Isle of Man election: Middle candidates debate social care funding

Candidates standing in Middle in the upcoming House of Keys election have been quizzed over a range of issues at a public meeting.

David Fowler, Keiran Hannifin, Alison Lynch, Stu Peters and Jane Poole-Wilson are all vying for one of two seats.

With the number of people over-65 on the island increasing, they were asked about funding for social care.

They discussed fairness, government efficiency savings and taxes at the meeting held at Braddan Primary School.

David Fowler (independent) said although raising taxes would be the "easy option" to generate more income, it would lead to "more and more waste and the rot carries on".

"There's so many ways to make efficiencies in government running things better, not cut-throat cutbacks."

He suggested reducing the number of managers in the health service and cutting spending on UK-based project consultants as ways of decreasing overall government spending.

Keiran Hannifin (independent) agreed the services themselves could be run "more efficiently", but said higher earners could be taxed "a bit more proportionately".

He suggested health tourism as a way of generating income to fund the island's future social care needs.

"We need actual money coming in to fund it rather than just taking it from people who are going to need that help very soon if you keep taking all their money."

More means testing for public sector housing so that tenants were "paying in accordance with what they're earning" was put forward by Alison Lynch (independent) as a way of increasing the funding available for other aspects of care.

"Why should one couple earning, [who] have a joint income of £50,000 be paying the same rent as their neighbours who have a joint income of £25,000? How is that fair?"

She argued homeowners should not have their property sold "from underneath them" by the government to pay for their care in later life.

Stu Peters (independent) also said the current mechanism of charging for adult social care was "horribly unfair" and called for the size of the government workforce to be reviewed.

He suggested using a "right-sizing" principle to make savings within the government itself, saying it could free up funds for other issues.

"You need to look at everything that you do and decide whether or not you've got the right number of people doing it and you're doing it in the right way," he said.

Jane Poole-Wilson (independent) called for any future funding of social care to incorporate "intergenerational fairness" to prevent any tax rises falling mainly on the working-age population.

She said a "mixed-model approach", similar to that used in Jersey, could be implemented to create "a combination of a safety net for those who cannot afford any cost of social care they may need... but also the idea of a threshold and cap approach".

The five candidates also discussed affordable housing, the island's stance on accepting refugees, and climate change.

The two seats in Middle were previously held by outgoing MHKs Howard Quayle and Bill Shimmins, who have both stepped down from political life.

Polls will be open between 08:00 and 20:00 BST on 23 September.

BBC Isle of Man will be featuring all 12 of the constituencies for the House of Keys in the forthcoming general election during the run up to the poll on 23 September.