The Scottish parliament will now not vote on legislation setting up a new national care service until the autumn after ministers decided to delay the process for a second time.

In a letter to the Parliament's Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, the newly appointed Minister for Social care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport, says consultation on the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill will continue through the summer.

The Parliamentary process would originally have seen a debate and vote on the Stage 1 general principles of the bill taking place by this month.

However, calls to pause the Bill came from members of three Holyrood committees as well as from trade unions, charities and professional bodies. The MSPs said there was too little information in the proposals to allow them to scrutinise them properly.

Ministers decided in March to ask that the ‘complex and extensive scrutiny’ of the proposals be was pushed back to the end of June.

In her letter today, Maree Todd MSP says the Scottish government remains committed to delivering a national care service to improve quality, fairness and consistency of provision that meets individual's needs. But, she adds,

“We wish to use the time ahead of the Stage 1 debate to find compromise and reach consensus with those who have raised concerns during the Stage 1 scrutiny undertaken so far. She adds:

“...we see value in continuing engagement and co-design activities through summer before moving to the next stage of the Bill.”

Ms Todd says the government will hold a series of regional forums to allow ministers and officials to engage directly with people affected by the proposals. They will also, she says, continue to work with key partners to codesign the national care service over the summer.

Opposition political parties say the government should now abandon the plan.

Liberal Democrat leader and health spokesperson Alex Cole-Hamilton called today's decision “a last ditch attempt to buy some time for support that is never going to emerge”, adding:

“The national care service is £1 billion bureaucratic ministerial power grab – it needs to be scrapped, not salvaged.”

Scottish Conservative social care spokesperson, Craig Hoy MSP, said it's time to stop kicking the plans into the long grass and redirect the spending into local care services:

“Every stakeholder has lined up against these proposals to centralise care services but still the SNP refused to listen.”

 

Read more: Briefing: Cabinet Secretary plans for health and care; National Care Service Bill paused until June; Don’t let social care ‘sink back to the shadows’

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