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Parliamentary recess begins

Posted by Kate Green, MP for Stretford and Urmston, at 09:30, Fri 20 July 2012:

Parliament rose on Tuesday for the summer, and I'm back in the constituency, trying to meet and catch up with as many local groups and people as possible. There's lots going on, from the alarming scale of the police cuts (Trafford's set to lose 10% of its officers, and Graham Brady, MP for Altrincham and Sale West, and I met the Chief Constable earlier this week to express our concerns) to the sweeping changes in the NHS to a number of controversial planning decisions.

Things were busy in the last two working days in parliament too.

On Monday, Labour called important debates on health and social care. There have been plenty of debates over the past few months about the changes to the NHS, but this was really the first time we were able to debate the government's recent announcement about the future of long term care for elderly and disabled people.

This is a very serious issue. Already, over £1billion has been cut from local authority budgets for older people's social care. In Trafford, people are having to pay more for transport to services like day centres or for a hot meal at lunchtime. And many constituents have talked to me about their worries about how they'll look after an elderly relative or how the care home fees can be met.

An independent review of the longterm future of social care was carried out by Andrew Dilnot for the government, and it's made some far-reaching proposals, including introducing a cap on the amount peple would have to contribute to the cost of their own care, and raising the current means-tested threshold above which individuals have to pay for residential care. Labour supports these proposals, but there's absolutely no indication from the government about how councils will be funded to provide the necessary services.

Meantime, here in Trafford, we've been looking at the performance of the local council. And there are a number of worrying trends. I'm particularly worried about the numbers of people being admitted to hospital from residential care, and the low level of spending on care management that can help people to manage in their own homes for longer and prevent them needing to go into residential care.

This is another piece of the very complex jigsaw of the proposed changes to the NHS in Trafford. I'm a strong supporter of integrated care, bringing together NHS and social care for the joint planning and delivery of services. If we can't organise the social care to enable people to go on living in their own homes for longer, we drive up residential care costs. And if we're admitting people to hospital when we should be looking after them in the community, we "bed block" and create extra costs for the NHS.

All of this and changing demographics (we're living longer!) mean that the pressure for radical change to the way we provide health and social care services in Trafford is absolutely imperative. But changes to services can only be made with strong leadership from NHS and social services managers, and the necessary upfront investment.

I'd love to hear from anyone who has views about or personal experience of all this; a number of you have already contacted me to say you'd like to contribute to the work I'm doing on the subject, and I'll be in touch over the coming weeks to hear more about your thoughts. We absolutely have to grasp this nettle, and make some really bold plans for the future - we're not yet at crisis point, but when we can see the scale of need that's coming, we have a huge responsibility to drive the necessary changes forward.

I'll be continuing to speak out about this locally and in parliament.

I spent the last day in parliament before the summer concentrating on another subject of great importance and interest to me - education and employment opportunities for our young people. I'm shocked at the most recent figures for longterm youth unemployment, which has nearly doubled in Stretford and Urmston over the past 12 months. It was no surprise to me when I visited the Stretford deanery synod meeting on Wednesday evening that people wanted to discuss their anxieties about the lack of employment opportunities for young people.

In parliament I've been participating in a very interesting piece of work led by the Runnymede Trust which is looking at the unemployment rates among black and ethnic minority groups. These are really worrying - more than half of young black men who ought to be working are unemployed, more than double the rate of white young people. On Tuesday, a number of MPs, including Debbie Abrahams, MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth, David Lammy, who's the MP for Tottenham, and Diane Abbott, MP for Hackney North, and I listened to evidence about the lack of takeup of apprenticeships among young black people, and their under-representation in the top universities.

This is a terrible waste of talent, one we can't afford. And so the very last debate I attended before the summer break was on the government's plans to introduce loans for students over the age of 24 undertaking further education. I am very concerned that the government's own impact assessment shows this is likely to lead to fewer students going back to college - just at a time when we need to get people equipped to get good jobs and help to get our economy growing again.

I am very pleased however that some extra funding for MPs' offices means I'll be able to employ an apprentice myself in my constituency office after the summer. I'm working in conjunction with Trafford College to design the training and the structure of the placement, and the recruitment will be starting soon. If you know a young person who could be interested in gaining experience and a qualification in admin and office work, please ask them to get in touch.