McDonnell in plea to nationalise care sector

JOHN McDonnell is calling for the “urgent nationalisation” of the care sector to help the UK cope with a second wave of coronavirus this winter.

The former Shadow Chancellor believes the state should take over from private firms, which run the majority of care homes, to secure high-quality care across the board.

In his first policy intervention since stepping down from Labour’s frontbench, he will harness the spirit of Clement Attlee who founded the

NHS after coming to power in 1945. He will say that nationalising the sector would “complete the unfinished business” of that government. Almost 15,000 care home residents died during the pandemic.

Boris Johnson pledged when he became PM one year ago this week to “fix the social care crisis once and for all” but no plan has been forthcoming.

A petition signed by 110,000 people will be handed into No 10 this week by Age UK to increase the pressure to deliver on his promise. Mr McDonnell INTERVENTION John McDonnell will launch Claim the Future, calling tomorrow for Labour to adopt radical policies. He will speak of his fear of a “repeat of what happened after the banking crash in 2008, when Labour left a vacuum that the right readily filled”.

Around £8billion in funding has been cut from social care since 2010 by Tory-led governments. Mr McDonnell will say: “With another spike in the virus highly possible... we need the urgent nationalisation of care to establish the National Care and Support Service.”

The Mirror’s Fair Care for All campaign demands the elderly are afforded proper care.

A NATIONAL Care Service that runs alongside the National Health Service is no guarantee of perfection but it would almost certainly be an improvement on the current expensive chaos.

Labour’s leader Keir Starmer will craft his own policy agenda but the proposal by former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell is worth considering carefully.

Senior figures in Unison, a trade union with intimate knowledge of how private homes operate, also favour nationalisation.

Smaller centres can be homely but profithungry corporations are part of the sector’s problem. We need to care about who owns and runs homes to improve care for everyone.