed Miliband arrived at PMQs with his leadership in crisis, his party in despair and his political fortunes at such a low ebb even his brother had been forced to leap to his defence. Poor David Cameron. He didn’t have a prayer.

It started well enough. He’d read Ed Miliband’s grafter’s speech. Graft? He’d show Ed Miliband and those feckless malingers how to graft. “Welfare costs are out of control”, he told Margot James. And he was going to put things right. There was a bill going through Parliament that very night that was going to take those work shy idlers and get them back down the chimneys were they belonged. Oh yes.

Ed Miliband rose. There was a huge cheer, from both Labour and Tory benches. The Labour benches prevailed. “He’s our leader”, they were saying. “How dare you attack him. That’s our job”.

For one heart-stopping moment, Ed paused. Had he finally cracked? Was this the end? “Screw it. David, you’re on”.

(more…)

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Labour’s faerie weekend

15/06/2011, 01:16:55 PM

by Rob Marchant

It was a strange Midsummer Night’s Dream weekend. There seemed to be dark shadows of plots in every corner. The “Balls papers” of leaked memos reminded us that no-one plots quite like the Brownites; the ghost of David Miliband’s never-uttered leadership acceptance speech was rather unhelpfully leaked to the press, neatly exhuming the Miliband-fratricide stories. And the Labour body politic ended up starting the week a little jittery.

So jittery, in fact, that by Tuesday, and after Ed Miliband had made rather a good fist of pulling it all back together, our esteemed Uncut columnist, Dan Hodges, was still being accused of disloyalty for complimenting the party leader (work that one out if you will). I put it down to the faeries.

But through all this night gloom, we started to see some solid rays of realism gleaming through, in Ed’s Monday speech to the Coin Street neighbourhood centre in London. He even managed, with some success, to put down Sky’s John Craig for asking stupid questions.

(more…)

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The dawn of hope?

14/06/2011, 04:09:12 PM

?by Nick Pearce

Ed Miliband used his speech yesterday to bring the contributory principle back into the heart of Labour thinking on welfare reform, which got Frank Field and Labour bloggers very excited.

Although the Labour leader didn’t mention it, it was fitting that he referred to the principle of contribution this year, since 2011 is the centenary of the great 1911 national insurance act, which brought in unemployment and sickness insurance (those were the days when a progressive alliance really did achieve bold reforms).

It is less clear, however, that the contributory principle can really serve to underpin a modernisation of the welfare state for the twenty first century. It only now covers around 10% of working age benefits, and it is being scaled back further under the government’s plans to cut employment support allowance.

Where it still has real purchase is in respect of the basic state pension, for which the earnings link has been restored. But even here fairness and equality for women have demanded an extension of the notion of contribution to cover caring activities, as well as work (while the government plans a single-tier flat rate state pension for which a contributory record would not strictly be necessary).

Moreover, it is not possible simply to withdraw public services or benefits for people who are in need. Children must be housed and educated, whatever their parents have done. Article 3 of the human rights act also places a floor under the welfare state, preventing people from suffering humiliating and degrading treatment through destitution.

Nonetheless, reciprocity is vital to public support for the welfare state and the strength of community solidarity. So Labour is not on the wrong track. But it needs to think about the notion of contribution in broader terms: not just to embrace caring and community activities, but to mean reciprocity across a range of services and entitlements, whether funded by general taxation, National insurance or hybrid state-private insurance policies. Social housing is an obvious candidate for reform in these terms, as Miliband intimated (although need as well as contribution must figure in social housing policy, and the supply of housing must be expanded regardless). Post-Dilnot, social care could become another. Other services – such as childcare – can be seen as part of the social contract, even if earned entitlement does not mediate access to them; after all, the NHS is hugely popular precisely because it guarantees universal access based on need, not worth or desert.

By talking about responsibility from top-to-bottom of society, Miliband has also refused to allow this debate to be focused on the poorest alone. While right-wing think-tanks and others want social justice to be reduced to what happens to an “underclass”, Labour’s leader is keeping the whole of society in view (on which I have more to say in the forthcoming edition of IPPR’s house journal). Quite right.

Nick Pearce is director of IPPR.

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Too many coups spoil the plot

14/06/2011, 08:13:16 AM

by Dan Hodges

As no one in the Labour party appears willing to admit their part in the plot to bring down Tony Blair, I’ll cough. I was up to my neck in it.

I briefed and span. Placed stories. Sowed seeds of confusion and dissent.

Ed Balls says he wasn’t involved. Fair enough. He was the only person outside Downing Street who wasn’t.

Westminster in the months after the 2005 election was like a murder mystery party at the Borgias. Febrile doesn’t come close. No one spoke above a whisper. A discreet alcove couldn’t be had for love nor money. I attended a friend’s marriage and an MP I’d been conspiring with was so terrified of being photographed next to me that he sprinted to the other end of the wedding line.

The Telegraph got excited about some scrawled notes and polling. They’d have had an embolism over the spread sheet that was floating around laying out a provisional “transition timetable” with a series of colour coded “waypoints” that need to be passed in order for Gordon Brown to become prime minister before the 2010 election. Or the breakdown of every Labour MP, identifying their perceived level of support or opposition, graded on a sliding scale. 1 was ultra loyal to Gordon. Tony Blair was a 5.

The catalyst for the final move against Blair was an interview Blair gave to the Times around the end of August, effectively claiming that Blair intended to “go on and on”. I remember because I was in the Rivington Grill in Greenwich (highly recommended), when my mobile went off, and a co-conspirator asked me to start tipping off hacks.

(more…)

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Tuesday News Review

14/06/2011, 06:55:31 AM

Listening exercise is over: has anything changed?

The political fallout from the review of the NHS reforms has begun. Nick Clegg has reportedly told a meeting of Lib Dem MPs and peers that the party’s goals on the reforms had been “very handsomely met”. Andrew Lansley has called on Conservative MPs to stand by him. The Health Secretary earlier said the NHS Future Forum report had shown “clear support for a health service that puts patients at the heart of everything it does” – but John Healey described the findings as a “demolition job” on the Government’s “mismanagements”. Head of the Health Select Committee Stephen Dorrell hailed the Future Forum report as “a step forward”. The news comes as a new poll by Comres/ITV shows that over half the population do not trust David Cameron to keep his promises on NHS reform. – Politics Home

The truth is that one cannot slip an X-ray scan between Lansley and Field’s beliefs. Field said his NHS thinking was underpinned by three ideas: that services should be commissioned by clincians; that patients should be engaged and involved; and that health and social care need integrating. Lansley said the same thing last month in the same conference room. Field’s proposals have been welcomed by opponents because they think that Lansley’s bill will now be gutted. But what Field has done is to preserve the bill’s founding principles and seduce opponents by peppering the bill with so many concessions that the government is left with confusion and incoherence. The listening exercise was supposed to be a full stop in the heated argument over the NHS. In fact it is just a comma. When amendments to the bill and guidance are published, the political fight over the NHS will be resumed. – the Guardian

The government is to accept large swathes of its plans for the NHS in England need to be rewritten, the BBC has learnt. Concessions will be made over the pace of change and the powers given to GPs, as demanded by an independent review. More details – including about the role of competition in the health service – will be unveiled on Tuesday in the government’s response to the review. Ministers hope a quick response will allow them to restart stalled changes. In April, the government took the unprecedented move of halting the parliamentary progress of the Health and Social Care Bill underpinning the changes amid mounting criticism from academics, health unions and MPs. – the BBC

Front line return for David Miliband?

David Miliband is considering a surprise comeback to frontline politics in an attempt to end speculation about a continuing rift with his brother Ed. Friends of the former Foreign Secretary said yesterday that his joining the Shadow Cabinet was a “live issue” in his circle of political allies. “There is a debate going on. Some people are arguing that it would be better to be a team player than look as though he is sulking on the sidelines,” said one source. A biography of Ed Miliband by journalists Mehdi Hassan and James Macintyre claims the relationship with his elder brother is still very strained eight months after he defeated him to win the Labour leadership. There were weekend reports that David is waiting for Ed to fail so he could mount another bid for the job. – the Independent

Inflation hits poorest

Poor people in Britain are suffering from a far higher inflation rate than the rich, according to research released today by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) that shows the impact of soaring food and energy bills on those with the lowest incomes. The thinktank said the least well off had experienced a higher cost of living than the wealthy for the past decade, but that the difference had widened sharply since the long, deep recession of 2008 and 2009. In a study that coincides with the release of new official data today, the IFS said its analysis using the retail prices index (RPI) showed that the poorest fifth of households had faced an inflation rate of 4.3% between 2008 and 2010, compared to 2.7% for the richest fifth of households. RPI inflation has continued to rise in 2011 and stood at 5.2% in April. – the Guardian

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Let’s capitalise on Tory twitching on the economy

13/06/2011, 01:00:05 PM

by Jonathan Todd

Public debt, said to be the consequence of Labour largesse, is the problem for the governing parties, and aggressive cutting the medicine. Labour contends that this remedy is too tough to close the deficit. As we recover from a global shock of 1929 proportions, slower cuts are required for strong enough growth to generate the tax revenues needed to achieve deficit closure. Lack of growth, as well as the deficit, is the problem targeted by Labour.

Are these well-established positions shifting?

Not as far as Labour is concerned. Some twitching can, however, be detected on the government side.

First, John Redwood wants an improved growth strategy. This is echoed by Liberal Democrat Mark Littlewood. This doesn’t mean the Tories and Liberal Democrats are about to concede, as Labour has protested, that they have no growth strategy. Since the formation of the government they have argued that the deficit needs to be addressed to retain the favour of bond markets and so control upward pressure on interest rates. They prefer this monetary stimulus to greater fiscal support. Yet the comments of Redwood and Littlewood are not insignificant. They acknowledge that the resources of the shrunken state could better target growth.

(more…)

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Let’s stop fighting non-existent plots and let the leader lead

13/06/2011, 07:00:19 AM

by John Woodcock

The past has its part to play in politics, but the future is the only thing that really matters. This is our chance to show we get that far more than the people who want Labour to fail.

Working for then welfare secretary, John Hutton, I was passionate about Tony Blair’s drive to change the UK’s welfare and pension systems at a time when reform was difficult to sell. I gave my all when Gordon Brown asked me to work for him in Number Ten. I was a vocal supporter of David Miliband in the leadership contest. And before all that I walked David Blunkett’s dog when he was leader of Sheffield City Council and I was the son of one of his more left wing Labour councillors.

All of that helps to inform what I think today. But it is all history. Like so many thousands who want to change the world around them, we remain proud of the myriad of past allegiances developed over the years campaigning for Labour. But we are not defined by them.

Now, we are all part of a party focussed in its determination to support Ed Miliband, renew Labour’s offer to the British people and stand up for those suffering at the sharp end of aConservative economic policy that is selling future generations down the river.

I may not have put Ed first on the ballot paper in the leadership contest, but I am sure of one thing: he won a mandate to lead, and he is going to lead us as a united party into the next election.

Without plotters, wind-up stories about plots will not succeed (so long as people on our side do not fall into the trap of fighting phantoms – mounting a counter-attack against threats that just aren’t there).

So let’s all take responsibility for doing better; as Jim Murphy said yesterday, let’s roll up our sleeves, listen to our changing country, and work harder to think up the new ideas that will re-earn Labour’s right to claim and shape the centre ground of British politics.

Ed has already rightly identified the people any Labour party worthy of the name needs to speak up for: families in the middle who work hard, want to get on, and don’t want to see others get a free ride at their expense – whether at the top or the bottom of the income scale.

His speech today on that subject is important. We should do everything we can to enable it to get the hearing it deserves and give our leader the support he needs to follow it through. That focus on the future is our best bet to ensure the ambitions people have for their own lives are reflected in the ambitions for Britain we put forward at the next election.

John Woodcock is Labour and Cooperative MP for Barrow and Furness and a shadow transport minister.

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