The link between pensions and social care

Steve Webb

Director of policy, Royal London, and pensions minister 2010-15

Sir, Jeremy Hunt has rightly called for private saving for care: he must work with the chancellor to agree taxpayer incentives for care savings. Care is facing a far worse crisis than pensions. A fraction of the £40 billion a year spent on pension saving incentives could kick-start private care savings. There is no silver bullet to fix this problem. A combination of private savings and public funding, plus proper integration of social and healthcare and measures for early intervention and prevention, are all essential to move us away from our current third world care provision.

Workplace saving for care, including auto-enrolment into “care ISAs” that can pass to the next generation untaxed, employer-funded care saving plans, taxpayer-subsidised family care savings, “eldercare” vouchers, and allowing tax-free pension withdrawal to fund care, can all be considered.

Ross Altmann

Pensions minister 2015-16, House of Lords

Sir, There is one aspect of the cost of care that hasn’t yet been mentioned. That is that residential care homes and care agencies need to make a profit, thus escalating the costs. At one time, most care homes were run by local councils, and domiciliary care was organised in-house. Councils therefore only had to cover their costs. Like all privatisations, the need to satisfy shareholders (or just to give an individual care home owner a reasonable income), means that prices have rocketed. If the only solution now is to merge social and medical care costs, why is it not being implemented as a matter of urgency?

Jud Hoff

London E14

Sir, In 2014, I headed an independent commission for the King’s Fund on how health and social care could be brought together and funded adequately. We proposed a long-term strategy to move towards a more integrated system, with a simpler path for those in need and a far fairer sharing of the burden of long-term care across the population.

After the 2015 election, and then the effective abandonment of the Dilnot reforms (which could have freed families from fear of catastrophic costs), the commission expressed its deepening concern ahead of the spending review. We said then: “The government now appears to have no strategy whatever to tackle the rising and pressing needs for social care.” I am appalled that more than a year later this remains true.

The sticking plaster of a little more council tax simply will not do. It is vital that the government sets this issue squarely before the public and is honest about the cost of a solution that will enable those needing social care, young and old, to live in dignity.

Dame Kate Barker

Chairwoman, Commission on the Future of Health and Social Care in England

Sir, Is it significant that the two areas of the United Kingdom that have a sensible, joined-up approach to health and social care were also the two areas to have the good sense to vote Remain on June 23?

Philip Thornton

Walton on the Naze, Essex

CALL FOR SURROGACY REFORM

Sir, Alice Thomson’s article (“Surrogacy rules treat babies like objects”, Dec 14), highlights a real problem in relation to the law on surrogacy. At the moment a parental order can only be made with the consent of the surrogate mother. She can refuse to give it even though she wants nothing to do with the child and even if the court believes that the welfare of the child would be best served by a parental order in favour of the biological parents.

This leaves everyone in an unsatisfactory legal limbo. Either there should be pre-birth parental orders or there should be a power given to the court post-birth to dispense, in appropriate circumstances, with the consent of the surrogate mother. Or there could be a welfare provision as exists in relation to adoption.

The government needs to act now. With the increasing incidence of surrogacy, the law in this respect and in others is looking out of date and badly in need of reform.

Lord Faulks, QC

House of Lords

Sir, As surrogates who have given birth to eight surrogate babies between us (with another one on the way), we were horrified to read Alice Thomson’s article about the twins who are now in “indefinite legal limbo” after the refusal by the surrogate to consent to a parental order. The current law is failing children, parents and surrogates alike. It is a myth that surrogates would want a system in place that enables us to change our minds at any stage and keep the baby. We always know that the babies we carry are not ours to keep. We would always put the best interest of the babies we carry first and would definitely support a law reform that allows a court to do this.

The courts should be able to rule what is best for the child.

Michelle Green, Anne Dunkley, Sue Fisher, Janine Gregory & Lianna Macfarlane (all members of Surrogacy UK)

GREEN-BELT HOUSING

Sir, Further to your report “Councils offered huge ‘bribes’ to build homes on green belt” (Dec 13), green belt land could be designated into grades. The first and second grades would be unchangeable. The third grade could, however, allow development if part of the proceeds went to first and second-grade land improvement and the housing that was built on it was subject to a quality and local vernacular test.

An appropriate use might well be to reinvent a modern vernacular of Georgian and Victorian pattern-book housing, where high-quality design was a prerequisite and allowed high- density terraces. A pattern-book approach would allow a designated product to be used countrywide via the addition of appropriate façades, thereby industrialising the housing process in the way the Georgians did.

Allowing a product type as a pre- authorised style would bring planning into the 21st century. The product, as with any other branded work, would no longer be subject to each planning committee’s differing requirements.

Sir Stuart Lipton

London W1

Sir, The situation is even worse than your report suggests. Plundering the green belt is frequently justified by developers and planners on the grounds that this provides affordable housing for local residents. If only. Much new housing in cities such as Cambridge is being bought by overseas investors, who keep it empty in order to avoid wear and tear — so such homes are of no benefit at all to local residents. Furthermore, developers save costs by building on the green belt rather than on the more demanding brownfield sites, and houses on the edge of cities can demand higher prices because of their location and “nicer” environment.

As a first step, the government should pass legislation banning investors from keeping properties empty for longer than a limited period. As a second step the government should bribe councils to build on more expensive brownfield sites, which would be much better than paying them to destroy beautiful countryside for the sake of lining the pockets of overseas investors.

Denis R Alexander

Cambridge

CREDITABLE CAPTAIN?

Sir, The RFU’s trumpeting of discipline as one of its core values rings very hollow given its declaration that Dylan Hartley’s sending-off for striking an opponent in the head — the latest in a series of offences that have occasioned bans totalling 54 weeks for gouging, biting, punching and swearing at the referee — has done nothing to damage his prospects of continuing as England captain, because he has enough “credit in the bank” (Sport, Dec 14). What an example for aspiring youngsters.

Tony Phillips

Chalfont St Giles, Bucks

EMOTING IN PUBLIC

Sir, I thought Melanie Phillips’s article (Dec 12) was tremendously insightful, and I did not feel that she was showing an “attitude of intolerance” (letter, Dec 14) — I felt she was trying to restore a sense of balance. Simply put, bad things happen. How one deals with, and reacts to, personal tragedies will vary from person to person. There are appropriate times and places for “speaking up and displaying emotion” on personal matters. The Commons is, or should be, a place of work, not a confessional, and I would hope and expect that MPs’ behaviour there would reflect that.

Joanna Cox

East Chinnock, Somerset

QUEEN OF AMERICA

Sir, TMS (Dec 13) claims that Queen Anne (died 1714) was America’s last female head of state. In fact that honour belongs to Catherine the Great of Russia, who ruled part of Alaska from 1784 until her death in 1796. Of course she never ruled all of America, but then neither did Queen Anne: British rule extended only to her colonies clinging to the east coast.

Giles Black

Diss, Norfolk

ODE TO SPARROWS

Sir, Jonathan Choat laments the disappearance of urban sparrows and starlings (letter, Dec 14). This must surely entail a diminution in poetic inspiration for the people of London. The haunting and beautiful image of Psalm 102, “I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the housetop”, would not impress as deeply if the sparrow was swapped for the complacent and well-fed city pigeon.

Neil Sewell-Rutter

Oxford

LESS IS LESS

Sir, Homeopathy teaches that the more dilute the elixir, the greater its potency. It is clear that its practitioners apply the same dictum to the question of evidence (report and Thunderer, Dec 13).

Michael Baum

Prof emeritus of surgery & visiting professor of medical humanities, UCL

THE EDGE OF REASON

Sir, There can be no excuse for including a fictional character in a power list of women who “had the most important influence on female lives in the past 70 years” which omits the Nobel peace prize winner Malala Yousafzai (“Bridget Jones is on power list. V good”, Dec 14).

Bernard Kingston

Biddenden, Kent