Meeting of the Parliament 27 November 2024
When disabled people’s organisations learn that £30 million has already been wasted on this bureaucratic exercise—that is the equivalent of 1,200 care workers’ salaries—they are astonished and outraged. That is why the Government has lost the dressing room. The bill has been roundly rejected by trade unions and councils, which have been joined by members of the care sector in saying, “No thanks,” to the Government’s plans, which, in the cold light of day, amounted to very little more than a bureaucratic centralisation and a ministerial power grab.
The Scottish Liberal Democrats is the only party to have been against the Government’s proposals from day 1. Right out of the traps, we saw them for the mistake that they were. We are pleased that every other Opposition party, including the Green Party, which was once squarely behind the bill, has now reversed its support. Two years since being introduced, the Government’s national care service proposal is dead in the water, with nothing to show for itself, other than the £30 million black hole in our public finances that I mentioned in my response to the cabinet secretary.
If ever we were looking for an example of Government mismanagement, it is this. Our social care service is in dire need of attention and reform. It is in crisis, yet not a single penny of the £30 million has been spent on solutions to the problems. How galling that must be for the thousands of people in this country who rely on social care or who, for years, have worked in the service under immense strain. Those workers, who care for the people whom we love, who did so much during the darkest days of the pandemic and who have been underpaid and undervalued for so long, have been roundly ignored by this Government. All of what has happened is a slap in the face to them.
Many of those workers are not even on permanent contracts—many of them are on zero-hours contracts—while poor terms and conditions contribute to rising absences as a result of sickness and burnout. It is no wonder that there is such a large vacancy rate across the entirety of the care workforce. The wasted £30 million is money that could have funded 1,200 care workers, whom we desperately need, given how high delayed discharge continues to be in this country.
My party wants hard-working social care staff to have the better pay and conditions that they deserve, right now. In fact, we wanted them to have it years ago, before the Government embarked on its ill-fated misadventure. We want them to have access to the collective bargaining and standardised career progression that would put them on a par with teachers and nurses, and would go some way towards making social care a profession of choice once again.