Is it really worth lobbying your Member of Parliament?

Most weeks at Westminster large groups of campaigners are to be found waiting to speak to their MP on this issue or that. Are they wasting their time?

Not at all – because you never know what might happen if you do. I don’t know of any MP who would spurn the chance to talk to some of his or her constituents – and sometimes these dogged campaigners hit the jackpot.

Take the examples of Gerald Duxbury, Jean Baxendale, Pauline Edwards and Amina Vepari. I saw them on June 10. They travelled – Jean and Amina from Blackburn, Gerald and Pauline from Darwen – to London as part of a national lobby of Parliament by Help the Aged and Age Concern to campaign for changes in the way we support elderly people who need residential care.

I knew that we – the Government – were planning a Green Paper on Social Care – a new policy document with options for change. But to be honest until I met this group the issue had not been sharply on my radar. So the great value of the discussion I had with them was that I was so much better informed when it came to talking about the issue with other Cabinet ministers, and particularly the Health Secretary, Andy Burnham.

I won’t know until I’ve seen Jean, Gerald, Pauline and Amina again what they and their colleagues in Help the Aged and Age Concern think of our proposals. But they do represent a serious attempt to break away from the current lottery which can lead to costs of averaging £30,000 towards care in retirement, but in practice which can vary from zero at one end of the scale if someone is cared for in hospital to £200,000 if someone is suffering from a chronic condition such as Alzheimer’s.

What we are aiming for is a system – a National Care Service – which is fairer, simpler and more affordable for everyone. Those are the principles and there will now be a consultation about how best to achieve that.

More and more people are living longer and leading more active lives, and it is clearly unfair that if having saved all their lives they find themselves facing high costs for care and support for themselves or loved ones.

Part of the problem is that the current system has grown through a series of limited and incremental steps – there hasn’t been one single bold reform, like the creation of the National Health Service, in the area of social care. That’s why there is some unfairness in the system. Our aim is to create a service which would give people clear rights but would also be tailored to meet specific needs.

I’m looking forward to hearing the views from Age Concern and Help the Aged.

I hope they will welcome what we are proposing, but in any case I am keen to hear their – and your – views.

I’ll be holding a conference in town on this in the early autumn.

This very important example shows that tracking down your MP and making sure they know your views is very rarely a waste of time.