Protests over 'care cuts'

Adam Hewitt • Published 1 Jul 2010 18:00 2 Comments

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THE borough's new rulers dodged questions over the future of care for thousands of elderly people who will no longer get help if the rules change.

The Lib-Con Coalition has pledged to retain the eligibility criteria for social care until the end of this financial year, but makes no promises after that.

The Labour Party thinks it is planning to save millions by cutting the numbers of people it helps, as has happened in neighbouring Wokingham and West Berkshire.

If Reading employs the same criteria, where only those in "critical need" get help, 2,700 people would lose their care, Labour warns.

The party's former community care leader, Cllr Mike Orton, told a bad-tempered four-and-a-half hour council meeting on Tuesday night: "This is really serious politics about what's to come and it's about the future of our most vulnerable people."

During the debate the four parties lashed out at each other on the deficit, the coming cuts, the local and national coalitions and the election results. Labour kept trying and failing to amend the Coalition's funding document so it would make reference to the size of Reading's budget cuts, which started with an unprecedented £1.6m reduction last month. Tempers ran high when Cllr Orton put in an amendment calling on the council to "reaffirm its commitment to retain the current eligibility criteria for social care for the elderly and vulnerable for 2010/11 and into the future".

But community care leader, Cllr Daisy Benson, said: "I'm not in a position to make any unfunded promises."

Green councillor, Rob White, voted with the 19 Labour members to keep the criteria indefinitely, but the 25 Tories and Lib Dems present voted them down, blaming the last Labour government's unprecedented deficit.

During the arguments, Cllr Pete Ruhemann was forced to withdraw a comparison he made between the Lib Dem coalition partners and the Norwegian Nazi collaborator Vidkun Quisling - and Labour's Peter Jones accused the outraged Lib Dems and Tories of being "thin-skinned little munchkins".

- THERE was a demonstration ahead of the meeting, made up mostly of Labour and Green Party activists, against "Coalition cuts" in Reading and at Westminster.

Green Party Cllr, Rob White, said: "We need to fight these cuts which will hit the most vulnerable hardest."

Labour's new chairwoman, Sarah King, said: "While the banks return to business as usual, we took part in this demonstration to ensure the voices of the most vulnerable groups in our society, working households, children and young people and others who depend on public services are heard."

Have your say. Post a comment on this article.

Danny Warwick
Unregistered User
Jul 2, 19:44
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Well a week is a long time in politics a month is even longer.

New Labour protesting over possible cuts in Social Care, are

these the same people that co-operated in the privatisation

of these services.

The same people whose national leaders made promise after

promise on helping carers but left office with the allowance

paid to these important people at a miserly £54 per week.

I could go on.

My message to New Labour is put your own house in order

and when you commit to providing a properly funded care service

and decent support for carers then you might be taken seriously.

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Alan
Unregistered User
Jul 3, 10:03
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So if the council aren't to make any cuts, where do the activists suggest that the money for these services will come from?

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