26/06/2011 The Politics Show North East and Cumbria

Here: Councils under fire for closing down their residential care

homes. After Southern Cross, should they step in to protect older

people? Fluff and respected Teesside MP who

wants to ban parents of young children from smoking in the car.

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 2512 seconds

Hello and a very warm welcome to your local part of the show. Coming

up: Should parents travelling with young children in the car be banned

from smoking? We talk to the North East MP who wants to change the law.

But we start with an issue that has been dominating the headlines -

care of the elderly. It was not long ago that many residential care

homes in Cumbria and the North East were owned and run by local

councils. But in recent years they have

mostly been closed down or sold off, the residents moved into privately

run homes. At the time, some relatives

protested it - amid warnings of what might go wrong. So after

events at Southern Cross, have the critics been proved right?

Protesters taken Durham County Council as it decides to close care

homes. They decided to move the mother of Ann Dryden who is in will

stop the day she left - it was awful. The staff were in tears and

she was in tears. Not just for her but for other people as well who

were leaving. We pick the care home she is in now because her friends

were going. A year on the is fresh uncertainty because the home she

has been moved to it belongs to Southern Cross. I must stress that

the home she is in, she's taken very good care of. But it is a

private business and it is for profits. Once the profits go, how

do they manage the care? Would it be the same? It is just worrying

and it is worrying for all the other people who have relatives in

the care home. I cannot think what will happen if she has to move

again, she is 93 and quite frail. The council home she loved is now

boarded up husk. She believes the council has let older people down

by leaving residential care to the private sector but councils claim

they have no choice. It. Two harsh economics. Durham County Council

says it cost up to �1,000 a week to house an older person in one of

their own homes. Contrast that with the private sector who only charged

up to 480p a week for the same order Pehrson. That is a powerful

incentive for councils to close homes. -- older person. Most

councils are now concentrating on centres like this one at Newcastle

which provides emergency care and short stays. The council here

believes the fewer homes should be in hands of the profit-driven.

Local authorities have not been in the care home business for 20 years

now. I do not see local authorities directly to in that in the future.

However, I think they have a key role to stimulate the development

of new kinds of provision, working with third sector organisations,

social enterprise and co-operatives to develop not for profit models

which achieve the objectives of providing good quality care but do

not syphon off large amounts of profit. The council still has a

problem - even in a privately run care home like this one, they pay

the fees. Private operators say the Hague -- the council refuses to pay

the full cost of care, they are freezing payments and causing

problems. Councils are setting a fee rate which is picked up out of

the ear. It matches their budget and does not relate to real cost

and the margin necessary to do the cost -- do the job property --

properly. The underpayment can be into six figures. Over 100,000 and

that is a lot of money for one individual home to be short of.

Where does that leave the future? The charity which represents old

people believes we are heading for more crisis unless the government

finds more extra money. Certainly, Age UK reckons that in 2014, the

government will be spending two and an �50 million less than they spent

in 2004 on care for older people. We as the government to commit up

to �3 billion to prevent the covers system from collapsing. That threat

of collapse has prompted calls for local authorities and the

government to take action to protect older people.

Let us talk now to the Labour MP for Washington and Sunderland West,

Sharon Hodgson and the Conservative Euro-MP for the North East, Martin

Callanan. Was it a mistake to allow the private sector to care for

older people? I have a five care homes caring for people in my

constituency. What matters is what happens now. We are where we are

and we need to look to the future. We need to look at new models...

Was it a mistake? We are looking at relying on the private-sector - for

councils to get out of this situation and all the risks for

people like Southern Cross. If you want to look back, you have to go

back to the 1990s when compulsory tendering was brought in. 85 % of

government money that was sent from the government to local councils

had to be spent in the private sector. When we came in in 1997 we

scrap this mandate and said there had to be a more level playing

field. In 2000, we scrapped their compulsory tendering... You did

nothing to prevent the closure of homes. We brought in best-value so

it was not about going for the cheapest option but for best value.

OK, I accept you. But what about the future? Andy Burnham in the

last government tried to work across parties with the Lib Dems

and the Conservatives on a National Care Service. I think we still need

to look at that. We need to work together. We cannot. Score on this.

The care over elderly is far too important for this. We need to work

together and find a way which works for all of us. What it

Conservatives think? A lot of people say profit should not play a

part in providing care for older people, what do you think? I do not

agree with that. The reality is they are good homes and the private

sector and their bad homes and the public sector, we all know examples

of that. It is about getting the right Regulation, the right here

and the appropriate regulation in place and enforcing those standards.

Isn't the end result being driven by profit meaning more Southern

Cross and more crisis? I do not accept this logic. There are some

very good privately owned care homes. I know a lot of them in the

North East. It is about putting the appropriate regulation in place. We

have to look at the cost of things and get best value for the money we

spend as taxpayers because these places are expenses -- expensive.

Our all people deserve good quality care and that can be put in place

by the appropriate register -- legislation. Councils are not

providing the full cost of care here, they are cutting funding to

some of the Most Honourable people in the community. The councils have

had their funding cut by central government. But they have choices.

What we have to do is make sure no Southern Cross can happen again.

When you hear that at private US equity company could come in and

buy up the whole of Southern Cross 462 million and then sell it for

the three years later for a four times that, the reason they could

make a profit was because the sold off follow homes and were renting

them back. This has led to where we are now. The government has a

responsibility to legislate against that and not allow private

companies to do things like that in the future. He did not regulate

when he had the chance in government. Where we are aware that

was happening? Private companies always find ways to maximise

profits. Who would have believed that the company would sell off

their care homes and assets and rent them back? That is such a

strange model, how would you know to regulate against that? But now

we know, we can do something about it now. As Age UK said, you're not

putting enough money in the system. The budget for the NHS has been

ring-fenced and the budget for care. The care home provider said that

the money that was supposed to be handed over to help out with

elderly here, actually they could not find any trace of it. It had

not reached down to providers. money is ring-fenced from

government to local authorities and how they spend that for public or

private sector is up to them. I accept your central point that

funding will be restricted. The cut -- we are borrowing billions of

pounds every day and we have to make savings where appropriate.

care for elderly people - is that not important? We were left in this

mess by the policies of the government she supported who

bankrupted the country. We have to sort out the mess. The care of all

people is a priority and we need to find the appropriate resources but

we have to look at terms of best value and bringing in the

appropriate quality of care and the proper legislation. Shall I tell

you it that clients are not founded by councils But funded privately

are being charged more to subsidise the fact that councils are not

paying their full amount, that is not right, is it? People are means-

tested and have to contribute to their care but that is a problem in

the system. It provides incentives to people to dispose of their

assets knowing that the state will pick up the bill. This is a problem

that the last government looked at without coming up with a solution.

An independent commission needs to be set-up and will report next

month to put in a long-term framework for care which provides

for a state contribution element, the state should not be all the

bills. Hopefully, this will be done on a cross-party basis because it

is important to have a long-term framework which provides a proper

framework to go forward for the future. We jigger the that the

records of politicians is pretty awful. Labour had 13 years.

Commission reports on long-term care but nothing was done about it.

That was something which grew gradually... In 1999 Dec you

commissioned a report but did not take any action on it. We can look

back at the mistakes on the past. That is what I am saying. Or we can

look at the future. As Martin said, we need to work together. Retried

this in the last days of the last government. We looked at and

national care system. -- we tried this. There has to be a form of

contribution. Thank you both very much indeed.

Smoking in many public places - whether pubs, restaurants or

football grounds - was banned 4 years ago. This week a North East

MP proposed a Commons Bill that would go much further. Stockton's

Alex Cunningham wants parents travelling with young children to

be banned from smoking in their cars. But is such a ban enforceable

and is legislating over what people do in private really a good idea?

The suggestion has certainly triggered a lively debate. Alex

Cunningham wants to outlaw smoking in cars where children are

passengers, Sarah is on the line. Should it be out lot? I think it

should be. My sister used to smoke a lot in the car with her small

children. If children are in your car, should you be forced to stop

smoking? Would it be too difficult to enforce? The subject which has

been talked about all week. Should or should you not light up when

children are in the car? Are they going to police smokers in their

own houses? This debate is close to the heart of Louise Morris and her

daughter. I used to smoke in the car all the time. I have given up

smoking for three years so she is six now. She was a toddler when I

was smoking. Louise now thinks her daughter's health is better since

she has stopped smoking. She would have quite a few runny noses and

coughs and colds when I was smoking. When you give up, you see that they

disappear. Your child is better. Louise supports a ban on smoking in

cars with children. I think it is a good idea. It is the health of

their child that they're not thinking about as well as their own

health. Smoking rates have reduced in the North East - they dropped

from 29 % down to 22 % in 2009. This is held by the smoking ban in

pars and cafes and other public places. Here at this market in

Newcastle they are running a drop- in session to help people quit

smoking. What do shoppers make of banning smoking in cars with

children? Personally, I do not think uses smoke in front of

children any way. If you have kids and the car, it should be banned.

Just using common sense. Whether it is a good idea to make legislation

about it, I do not know. Wood stopping people smoking in cars

actually work? Some experts are convinced that making it illegal as

the best that solution. I think it is a really good idea to raise this

issue and I support Mr Cunningham for raising this in Parliament.

84,000 children in the North East are being exposed every year in

cars to second-hand smoke. We know this is a toxic cocktail of over

4,000 chemicals. The reality is about a 13,000 of those children

every year have to go and see their doctor. It might not feel that

significant with coughs and colds but second-hand smoke exposure

causes things like a middle ear infections and meningitis and

serious of all things like cot death. There is a long way to go to

persuade people to give up cigarettes and pro-smoking groups

see further restrictions as being another attack on people enjoying

what is a legal product. The Stockton North MP Alex

Cunningham, who put forward that Bill in the Commons on Wednesday,

joins me from a Teesside studio now. Most people we spoke to agree with

you that people should not smoke in the car. Is using the log the best

we to stop them? I believe it is because people in this country do

or be the log and that was true in when we had the seat belt

legislation. Up to 90 % of people now use their seatbelts. 15 % of

people who smoke do actually smoke in cars with children present which

put them into an environment of heavy smoking which is not good for

their health so the law is the right idea. They had some qualms

about this and thought persuasion might be better than an extra law.

Persuasion is one thing but we need to invest more money in education.

I know the chance of his becoming law is slim. The important thing is

people across the country is that people had been talking about this

issue, raising the issue means it is in the minds of people and

perhaps they will respond to it. You have proposed legislation so we

have to look at that. How could you enforce this? You do not expect the

police to see if people are lighting up the car when it is a

child seat in it? That will be very difficult and I acknowledge that.

When there are laws, people of a them. I would like to think if we

introduce such a log, the 50 % of people who think it is acceptable

to smoke in cars with children present will stop doing it. Would

it be a good use of the legal system to prosecute people smoking

in cars with children present? it is the ultimate situation. It is

similar to being caught speeding, it have a finer points on their

licence or the King go on education course. It would be great if we can

encourage people to go on an education course. For people who

are smokers, they feel besieged. If you dictate what people can do but

-- in their private lives, where does it end? It is the

concentration of smoke in a car which is the issue here. You may as

well invite the child to smoke it themselves in some cases. There is

a marvellous advert for the British Lung Foundation at the moment with

a child sitting in the back of the car with a cigarette in their hands

which illustrates how horrible it says. Can you ever transgress into

the private spaces of people? think the child's private space is

the important element here. The child does not have the choice.

More than 50 % of children say they do not like the fact that people

smoke in cars and they do not like shaving that smoke. They want them

to smoke. It is this private space of the child as well as the adult.

Alex Cunningham thank you. And that's about all from us.

There's much more on my blog - including the government's decision

to scrap plans for "shadow mayors" in 11 English cities including

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