Camden Lib Dems enjoy the September sun on the Bournemouth seafront this week, including leader Tom Simon (second from the left)

LIBERAL Democrats say £5billion should be spent on making sure everybody gets the care they need – before they end up in hospital.

With spending commitments thin on the ground from the Conservatives and Labour, Lib Dem members gathering in Bournemouth for their annual conference get-together insisted the country can afford to make sure everybody is looked after.

Councillor Tom Simon, the leader of the opposition in Camden, said it was a headline issue for the party – and they would not be fighting upcoming elections on their anti-Brexit stance alone.

“We think the money is there for this, if you make it a priority,” he said. “The current government has spent – what? – a billion and a half on Bibby Stockholm [a barge in Dorset used to house asylum seekers]. So I think we can find £5billion to take care of people.

“This is something that hasn’t been talked about for a long time, isn’t being talked about by Labour or the Conservatives, and if we don’t do something along these lines then it’s going to be a lot harder to sort the NHS out.”

The Lib Dems argue that if people are cared for at home it will ease the pressure on the NHS – ultimately saving more money than is spent.

Labour’s shadow culture secretary Lucy Powell recently suggested her party was being careful over spending pledges because “there’s no money left”.

Cllr Simon said his party had not forgotten Brexit and said he thought “the damage was being realised by more and more people”, adding: “We have a plan on our relationship which would see us rejoin the single market and the customs union, and then after that maybe rejoin the EU as a whole.”

The Lib Dems are the official opposition in Camden’s council chamber but still only have five members.

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Cllr Simon said the first-past-the-post electoral system used for local authority elections had exaggerated Labour’s lead – compared with the vote share.

He said this meant that scrutiny committees tasked with looking at important issues were stuffed almost exclusively by Labour members and this undermined their function of reviewing policies and performance.

Camden’s guilty plea over a fatal fire at a block in Hampstead and a recent red notice from the Social Housing Regulator which warned thousands of properties are unsafe was a prime example.

“We’ve got a problem that is 10 years old, which is something the housing scrutiny committee has had reports on – fire safety – and yet after 10 years we’ve got a regulatory notice which says we’ve got long-term systemic failure,” Cllr Simon said.