High Peak Liberal Democrats

Dementia Tax – Project Fear

Dementia has been a big part of my life. Over the years I have worked with people with dementia in some of our most deprived communities in south London - Brixton, Elephant and Castle, Peckham, Old Kent Road and the surrounding (often high-rise) estates.

I have therefore felt very torn by the party's recent headlong charge for the populist line on the "dementia tax". As a (naturally pretty tribal) Lib Dem of three decades standing I recognised a fantastic campaigning issue that might help claw back a few coastal "retirement" seats. However, I also knew that the inaccurate use of the term dementia tax (it is neither a tax nor is it about dementia) causes pain to many for whom this is not just a line in a press release but something real and near at hand. People with dementia have a cognitive impairment but they are not stupid; they can and do take in political messages. Politicians need to think of the deep distress their negative campaigning can cause to many of our 850,000 fellow citizens who are living with this disease.

During the election the party launched a "Theresa May Estate Agent" website that quoted the example of a "lady from Runcorn" who at the first symptoms of dementia had her home whipped away by the government. This achieves the triple whammy of being misleading about dementia, misleading about the current system and misleading about the (then) prospective system. If only we had moderated our language on this. For a start the dichotomy between "free" coronary care and "paid for" dementia care is false. Thanks to the voluntary sector (usually funded by health services or councils) many people with dementia get significant help and advice for free. If you are diagnosed with dementia early the stereotype of a tragic husk of a dementia victim slumped in a chair is completely untrue. There is no cure for or reversal of dementia but the NHS funds drugs which can have a plateauing effect on the symptoms of Alzheimer's for many years. Lots of dementia care from MRI scans to memory clinics is completely free of charge.

Secondly, on the policy itself isn't the much eulogised Dilnot proposal for care (with a cap of £35,000) itself a kind of "poll tax" where very rich people pay the same as those with fairly modest assets? The original Conservative proposals meant that the richest would pay the most. Of course middle aged people like me want to hang on to the money gained by parents through the property bubble but who will pay the bill instead? And the bill is enormous - 1.7 billion (at 2011 prices) to implement Dilnot and 1 billion to bring social care salaries up to the living wage just for starters. The Prime Minister was right to say that social care is on the brink of collapse. Everyone talks about public sector pay but most care assistants and dementia activity co-ordinators are employed in the private sector and are earning the minimum wage or little more. Most would be better off (and have higher status) working in entry level retail jobs.

My house is valued at double the price I paid for it 15 years ago. If I were elderly would it not be rather ingenious to let the house remain in my name until my death but use that windfall gain in value to finance my social care when I died, still leaving the last 100k for my family?

The pitiful remains of Grenfell tower overshadow all political discourse at the moment. We should all feel uncomfortable that our election campaign focused so very little on social housing but so very much on safeguarding the inheritance of the propertied and the comfortably off.

* Ruth Bright has been a councillor in Southwark and Parliamentary Candidate for Hampshire East

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