3 June 2024 – today’s press releases

  • Ed Davey launches plan for free personal care to end hospital crisis and help people stay in their own homes
  • Chamberlain: Liberal Democrats will restore public service to our politics
  • McArthur responds to SNP Government scrapping recycling target
  • Alex Cole-Hamilton’s opening statement in STV Leaders’ Debate

Ed Davey launches plan for free personal care to end hospital crisis and help people stay in their own homes

  • Liberal Democrats announce groundbreaking plans to offer free personal care to all those who need it
  • Ed Davey will put care at the heart of the Liberal Democrats’ plan for the country, becoming the first ever party to have a dedicated chapter in manifesto on care
  • Latest figures show over 12,700 hospital beds taken up by patients ready to be discharged with some waiting months
  • The party’s flagship social care announcement will be funded by reversing tax cuts given to big banks by the Conservatives

Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey will today launch a bold plan to fix the social care crisis, including providing free personal care to help elderly people stay in their own homes for longer.

The groundbreaking policy would revolutionise the care system in England and alleviate pressure on the NHS, by providing free personal care for everyone who needs it. The plan would help more people to receive the care they need in their own homes and prevent people having to sell their house to pay for personal care.

Personal care covers nursing care, help with mobility, hygiene and medication, whether people are in their own home or a care home. Those needing residential care would still have to contribute towards their accommodation.

Ed Davey, who has been a carer himself throughout his life, said that too often family carers were being left to “pick up the pieces” because the care system wasn’t there for them. He added that fixing the care crisis is fundamental to tackling the crisis facing the NHS.

An estimated 1.6 million elderly people in England have unmet care needs, with many stranded in hospital beds due to the lack of space in care homes or resources to provide follow-up care in their own homes. The latest figures show an average of 12,772 hospital beds in England per day this April were occupied by people ready to be discharged. An average of 1,994 patients a day in April were waiting to begin care at home, while 1,904 patients a day were waiting for a bed in a care home.

In one-heart-breaking case, a woman with autism in Sussex saw her health significantly deteriorate after spending nine months in hospital waiting for a place in a care home.

The Liberal Democrats’ plans would cost £2.7 billion a year by 2028-29, fully funded by reversing tax cuts handed by the Conservative party to the big banks since 2016. The party’s plan would also save the NHS up to £3 billion through reduced pressure on hospitals and other NHS services.

The Liberal Democrats will have a dedicated chapter on care in their manifesto, becoming the first political party to do so. The plan will also include introducing a Carer’s Minimum Wage set £2 above the minimum wage to tackle the huge shortage of care workers, and creating a Royal College of Care Workers comparable to the Royal Colleges of nursing and midwives.

Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey said:

As a carer for my disabled son, and after caring for my ill mother when I was young, care is deeply personal for me. That is why I am putting fixing the care crisis at the heart of the Liberal Democrat offer to the country at this election.

Far too often, family carers are being left to pick up the pieces because the care system simply isn’t there for them. Millions of people are going without the care they need, while thousands are stuck in hospital beds instead of being cared for in their own home or a care home.

We cannot fix the crisis facing the NHS without fixing the crisis facing social care. The Liberal Democrats would bring in free personal care to help people live independently and with dignity, in their own homes wherever possible.

Chamberlain: Liberal Democrats will restore public service to our politics

Ahead of the first Scottish leaders’ debate of the general election, Scottish Liberal Democrat deputy leader Wendy Chamberlain hit the campaign trail in Fife, highlighting that her party would ensure better access to GPs and NHS dentists, end sewage dumping and lift up Scottish education.

The party’s deputy leader is campaigning in Dunfermline today, discussing her party’s plans for a fairer deal. Scottish Liberal Democrats would:

  • Improve access to GPs by tackling staff burnout and drawing on the wider skills in mental health, physiotherapy, pharmacy and more;
  • Address the crisis in NHS dentistry by prioritising workforce planning and speeding up the registration process for qualified dentists from overseas;
  • End sewage dumping with a new Clean Water Act to upgrade our Victorian sewage network and create binding targets for reducing sewage dumps;
  • Lift up Scottish education by tackling the violence in our schools and delivering more in-class support.

Speaking on the campaign trail, Wendy Chamberlain said:

I am very much looking forward to highlighting our positive message for change at this election.

In Fife and across the country, people are tired of both the SNP and the Conservatives. They are both out of ideas and out of road.

Liberal Democrats want a fair deal for everyone; we will put public service back into the beating heart of our politics. That means getting everyone faster access to a GP and an NHS dentist, ending the sewage dumping in our rivers and lifting up Scottish education.

McArthur responds to SNP Government scrapping recycling target

Commenting on the Scottish Government quietly dropping its target of 60% waste recycling, Scottish Liberal Democrat climate emergency spokesperson Liam McArthur MSP said:

Once again, the SNP’s response to their own failures on the environment is simply to abolish the targets they missed.

Low recycling rates are the inevitable result of government choices. Infrastructure across Scotland simply is not up to scratch to support people to make positive waste choices. After years of reduced income from the SNP’s council tax freeze policy, local councils have been unable to invest adequately in the growth of recycling facilities to meet demand.

Instead of getting on with tackling these fundamental issues, the Scottish Government has consistently chosen nationalism over environmentalism.

Scottish Liberal Democrats are committed to positive solutions like support for businesses and households to reduce waste, a country-wide latte levy to prevent millions of cups going straight to landfill, and a conversation about when non-recyclable single use plastics can be banned outright.

Alex Cole-Hamilton’s opening statement in STV Leaders’ Debate

Delivering his opening statement to the public during the STV Leaders’ Debate, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP said:

There was a time when you could see your GP at the first point of asking, when our schools were world class, and all the ferries worked.

But over many years government ministers in London and Edinburgh have lost sight of what matters to you. You’re working harder but it feels like you’re falling further behind.

We badly need some hope and a change of direction. Well, Scottish Liberal Democrats are all about hope, and we’re part of the change that’s coming.

In the next Parliament we’ll be working for a better Britain, to restore your faith in politics and fix our broken relationship with Europe.

We’ll fight for fast access to GPs, NHS dentists and mental health services.

We’ll stop sewage being dumped in our rivers and fight the climate emergency.

We’ll deliver world beating education and a green jobs revolution to get our economy growing again.

Back the Liberal Democrats for a fair deal for you, for your family, and for Scotland.

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This entry was posted in News, Press releases and Scotland.
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9 Comments

  • Mick Taylor 4th Jun '24 - 9:58am

    Thanks for the heads up Mark. I listened to Ed’s interview and thought he came across well and on top of the brief. He actually another questions posed, a real difference to the evasive answers given by Tory and Labour interviewees.

  • Mick Taylor 4th Jun '24 - 10:00am

    Bloody predictive text. Another should be answered!

  • Peter Martin 4th Jun '24 - 3:29pm

    Congratulations to the Lib Dems. You’re now more left wing than Labour!

    https://www.politicalcompass.org/uk2024

  • Peter Davies 4th Jun '24 - 4:38pm

    and the Tories are now right of RefUK.

  • Mick Taylor 4th Jun '24 - 5:11pm

    @PeterMartin. Not exactly a surprise given the ever rightward drift of the Labour Party. Will you now be backing the LibDems?!

  • @PeterMartin – I suggest given the metrics used to compile the chart , being left of Labour is a good thing. Although, I do suspect the chart also indicates the LibDems have also drifted to the right…

  • I find it hard to take Political Compass’s assessment seriously when it (implausibly) has the LibDems and Labour both substantially to the right on economic issues, and the SNP in particular massively to the left of the LibDems.

  • Peter Martin 4th Jun '24 - 10:12pm

    @ Mick<

    “Will you now be backing the LibDems?”

    Possibly! I won’t be voting Labour.

    Although it’s not just about left and right. It’s about the integrity of the party leadership too. Starmer fails dismally on that measure.

  • @Simon R
    … and the Greens, who want a completely different economic structure, barely to the left *economically* of the SNP’s fairly standard centre-left “capitalism+safety net” economics.

    Their model is pretty terrible even before they start putting parties on it, of course – answering the questions in the role of a military dictator can score “mildly libertarian” provided that they’re not sexist or racist with it and view established religion and multi-national corporations as rival powers to be suppressed rather than courted; within the implicit “western industrial democracy” scope that at least avoids that problem it might as well be called Political Line for how strongly the two axes correlate; then packing the entire political establishment into the +5->+10 range so that there’s minimal difference between the English centre-left and Reform is at best useless and at worst intentionally misleading.

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