MILLIONS FAIL TO SAVE FOR OLD AGE
Shock survey reveals nine out of 10 not saving enough for social care
BRITAIN faces a social care timebomb after it emerged only one in 10 over-55s has money set aside to pay for help they might need in later life, research shows.
The stark report today also reveals few people have discussed what kind of care they would like with family or friends, and many do not know how to find information they need.
Campaigners said it showed the Government’s proposals due this autumn
on funding social care – such as help with washing, dressing, cooking and chores – must be realistic about the fact that most people do not plan ahead much and so will need quick and effective help if crisis hits.
The survey published today by the Which? consumer organisation found that only 12 per cent of people aged 55 or over say they have put aside money to meet future care needs.
Fifty-five per cent say they are prioritising other things they want or need to do now.
Only 34 per cent have discussed with a friend or relative what care they would like, and a fifth do not know where to look for information about the sector.
Just under a third, 30 per cent, assume the social care system will deliver them good quality care, while 36 per cent think this is unlikely.
Which? said its findings should alert the Government to ensure its plans take account of how people actually behave.
Stress
Alex Hayman, managing director of public markets at Which?, said: “The broken social care system cannot continue to fail older people and their families in delivering high-quality, affordable care when they most need support.
“The Government must recognise that most people won’t have made extensive plans for their care, so the system must be designed to help people get the support they need at a time of crisis and stress for themselves and their loved ones.”
Pollster Populus surveyed 2,104 people in June, of whom 793 were aged 55 or over for Which?, which is campaigning to make the Government “face up to the care crisis” and ensure high quality provision for all elderly people.
It found nearly a quarter of people would go to the internet first for information about care and 15 per cent would go to their GP.
However, it is actually local authorities who are responsible for advising residents about care.
A Local Government Association spokesman said: “Anyone may need social care and support at any stage, particularly as we grow older.
“But a lack of certainty over future funding of adult social care, and the split of responsibilities between individuals and councils in who pays for it, is making this hard to financially plan for.
“Adult social care is at breaking point due to years of underfunding, rising demand and costs for care.
“Anyone wishing to find out more about adult social care can be confident in receiving this information from councils which have a legal obligation to provide advice and guidance on this issue.
“There are many innovative services to help people make the right choice.”
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “We have provided local authorities with access to £9.4billion in dedicated social care funding over the last three years.
“Our Green Paper due in the autumn will set out our plans to reform the social care system, to ensure it is sustainable for the future.”
The findings came amid reports that ministers are considering introducing a “care ISA”, that would let people reserve a capped proportion of their income tax-free savings to spend on their own older life care. The incentive would be that any of the sum that was left when they died could pass on to loved ones free of inheritance tax.
THE European Union has always been the enemy of democracy. It is a sclerotic, quasiimperial, unelected bureaucracy obsessed with federal integration and the destruction of national sovereignty. Its authoritarian culture was captured by Labour politician Tony Benn who recorded in his diary after a visit to Brussels in 1974: “I felt as if I were going as a slave to Rome. The whole relationship was wrong. Here was I, an elected man who could be removed, and here were these people with more power than I had and no accountability to anybody.”
The same contempt for democracy infuses the EU’s supporters in Britain. That explains why they have been so unwilling to accept the result of the referendum. Ever since the vote in 2016 they have agitated to get the decision overturned.
But recently their campaign against Brexit has focused more heavily on the call for a second referendum, urging that the public should be given a vote on any deal that the Government reaches with Brussels.
Bolstered by EU intransigence in the negotiations, as well as profound divisions in the Tory Party over the Cabinet’s Brexit strategy, the Remain lobby thinks the tide is rapidly shifting in favour of this proposal. That confidence was highlighted yesterday by archRemainer Lord Kerr, who told the BBC that the momentum for a second plebiscite “is growing very fast”.
YET as they trumpet their demand the Remainers are engaged in an epic act of deceit. In an Orwellian contradiction they now pose as the champions of democracy in order to overturn the biggest democratic vote in British history. That doublethink was exposed yesterday in the utterances of anti-Brexiteer Julian Dunkerton, one of the co-founders of the Superdry fashion label, after he revealed a huge £1million donation to the People’s Vote organisation which is leading the campaign for a second referendum.
With no sense of irony Dunkerton openly stated that he wanted to see Brexit reversed. “We have a genuine chance to turn this around,” he declared. Then, in almost the next breath, he voiced his hope “that more and more people have the confidence to demand the democratic right for their voice to be heard”.
In case Dunkerton had not noticed the voice of the people was clearly expressed in 2016 when 17.4 million people voted in favour of EU withdrawal. He might not like that outcome but it is absurd of him to pretend that his attempt to alter the verdict is somehow an exercise in democracy.
Remainers often try to justify this kind of nonsense by claims that the 2016 referendum was illegitimate because the electorate was misled by dishonest propaganda and did not understand the implications of their decision. That attitude was epitomised in a speech at a People’s Vote rally on Saturday in Edinburgh by broadcaster Gavin Esler, who wailed about the “truth decay” which undermined a “truly fair and free and informed vote”.
When Remainers moan about people being “ill-informed” what they really mean is that Leave voters refused to swallow the spin from Brussels and the lies from Project Fear. The fashionable metropolitan sneering is wholly unjustified. The Brexiteers were not a flock of brainwashed, bigoted sheep. On the contrary they were decent, perceptive citizens who simply wanted their own country to be independent again, in charge of its own borders, laws, economy and trade.
But ominously, in response to all the Remain hysteria, there are reports that the Government is considering the possibility of a second referendum, based on the alternatives of either remaining in the EU or accepting any deal that Theresa May achieves. But it would be madness to surrender to the Europhile lobby. Such a move would be defeatist and a monumental distraction from the real task of delivering what the public voted for in 2016. Another vote could open the way to our permanent membership of the EU and the complete abandonment of Brexit.
That would be a disaster for our democracy, shattering faith in our political system, destroying the credibility of elections and worsening political divisions. Voters would be treated as penitent heretics, forced to atone for their past sins and reeducated to ensure they made the “correct” choice.
ASECOND referendum would reinforce the belief that in modern Britain only certain opinions are politically acceptable. The vote in 2016 was a glorious rejection by the British people of this suffocating, establishment consensus. The subsequent reversal of Brexit would be a sickening triumph for the establishment.
Such a vote would show that the EU is a prison from which it is impossible to escape. The commissars of Brussels would be cheering the loudest of all, believing that a rebellious province had been brought humiliatingly to heel. Europe’s political classes have form in compelling recalcitrant electorates to overturn previous votes, as happened in Denmark with the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 and Ireland with the Nice agreement in 2001.
But these were largely on technical and constitutional issues. The rejection of Brexit would be on a far greater scale. It would amount to the greatest betrayal of voters in our nation’s modern history.
That is why the Government must concentrate on the return of our essential, national freedom.
‘Madness to surrender to European lobby’