The Blackpool Gazette, Lancashire Post and Blackpool Lead invited the candidates standing for the Fylde constituency at the upcoming general election to a hustings in which they fielded questions from voters.
The candidates standing for election on 4th July were each given time to answer questions from an audience at The Lowther Pavilion Theatre in Lytham.
Four out of the seven people on the ballot took part in the event with Cheryl Morrison (Alliance for Democracy and Freedom), Brendan Wilkinson (Green Party) and Brook Wimbury (Reform UK) all absent.
In order of appearance on stage:
ANNE AITKEN (Independent)
TOM CALVER (Labour)
MARK JEWELL (Liberal Democrats)
ANDREW SNOWDEN (Conservative Party)
The candidates standing for election on 4th July were each given time to answer questions from an audience at The Lowther Pavilion Theatre in Lytham.
Four out of the seven people on the ballot took part in the event with Cheryl Morrison (Alliance for Democracy and Freedom), Brendan Wilkinson (Green Party) and Brook Wimbury (Reform UK) all absent.
In order of appearance on stage:
ANNE AITKEN (Independent)
TOM CALVER (Labour)
MARK JEWELL (Liberal Democrats)
ANDREW SNOWDEN (Conservative Party)
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NewsTranscript
00:00A huge concern is the lack of progress in a plan for social care. If elected, how would each candidate propose to address this?
00:07From your point of view, isn't that something that the Conservative Party should have addressed in the 14 years that they've been in power?
00:14The Conservative Party have done a significant amount of work on addressing the social care challenges.
00:19Part of the manifesto for four years...
00:23You're not convinced?
00:25Well, the introduction of the social levy allowing county councils and primary health authorities to be able to raise further funds to be able to support the social care sector
00:36and the manifesto of the Conservative Party contains billions of pounds of further investment that is needed in the social care system.
00:43And it is a huge challenge. We have an ever-aging population. The average age of the UK is increasing.
00:51And with that, people are living for longer and longer, which is obviously absolutely fantastic.
00:56And therefore that comes with significant cost challenges for how we provide social care.
01:01And it is beyond just cost and budget. It is about the workforce. It is about an ever-increasing demanding workforce that is in competition with other public sector workforces
01:11and therefore making sure that the profession itself is as attractive as it can be.
01:16The manifesto contains further significant investments into social care following the money.
01:22And let's not forget, the NHS and healthcare producers have been green-fenced out of any austerity for the last... since 2010.
01:29We have billions of pounds now. It's a fact. It's a fact.
01:33And it might be that the supporters of the parties don't want that fact to be known, but that is a fact.
01:40You only have to look at the 2010 spending charts to where they are now.
01:44Is there significant more work to do? Absolutely. And that's what's set out in our manifesto.
01:50Tom, are you ready?
01:57Yeah, they're not cost challenges. They're people.
02:00And that's what we need to do. We've worked on social care. We've worked on resources.
02:06We did some amazing things. We kept people out of hospital. We got people out of hospital sooner than they would otherwise be
02:12so their minds remained sharp and their bodies remained active, and they went on to lead meaningful lives.
02:19And we knew in 2010 when the Conservatives went after local government first, because that was easy.
02:25Because ministers don't need to make decisions on cuts when you go after local councils.
02:29Nobody really loves their local councils. That's easy.
02:33But also, you put the decisions, the hard decisions, onto the councillors, onto council officers, and we had to start cutting stuff.
02:41I was an austerity councillor, by the way. That's not why I opposed the Conservative Party.
02:47But it comes down to this. Our national care service will be locally delivered as now.
02:54It will have, however, national standards that we will enforce so that all people delivering care do better for everyone.
03:01We will have a single pay deal across social care so we improve the terms and conditions
03:07and a pay for our workers in social care because it's absolutely ridiculous that people are doing back-breaking work
03:13and they're some of the lowest paid in our society.
03:16That's not the people I want caring for my family. I want people who are engaged and people who are enthusiastic.
03:23It's not going to be easy. It's not going to be quick because there's a lot that has gone wrong and a lot that we're going to have to repair.
03:30Part of it will be a long-term workforce plan that goes across both health and social care,
03:35finally recognising that the two systems are actually interrelated and one cannot get by without the other.
03:42And I hopefully see some improvements from that.
03:46But the other thing we're going to do is give local government multi-year budget settlements.
03:49The ludicrous situation we've had for too many years where local government has to balance the budget in-year,
03:55which leads to the stupidity of new road markings on potholed roads because we've got to get the budget spent.
04:00All that nonsense we see around February and March, we can set that aside and we can invest long-term in social care.
04:08And by the way, putting a social care precept on to repair the damage you did with your austerity cuts isn't tackling social care,
04:15it's just pushing the problem onto local communities and still not dealing with the resource issues.
04:21And that's what we need to do.
04:24You say it's not flash and slippery to be quick, isn't the reason it's not flash and slippery to be quick?
04:29It's because there's very little flash on the bones of Labour's policy in this manifesto.
04:33You're going to start talking about it beyond the election.
04:36It's got a name, the National Care Service, but has it got any detail?
04:39It's got a name, it's got plans for setting standards, it's got plans for setting a pay negotiating body.
04:46Why has it not got more detail?
04:48Because this is an incredibly complex system with lots of players, both public, private, charitable,
04:54and we need to make sure that they're all working together.
04:56And if we don't do that, it will be a mess from the off.
04:59And it goes back in fact to Andrew's point about everything being done to farming.
05:03If we just wade in with new schemes and new initiatives without talking to people,
05:07into a system that is already fragile, all we'll do is break it.
05:12And so I'm proud that we're not going, here's the solution that we're going to impose on you,
05:17because that's the wrong way of doing it.
05:19It's about working with the providers, it's about working with the employees, the care workers,
05:23it's about working with communities, it's about working with interest groups as well,
05:29to make sure everybody's represented so we get the best possible service.
05:33Thank you very much indeed.
05:38Well, here's the thing. I've worked in the NHS for 42 years.
05:42It's underfunded, you all know that.
05:45It has gone down the nick.
05:47And why has it?
05:49A, there are 10,000 shortage of GPs and we're 40,000 shortage of nurses.
05:56We've not been employing people, we've not been pushing people to go into nursing and care.
06:02And I think the reason these people don't want to go into nursing care
06:06is we've got the lowest pay in the whole of Europe.
06:10And those poor people that work in nursing homes, they earn less than somebody in Aldi.
06:16And I know we don't want the junior doctors to go on strike, we don't.
06:20They earn £14 an hour.
06:23So it isn't sustainable.
06:26Now nurses, it used to be a vocation, it isn't now.
06:30It can sometimes be the only person in the house that's looking after children
06:35and trying to run a household on minimum wage.
06:39So it has to start right from the word go.
06:43We've got to start encouraging our doctors, our nurses, A, to stay in the country
06:49and training nurses.
06:51And the first thing they say to me is, I've got a job in Australia.
06:55Why the hell have you got a job in Australia?
06:58We need to start looking, why is Australia so good?
07:02Why is Sweden so good?
07:04We're going to have to look around and see where we've got it so wrong.
07:08I know probably Conservatives want to privatise it.
07:11And they have privatised parts of it.
07:13The GPs are under the umbrella of privatisation.
07:16So are the school nurses.
07:18So it is being fed off.
07:21But that isn't fair, it's the National Health Service.
07:25I'm passionate about it.
07:27We can't let it go.
07:29We've got to keep it going for our children.
07:32But we have to raise the bar.
07:35We can't say I can't get a doctor's appointment.
07:38You can't get a doctor's appointment.
07:40I work in a surgery, 25,000 patients, but we've got four GPs.
07:45It's untenable.
07:47So something has to change.
07:49And we all have to work together to change it.
07:53You can't start saying we'll do this.
07:55You can't say we're doing this.
07:58For 14 years, they've done nothing.
08:01APPLAUSE