Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-03-11-Speech-4-041"
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"en.20040311.3.4-041"2
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"Mr President, this is an important report on an important subject and I congratulate the rapporteur on her usual thoroughness and commitment.
The title is significant: 'Health care and care for the elderly: Supporting national strategies for ensuring a high level of social protection'. We should all want to see a high level of social protection and learn from each other via the exchange of best practice at European level but, ultimately, it is national strategies that have to deliver. Certainly, in the United Kingdom, there is still much to do.
Two weeks ago, Age Concern England held an important debate in London called 'Creating opportunity – is Europe working for older people?'. It was a privilege to be on the panel together with three other colleagues from this House. We agreed about many things, particularly the need to move such issues sharply up the agenda. We like to think of the United Kingdom as a rich country, but one in five pensioners are in low-income households; the incomes of those over 75 are lower still. Women pensioners are the worst off of all; fully 25% of women pensioners in the United Kingdom today live in poverty. Their healthcare needs are proportionately greater and therefore need addressing with greater urgency.
As the number of elderly people grows, the requirement for good healthcare and care services grows also. I was told recently that in the United Kingdom there are some 40 000 fewer places available in care homes today than ten years ago. If this is true, it is not a statistic of which any country can be proud. It is a reminder in each of our countries that excessive regulation, which may well have been intended to provide greater social protection, can often destroy what it wishes to promote. This is a lesson for our committee on other dossiers too.
Finally, may I record a brief message to Commissioner Diamantopoulou, whose successor has just been announced by the Greek Government. The role of Employment and Social Affairs Commissioner can never be easy, especially when it involves dealing with such difficult United Kingdom MEPs as Mr Hughes and myself. I believe she has left without having to declare who has been the more difficult, but I am sure that both of us, and hopefully all of us in the committee and this House, would wish her well in her new life back home. If colleagues agree, I would like to ask Commissioner Solbes to pass that message on."@en1
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