“The Prime Minister’s ambitions for the future simply aren’t compatible with this particularly damaging mistake of the past.”
By Neil Duncan-Jordan MP
The crisis in our social care system has touched the lives of millions of people, exposing them to a cold, profit-seeking model which too often sees customers where it should see patients. For those unlucky enough to develop dementia later in life, it can mean seeing your life savings eroded or your house sold simply to get the care you need.
A National Care Service in public hands, free at the point of use, provides a solution. Councils can stop shouldering eye-watering costs and, with profiteering taken out of the equation, we have the bones of a system that can work. Andy Burnham deserves real credit for forcing the issue up the agenda, speaking passionately from his personal experience of having a father who needs full-time care.
With the best will in the world, a gold-standard plan, even the ringing endorsement of every MP in Parliament, the potential of a National Care Service could be undone because of a hangover from the preceding Labour leadership. Because you can’t build a National Care Service without care workers.
The proposal to double the five-year qualifying period for Indefinite Leave to Remain, rising to 15 years for those deemed “low skilled”, is fundamentally incompatible with bringing an end to the crisis in social care.
The latest figures for the social care workforce show around 110,000 vacancies in the sector. There is simply no way this figure will be reduced by making it harder for existing workers to stay here.
I called the plans un-British when they were announced because, whether working in care or in other key sectors like transport or our medical services, people made an agreement with our Government. Workers came here in good faith to do jobs our society needs people to do. They followed the rules and built lives here. To switch up the terms after the fact runs against British values of fair play, of decent graft where you get out what you put in, and of knowing that if you play by the rules, the Government won’t change the rules of the game.
It’s also got to be said that the proposals are a thinly veiled – and by that I mean not veiled at all – class attack, where if you earn less you get a raw deal. You couldn’t get a policy more diametrically opposed to Labour values if you tried! I welcome the comments of the TUC General Secretary earlier this week that the plans are “fundamentally unfair”.
It was unsettling to see a Labour Home Secretary label workers in the care sector a low-contribution group in our society. I know this opinion isn’t shared by the Prime Minister, who has spoken passionately about the dedication and skills of the carers working with his father.
Like Andy Burnham, my father had dementia and relied on care. I saw him supported by carers from all around the world. I thought then, as a trade unionist working with care workers, what I think now: social care is not just a job. It is the work of providing dignity and support for our loved ones. This is work we should value and professionalise, not denigrate.
A Labour Government should not be punishing migrant care workers for having their wages depressed. The work may be low-paid, but it is skilled, hard work. Our response should be to fix that. This is what the Labour movement is for: when we see workers getting a raw deal, we don’t make it a reason they can’t stay in our country. We give solidarity, we organise, and we make sure work pays, and people get what they’re worth.
Eighty MPs, including over 40 Labour colleagues, have now signed my Parliamentary Motion calling for all skilled worker visa holders to retain their present pathway to indefinite leave to remain.
The risk to sectors with critical staff shortages really cannot be understated, but our opposition to the so-called “earned settlement” programme must not be reduced to cold calculations about services and economic growth. Of course, we should build up our domestic workforce and make becoming a carer an attractive, decently paid career option for young people.
This is also about what sort of country we want to be. These are our neighbours and friends. They have built families, relationships and communities here. They are part of the fabric of our communities, not just because they do a good job, but because people from different backgrounds live alongside each other and rub along well. They are not political footballs to be kicked from pillar to post depending on the mood music in Westminster.
This isn’t a problem of Andy Burnham’s making, but it nonetheless provides one of the most immediate tests for his leadership. The Prime Minister’s ambitions for the future simply aren’t compatible with this particularly damaging mistake of the past. He has the opportunity to recognise that and put it right. There is no way out of this: the current plans have got to be scrapped.
- Neil Duncan-Jordan is the Labour MP for Poole. You can follow him on Twitter/X, Facebook and Instagram.
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