If you live outside south Devon in England, and you were unable to see a copy of the February-March 2015 edition of The Torbay Times, here is my "Pensioners Platform" column in full:-
FOR more than seventy
years Westminster politicians from all parties have been sleepwalking towards a
demographic nightmare, yet none of them have woken-up to the problems that
would eventually confront us all. To make matters even worse, I’m not talking
rocket science here, or even unreliable statistics (are they ever otherwise?), but
simple arithmetic and the effect the numbers game has on the passage of time.
By the time World War
II ended in May 1945, the government of the day was already trumpeting the need
for an increase in birth rates to redress the population imbalance caused by
wartime mortalities. Five years later, the Baby Boomer generation had more than
made-up for that shortfall. However, no serving MP since 1945 appears to have
grasped the simple arithmetical fact that those Baby Boomers who survived into
the early 2000s would all have arrived at the age of 65 by the end of 2015.
As if to add injury to
insult, on Wednesday January 28, 2015, it was announced that the spending on
care in England for those of us aged 65 or over had fallen by a fifth in ten
years. Yes, twenty per cent! In 2003-4 the official data showed that £1,188 was
being spent on every person receiving care aged over 65 and living in England.
By 2013-14, once inflation had been taken into account, that figure had fallen
to £952 per person.
Before I go any further, let me clarify
something: the care of the elderly is the responsibility of local government,
not the NHS. Indeed social care is provided by councils and, at present, it is
up to those councils to set the point at which a local resident becomes
entitled to care. Most councils set the threshold at ‘substantial’ or ‘critical’
needs, which means only those with the highest care requirements can get help.
And it doesn’t end there because people with assets of more than £23,250
have to pay the full cost of that care, regardless of whether it is in a care
home, nursing home or in their own home. In fact, if the care is to be
administered outside the person’s own home, that figure may include the value
of their property.
In April 2016, though, the system is changing. From then onwards the
cost of care will be capped at £72,000 from the age of 65. However, that sum
only includes the care element. Approximately £230 per week of the costs
charged by the care home will not count towards that cap because such sums will
be classed as living costs that people would otherwise have to pay in the
community to cover such things as accommodation, food and bills.
But why didn’t the politicians of successive parliaments from 1950
onwards see this sorry state of affairs coming? Was it short-sightedness on
their part or ineptitude, or a bit of both? Or was it more a case of they just
didn’t care, because their tenure as an MP was only temporary, and they would
be either dead or receiving a fat pension at tax-payers’ expense by 2010? Whatever the answer, we over-65s are now compelled
to experience the appalling mess left in the wake of their inaction.
However, I believe there are a couple of straight-forward remedies that,
if implemented by the next government, would not only repair our badly damaged
care system overnight, but would also breathe new life into the funding of the NHS,
mend our pot-holed roads and crumbling schools, and provide new, affordable
homes for our grandchildren.
I’ve said this before in the Pensioners Platform column, and I make no
apology for stating it again. Firstly, the deeply discriminatory Barnett
Formula should be scrapped. It has been in existence since the 1970s, and it
places England at a distinct fiscal disadvantage when compared to Scotland,
Wales and Northern Ireland. Secondly, like it or lump it, Britain is no longer
a genuine major player in global affairs. To pretend otherwise is pure folly. We
should therefore stop acting like a universal benefactor … cash cow might be a
better description … before we too become a Third World nation.
Surely, then, it’s time to, at least, suspend the profligate Overseas
Aid programme and put our own house in order. Goodness knows we have an awful
lot to put right, before feathering the nests of any more corruption-riddled
nation states. When all is said and done, the cash used as overseas aid is UK
taxpayer funded. The politicians may not care where the money goes, but we –
the people – do!
