I am sure that when the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare), responds to the debate she will give the full detail of Labour’s proposals.
Let me return to my point about the important elements of reform that we need in local government. First, we need all care workers to be paid the living wage. By that I mean not Mr Osborne’s fake national living wage, which was the national minimum wage, but the real living wage, which in London is now more than £10 an hour but still languishes under £9 in other parts of the country. That must be addressed urgently. We need to look at those wages not least because of the important point that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson) said, we are losing so many carers from the care sector. In addition, the Government are mandating vaccinations, and there is a big question mark over whether that is the correct strategy for those workers. Perhaps that is just another policy area where the Government are like a shopping trolley. Perhaps they will do another U-turn tomorrow and we will see that gone, we just do not know.
The other important element is training. Many experts have told me about the importance of training in the care sector, in the NHS, and especially in those dispersed jobs where people are actually working in the homes of those for whom they care and in our care homes. There is a desperate need for training and a proper career path in order to encourage people into the sector. Even the promise on the apprenticeship opportunities for young people to enter the care sector has been deeply disappointing in terms of the figures involved. Very few from the kickstart programme have ended up in the care sector, which desperately needs young people or people who are re-entering the workforce, but they need to be on a proper training path and in a proper career so that we have high quality care.
I hope that Members will search their consciences and think about how those leaflets will look at the next general election. We will be brutal about this, because the measure is attacking those who are least able to afford it.
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