The rather inadequate levelling-up approach being proposed by this Government seems to totally ignore their other policies such as their very damaging approach in the Health and Care Bill which is failing to protect people who do not live in the wealthy settings that Ministers do. This tweet by Carl Packman that emerged on Tuesday clearly reflected on an item that had been published by the BBC news agency. Sadly it was clear from the votes on Tuesday that a significant number of Tories voted to support the call from the Government to reject the position of a number of people including Roma who is focused on in this tweet and the BBC article. It was very disturbing that so many Tory MPs were prepared to reject the clear call by Jeremy Hunt and nearly 20 of his colleagues who voted for the Health and Care Bill — Clause 34 – Report on assessing and meeting workforce needs. There were 276 Tories who voted against Hunt and for the Government to oppose the clause. That said it was also very sad that only 214 MPs voted for the Clause 34 and given that 19 Tories approved it which was of course a very short number, but that also less than 200 of other MPs voted to support it. There were only 174 Labour MPs which is only 86% of the Party. If the others voted sadly it would not have been enough of the MPs to support Jeremy’s call. We would really have needed the 45 SNPs to endorse it!

So back to Carl Packman who is a Campaigner and writer, working on an anti-poverty initiative. His tweet is above and the BBC page is available here and the piece that Carl has focused on is as follows:

Lorraine Hershon from Northumberland says her mother Roma, who lives in a care home, has spent “every penny that she ever earned” on care. Despite selling her house and drawing on her savings, a total bill of £140,000 and rising has left Roma unable to afford items such as new slippers and clothes, she adds. She says for her mother, 83, selling her home was “probably the worst thing ever”. “She was a single parent, she worked night and day to have her own home – and then it’s all gone,” Lorraine adds. “Nobody thinks it will happen to them… They have no idea the system is there to suck every penny out of you, regardless of your circumstances.”

We need all MPs and particularly the Tory MPs to start to understand how people like Lorraine Hershon are being impacted by care requirements so that before the Bill gets set up that the Jeremy Hunt clause will get supported by either the SNP MPs or by more Labour and Tory MPs.