Hansard

John Mason’s idea that £56 million is “very little money” to spend on a vast and unnecessary bureaucracy that nobody wants says a lot about his priorities. In the midst of a cost of living crisis that is disproportionately impacting those on low pay—social care staff make up a large part of them—I can think of better ways to spend that money than wasting it on that towering bureaucratic mess. The plans will not address the problems in social care; they will only consume huge amounts of our time and staff time, and they will actually cut the funds that are available for the delivery of that care. It is hard to imagine a worse idea for the sector than that.

If the Government does not want to listen to me, it does not need to. It can listen to the Finance and Public Administration Committee, which has said that it is “difficult” to assess whether the Government’s plans are “affordable or sustainable”, or to the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, which has said that, for those in need of support,

“waiting four or five years for the establishment of the NCS is not an option.”

The Government could also listen to health board bosses, trade unions or even its own back benchers. Who can forget Michelle Thomson’s comments? She said that she had “no confidence whatsoever” in the Government’s plan and was “completely surprised” by the lack of detail in her Government’s financial memorandum. I could cite numerous other organisations that say that the Government’s proposals simply will not work, and the Scottish Liberal Democrats agree.

It seems that social care staff agree, too. A report by Unison revealed that 71 per cent of them think that the Government’s plans will have a negative impact on standards of care. That is from the people who work at the coalface every day. No one understands the system better than they do, and the Government would do well to heed their warnings, which are legion. Seventy-seven per cent of social care staff said that the Government’s plans would lead to greater staff insecurity. They all agree that what is needed is more investment in staffing and resources, better pay and better conditions, not a towering and clunking bureaucracy, and that is what Scottish Liberal Democrats want to see, too.

We want to reward staff with better pay and conditions, as well as with opportunities for career progression. We want to make social care a profession of choice again, backed by the introduction of powerful collective national bargaining. That should begin this year, not on the Government’s current glacial schedule. We also want to accelerate the introduction of new national standards and entitlements for those who depend on our care service.

It goes without saying that we want the Government to abolish all its current plans for centralisation, because Liberal Democrats fundamentally believe that people in Shetland, Moray and Caithness are far better placed to understand the needs and the profile of their communities than Scottish ministers or officials are. However, the Government is determined to conduct an unprecedented power grab. The Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee says that the proposals set a “dangerous precedent” and risk

“undermining the role of the parliament.”

I turn to delayed discharge. In recent months, we have heard a lot in the chamber about crippling waiting times in accident and emergency departments. Those delays do not represent a deficiency of care in emergency departments; they are rooted in the problems in our social care sector. A and E departments are full of patients who cannot be discharged to other hospital departments, and hospitals are full because, on any given night, more than 1,000 people who are well enough to go home are stuck in hospital because they are too frail to go home without a social care package. In November last year, more than 58,000 days were spent in hospital by people who were clinically ready to be discharged. The Government promised to eradicate delayed discharge back in 2015, yet here we are.

It is clear that the Government lacks the necessary foresight to see, and the humility to admit, the mistake that it is making with its current proposals, which do not address the manifest problems in our social care sector. Our heroic social care staff, and the thousands of people who rely on them, deserve much better than this, and they keep telling the Government exactly that. This afternoon, let us send an unequivocal message to the Government: scrap the plans for a national care service, go back to the drawing board and think again.

I move,

That the Parliament thanks all those who work in the social care sector for their dedication, but believes that they have been undervalued for years; acknowledges that there is a shortage of staff working throughout social care; believes that this shortage is impacting the waiting times of those who require care packages and leading to year-on-year increases in delayed discharges, which the Scottish Government promised to eradicate within a year in 2015, contributing to the crisis in the NHS, and calls on the Scottish Government and its social care partners to reward staff with better pay, conditions and career progression, backed by the introduction of powerful national bargaining beginning in 2023-24, the acceleration of new national standards and entitlements for users, and the abolition of the SNP-Scottish Green Party administration’s plans for a National Care Service, which will not address the problems, will consume considerable staff time, and will cut the funds available for social care.