Part of the debate – in Westminster Hall am 4:47 pm ar 12 Medi 2023.
If the hon. Gentleman had been at the TUC conference today, he would have heard the shadow Deputy Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend Angela Rayner, outline precisely what Labour’s fair pay deal will be for the social care sector, but we need to go beyond that. We need to ensure that social care becomes a valued profession again, rather than just assuming that agency staff can fill the vacancies. We need to make sure that social care once again has parity with the rest of the healthcare system and that care workers want to work in the care sector not just because of pay, terms and conditions, but because it is a profession—which, sadly, many feel it no longer is.
We will work in partnership with users and families and develop a set of national standards based on existing minimum entitlements and legal rights, including legal rights that exist in the Equality Act 2010—a piece of legislation of which I am fiercely proud, and which the last Labour Government took through Parliament and put on the statute book. We need to make sure that all service delivery, particularly in social care, meets the ambitions and legal expectations of the Equality Act—sadly, that has let down so many LGBT+ people in the social care sector, as we have seen from the statistics in the surveys that I have cited this afternoon.
We would also ensure that our commitment to raise standards right across the sector is upheld by requiring all care providers to demonstrate financial sustainability and, crucially for this debate, to deliver high quality care for service users before they are allowed to receive contracts from local authorities, making sure that local authorities commission care providers who are capable of delivering the care that people need at the standard we should expect. That would result in more personalised and ultimately higher-quality care for all individuals.
In 2023 people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and others should not feel ostracised by a system that is there to support them. They should not feel ignored and that their personal needs are not being met. Ultimately, they should not feel the need to hide the fact that they are gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans or other. I hope that the Minister will agree with me that we can get to work on delivering that higher standard of care for all service users. The testimony that we have heard today from my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood should stand as that end point. Never again should somebody from the LGBT+ community be treated as we have heard. “Never again” should be more than a slogan. It should be deeds.