Why ‘rent scandal’ Reeves is the ultimate in Labour hypocrisy

0:02The Telegraph

0:10Another day, another Labour scandal. Rachel Reeves caught renting out her house without the proper paperwork. Stupid rules, stupid counsel, forget it. But read my lips, no new taxes, it'll ruin the economy. Welcome to The Daily Tea with me, Tim Stanley. And me, Jacob Rees-Mogg.

0:37Camilla Tominey is still away. I've been sending voicemails. She doesn't reply to them. But in her place, we are joined by the great Jacob Rees-Mogg. I can't possibly be a stand-in for Camilla. Nobody could reach those heights. No one can feel those heels, that's for sure. How are you? Oh, very well, thank you. And you? I'm all right. I'm OK. I'm missing Camilla, of course. I want to ask before we get into the subjects of the day, do the Mogs mark Halloween? Oh, my children do, yes. They do? Yes. And my eldest son was having a Halloween party last night. There's nothing wrong as a Catholic with marking Halloween.

1:09Right. Okay. Yeah. Though some people don't like it and they do all souls instead. And they dress as saints rather than as demons and witches. In the medieval period, people went round asking for cakes. And in return, they would pray for the souls of the dead on the eve of all souls. It's a perfectly traditional Catholic thing to do. It may have been re-imported from America and it may be knocking Gunpowder Knight out, but nonetheless it has very good English medieval roots. I couldn't agree more. Do children come to your door? Do they do trick-or-treating in your area? They do. It's a very long drive to walk up.

1:47Quite a scary long drive to walk up. It's not a very long drive. When it's dark. We're a very unscary household. Right, OK. And have you ever dressed up for Halloween? No, I don't think I have, actually, even as a child. Because when I was a child, between this medieval period and the modern age, people weren't tending to Halloween much. It wasn't done. What frightens you? Nothing very much. Only if you suddenly turned into a lion, I suppose that would be momentarily discombobulating. But I tend not to be. Okay. Well, four more years of labour is a pretty terrifying thought. We have to start by commenting upon Rachel Reeves' renting scandal.

2:26It turns out that the Chancellor has broken housing rules by letting out her four-bed family home in Dulwich without a licence. Southwark Council requires you to obtain a selective licence to rent out in certain parts of the borough. Failure to do so can result in a prosecution or fine. Rachel has apologised. The PM has accepted. Is that the end of the matter? Well, the end of the matter should be repeal these ridiculous laws that mean you require a licence to let out your own property. In certain parts of the borough. In any part of the borough. This is a completely stupid law. Right. It's bonkers.

2:58How are people supposed to know? Laws are meant to be easy to understand, easy to follow. A loony left-wing council makes certain selected parts of the borough at its choice, ones where you've got to get a licence. People should be free to let out their own property as they wish. They should not require licences. It's as stupid as David Lammy not being able to fish in his own pond. What this tells us is not that Labour ministers think there's one rule for them and one rule for everybody else. Though they do. Yes. It's that we are a massively, lunatically, insanely over-regulated country. Yeah.

3:31And these regulations should be got rid of. And Rachel Reeves should now say, look, if even I, a good, honest Christian woman, get caught out, tripped up by some bonkers, pettifogging rule by bad counsel, then everybody in the country will be breaking some law. Yeah. There's an absolute classic example of there, but for the grace of God, go I. Wasn't the rule introduced under Michael Gove? It may well have been. He introduced lots of rules. Michael likes regulating things in the end. But we need a bonfire of rules. I mean, who knew we had this crazy rule? Yes. Is the issue, though, hypocrisy? Because Labour would have gone after any Tory who was found doing this sort of thing when they were in office.

4:11But I'm a Tory, so I don't go after people who make legitimate mistakes. Right, OK. But they did go after you. And does it not sting a bit to see the Prime Minister just saying, oh, it doesn't matter, given party gate and everything that the Tories were dragged through? No, no. I think his getting free clothes for his wife is much more suspect than Rachel Reeves making a genuine administrative error. But we should look at the administrative question. Yes. Why are we making British people do all this rubbish, which is pure cost? You have to pay the council hundreds of pounds for a licence to let out your own property.

4:45Now, I thought an Englishman's home was his castle. You can't let your castle out. Times are pretty tough. Well, let's hear what the shadow Chancellor Mel Stride has to say about this. I think the Prime Minister needs to show some backbone. We need to have a proper investigation into exactly what has happened. This seems to be an attempt just to put this whole thing to bed with a quick exchange of letters, I believe, last night. And this was a Prime Minister who, when he came into office on the steps of Downing Street, talked about restoring the dignity and integrity of government. And we've seen a whole litany of these instances.

5:18Angela Rayner, Louise Hay and others who have fallen well short of that standard as if she's to stand by his word, then I think you should be concluding her position is untenable. There you are, Sato Chancellor of your party. Her position is untenable. No minister's position is ever untenable if the Prime Minister wants to keep her. It's always a matter of raw political power. Yes. It would go all the way back to Nicholas Ridley. If Margaret Thatcher had been stronger, he would have stayed in office. losing ministers is a sign of prime ministerial power not whether the minister has in fact done anything wrong well I agree but Labour and opposition were talking about making it almost automatic that people had to go if they were found to breach things she's not been found to breach anything because it's been decided by the top civil servant in this case that it's all okay so she did something wrong that's all a complete racket they've not she's not broken the code but that's all a complete racket yeah the code is not what it says in the code the code is do you maintain the confidence of the prime minister yes And then he has this fig leaf of Sir Somebody Somebody.

6:17And I'm not being rude about the current one, but they're always Sir Somebody Somebody. Who then have to, one was Lord Somebody Somebody, late Queen's private secretary. They get these pandrandums who give them a fig leaf of credibility when they say, actually, I'm politically too weak to hold on to Angela Rayner. So she's going to have to go. I'm politically strong enough to save the Chancellor because if I'm not, I've gone too. And you mentioned Angela Rayner. Now, surely she's going to be annoyed that Rachel Reeves gets to stay and she had to go. I think Angela Rayner's case was much, much worse.

6:49Right. I think that that was so obviously pushing the tax laws as far as you could. This is law. I don't think any normal person knew existed. Yeah. Yeah. And it shouldn't exist. It's a stupid law. No. And there's nothing wrong with breaking it. No. Look, I'm not encouraging law breaking, but fortunately we're not bound by Ofcom, so I suppose I could. I'm not encouraged law-breaking, but people don't follow stupid laws. Yes. Like the person who's been fined for not carrying a doggy bag when taking his or her dog for a walk. Oh, it's ridiculous, isn't it? Just in case the dog made a mess. Yes. These are crazy laws.

7:25Yes. And it's not reasonable for the state to expect crazy laws to be followed. They won't be. And all they mean is that all of us are at some point breaking some laws. I'm lunatic councils put in Tamar now, speed limit. People will be breaking that law because it's a stupid law. And we always are governed by consent. Yes. And stupid laws lose consent. Yes. I'm afraid stamp duty has consent. Right. Right. The public want it. The public accept that taxation has to be paid. Right. And we may get to the point we're so heavily taxed that you have a tax rebellion, but we haven't got there yet. Well, we're going to get on to tax.

8:02I mean, among the many things that are being floated by the Chancellor, one thing is a potential mansion tax. And I just dropped that in because something in the Telegraph this morning caught my eye, which is that one person who had to pay it is Ed Miliband, who'd face a£15 ,000 bill because he lives in London property worth around£3.5 million. The Telegraph points out that the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, lives in a property worth approximately£2.5 million. and Rachel Reeves was letting out that house for about£3 ,200. So it was worth quite a bit of money too. I raise this point, I mean, you're a Tory, you're all for people owning big houses, I know, but I personally feel as a more modest income voter, how on earth do socialists end up living in houses worth the£3.5 million and£2.5 million?

8:54Does it not prick their conscience that they live so well And yet they believe in inequality? Well, nothing's too good for the workers, I think, is the argument that they would make. Right. And I don't want to get into the politics of envy. I will admit to your viewers and listeners that I would be affected by a mention tax to a certain degree. So I'm not an impartial commentator and people can actually watch my views on YouTube, which I put out on my YouTube channel about this dreadful tax. But actually what Miliband shows is that a senior professional living in London who's had the house for a long time is likely to be caught.

9:33Yes, yes. And what we don't know is does Mr. Miliband have any mortgage on his property? Yes. And what is the net value? And this is where the whole tax falls apart because particularly in London, many people would be at risk of being caught who actually have quite significant mortgages. We are told that Rachel Reeves is considering a two-pence rise in income tax. First of all, do you believe that? That she's considering it, I am willing to believe. Yes, or is this something, as Mel Stride, I think, has said, that she might be saying in order that when she doesn't do it, we're relieved? Well, I think there is an element of whips and scorpions, and we're being threatened with the scorpions so that we only get whips, and we think, aren't we lucky that we're only being ruined?

10:14We're not being both ruined and tortured. Yes. But this briefing is one of the great weaknesses of the Reeves regime. It has serious economic consequences because people have taken planning steps or avoided taking planning steps that have any economic consequences. So nobody's buying property at the moment because they don't know what's going to happen to SDLT and mansion taxes. People are changing their pension arrangements because they're not sure what she's going to do about pensions. This briefing, this kite flying, has real economic consequences. We saw this particularly strongly last year when they talked the economy down for three months before the budget.

10:52It's all disaster. And when the government says it's a disaster, people believe it. So I think this is really bad politics. And she will now get the blame for a 2P income tax rise whether she does it or not. Yes, yes. I mean the thinking behind it that I've heard is do it now this early in the cycle. And then the pain will be immense. The public will hate it. But in two or three years' time, her fiscal headroom will have increased, and then maybe she can spend more and be a bit more generous. You missed out a key part of the do it early rule. It's do it early whilst you're still popular. Well, that was within two days of election.

11:31That's right. Yeah. That's right. I think the we will inflict more pain, it'll all be fine. It's all right, Margaret Thatcher, in 1981, if you've got a clear strategy, if you know what you're trying to do. It's not all right if you're running a hand-to-mouth existence. and you've made very clear promises and your popularity has completely collapsed. So no, I don't think that would work. Also, I don't think the electorate is stupid, so you can't ultimately bribe the electorate with his own money. Yeah, and of course they made that headline promise. It's worth listening again to an exchange that happened in Prime Minister's Questions where Kemi Badenoch asked this question of Keir Starmer.

12:07Last year, in its manifesto, Labour promised not to increase income tax, not to increase national insurance and not to increase VAT. Does the Prime Minister still stand by his promises? Well, Mr Speaker, I'm glad that the Leader of the Opposition is now finally talking about the economy. I can update the House, Mr Speaker. Retail sales are higher than expected. Inflation is lower than expected. Growth has been upgraded this year. And, Mr Speaker, the UK stock market is at an all-time high. The budget is on the 26th of November and we will lay out our plans. But I can tell the House now that we will build a stronger economy, we will cut NHS waiting lists and deliver a better future for our country.

12:57Well, well, well, Mr Speaker. What a fascinating answer. It is not the same answer that I received when I asked exactly the same question word for word on the 9th of July. Then the prime minister replied with just one word, yes. And then he sat down with a smug grin on his face. What's changed in the past four months? So Kemi's question there is what has changed? And what has changed, obviously, is that they judge they need more money. But if they make this U-turn, won't this be, I know things are already bad, but truly catastrophic because we won't raise personal taxes. It's just a solemn cast iron guarantee.

13:39and if they do it, it'll signal that they have lost control of the finances and that they can't be trusted. Well, there's a problem they're in making. They savaged the public finances last year by the run-up to the budget and then raising taxes which hit business most and therefore business has been very weak and the economy has been very weak. It is their fault. This is not global affairs. This is not extraneous affairs. This is a made-in-downing-street economic problem, a fiscal crisis made in Downing Street. They then couldn't cut expenditure, which they had intended to do. And they've lashed out on pay rises.

14:14Look at the public account figures for pay rises, which I think are running to the July quarter at 8 % or something. Way above inflation. So it's their largesse for their mates in the public sector, economic mismanagement and very bad briefing. If they now break their promises, it's because they have failed, not because unexpected things have happened. It's also desperately unfair because welfare payments will go up with inflation in April whilst thresholds will not. And we're now being told taxes may go up more. So the people who are paying for those who are receiving will be in real terms significantly worse off whilst those who are receiving will be completely protected.

14:56It's desperately unfair on what Labour likes to call working people. We had the economist Art Laffer on the show who – Who is a brilliant man. He's very clever. Great heroes. He's very clever. And what I liked about him is his ability to combine economics and philosophy and common sense. And so he made the point that just step back and think about what you do in this country. You tax work and then you reward non-working. Is that the fundamental problem? We keep talking about systemic failures and state failure. Really, it's almost a philosophical failure that we're not thinking about what are we rewarding and what are we punishing?

15:32We're not willing to make difficult decisions and difficult decisions need to be made. During COVID, we came to the point where the state would take care of everybody at all times and it can't afford to do this. And lots of people worked out that letting the state take care of them was better than taking care of themselves. So you have huge increase on people receiving benefits of one kind or another who are perfectly capable of working. And they are then dependent upon the taxpayer, the shrinking base of taxpayers. This can't go on forever. But yes, we are. We've decided to back the people who don't want to work.

16:07The Tories did a rally this morning at which Mel Stride and Kemi spoke. Apparently one in 10 people think Rachel Reeves is doing a good job. Who are these people? I haven't met them. She promised not to put a tax on working people. Apparently farmers aren't working people. Apparently anyone who has a job isn't a working person because they put up the jobs tax and look at what's happened. unemployment has risen every single month since Labour came into office. Do we want to see the back of this lousy Labour government? Yes! Do we want to see the back of this lousy Labour Chancellor Rachel Reeves?

16:44Yes! We've seen a party that has talked down our economy. We have seen a party that, despite what they said before the election, went out and borrowed billions and billions of pounds and spent billions and billions of pounds and have raised inflation higher than it otherwise would have been, has kept interest rates higher than it would otherwise have been, and mounted up a colossal national debt, the servicing costs on which alone are running at£100 billion a year. That's twice what we spend on defence. That is unsustainable. And that is what you get with Labour. I noticed on the Telegraph page, which showed a video of the rally, that there was only one comment, and it was someone called Whiplashed who wrote, No One Cares.

17:30Now, I know that's a little harsh. And, you know, it was early in the morning, but it doesn't feel as though the Tory message on economics is cutting through. Well, it's early days, so you've got to be patient. But I think it's very important that somebody is making the argument of fiscal rectitude. I think we need fiscal rectitude and that we cannot go on spending beyond our means. Margaret Thatcher made it very successfully. We are in a situation where we need significant cuts to public expenditure and we need a reappraisal of what government does. This is not just saying we're going to cut waste.

18:08Everyone's always trying to cut waste and there is waste, but it's not the great answer. Productivity is part of the answer. We need the economy to grow and why is productivity in the public sector so bad? Actually, the government needs to stop doing things. Yeah. Yeah. We also had Isabel Oakeshott on this week and we were talking about her move to Dubai, which has gone to for educational reasons. We were also discussing the general question of would you leave Britain because it's just become so depressing. And I've been thinking about that a lot. I've been trying to weigh up where to go. Were you ever tempted to leave?

18:41Oh, no. I'm with Uncle Matthew and his view of abroad, which I'd better not quote because it's too politically incorrect. No, no, I don't want to leave. I'm not leaving Somerset, let alone leaving England. Right. But I understand why people are. And I love it when people say they're going to a great tax haven for education or for the sunshine. I mean, it's absolutely marvellous. Nobody goes to Dubai for everything other than the tax benefits. I always think whenever they interview English people abroad and they say, why are you here? And they say it's because England is just full of immigrants now.

19:13And I always think there's something rather amusing about that. Coming up next, we'll be joined in the studio by Camilla Turner, the political editor of the Sunday Telegraph, who has published an absolutely shocking investigation into the abuse suffered by residents at a care home in Wiltshire.

19:39We're joined in the studio now by Camilla Turner, the political editor of the Sunday Telegraph, who's done a remarkable investigation into the appalling abuse at a care home in Salisbury in Wiltshire. Camilla, hello. Hello, nice to be here. We'll get into what you found out and the harrowing testimony you heard. First, tell us about the care home and how you first found out about what was going on there. So this is a care home in Salisbury in Wiltshire. It's a family-run business run by Bridget O 'Connor, who remarkably is 96, and her daughter Eileen and her grandson John Paul are all involved in running this care home.

20:14And it looks after highly vulnerable adults with a range of conditions from dementia to people suffering mental health issues and learning disabilities, some people who have been sectioned under the Mental Health Act. And over the past three months, I've been speaking to former employees at this care home, as well as families who had their loved ones there, all of whom were incredibly concerned about what they witnessed and their experience of this care home. And did someone approach you about the story? So I first spoke in early August to Alex, who was the sort of main whistleblower here, who had been working at the care home.

20:52And after witnessing just too many kind of shocking instances of things that she knew wasn't right from her experience in the sector, she blew the whistle to the CQC, which is the regulator for social care, to the local council, as well as to the police, because some things were of a kind of criminal nature. She, having done this last summer, summer of 2024, she was feeling increasingly frustrated about the pace of the official investigations and really was concerned about the residents still living there. So she wanted to go public with these concerns. She'd been supported by an organisation that does really fantastic work called Whistleblowers UK, run by a lady called Georgina, who's a very good contact and friend of mine.

21:31And Georgina made the introduction to Alex. So I've been speaking to Alex, who's really done so much work to uncover all of the goings on here. Okay, well, the audience might want to brace themselves because some of the testimony that you've uncovered is pretty harrowing. Tell us what you found out when you started speaking to former staff. What I heard from former staff was a kind of a litany of alleged abuse, which ranged from people being kept in highly unsanitary conditions, to allegations that the residents were being made to take part in slave labour, that they were treated like animals.

22:05And in one case, there was actually a very shocking case, there was an alleged rape that took place of one of the highly vulnerable residents by an employee of the care home. We actually made a documentary, which you can watch on The Telegraph's YouTube channel, as well as our written investigation. So we can hear from some of the whistleblowers themselves. This is Imogen Mathewson, who worked at the care home as a cleaner for a year up to August 2023, and she told me about some of the shocking, unhygienic conditions she witnessed at the home. Clients being left with urine-soaked mattresses and the beds just being made over on top of that.

22:44Mattresses being left with faeces on and just being told to wipe it off. Carpets, again, being soaked in faeces and urine. And the clients just being left in those rooms for months with the smell. The CQC, once Alex did raise her concerns with them last year, they did come and investigate. They did one report that was out in January. They then went back for another inspection. There's another report due to come out. So I think they're going at the pace. I think this for them is quite a fast pace. But I suppose for the whistleblowers and for people who saw what went on there, it's not fast enough.

23:19But it's very difficult, isn't it? because the patients are people who aren't necessarily able to tell their own story because they have dementia or they have mental health problems and that the CQC therefore needs to attach much greater urgency when people have such vulnerability at risk. Yes, that's absolutely right. These are highly vulnerable adults who in many cases aren't able to advocate for themselves necessarily, so are sort of relying on the goodwill of others to advocate on their behalf. Now the CQC has given this care home requires improvement as a rating at its last inspection. And I was speaking to the CQC just earlier.

23:56They told me that they do have levers they can pull in these kind of instances. They could, for example, launch a prosecution and actually prosecute the care home bosses for failing to meet the correct safety standards. They could also shut this care home down. So there are things they could do. And one would hope that if they deem it necessary, they will go ahead and use these levers. Of those levers, isn't actually shutting it down a much more useful one because a prosecution that takes a couple of years, it all carries on, whereas shutting down actually saves people from further degradation.

24:29Yes, that's right. I suppose the sort of difficulty with shutting down an institution like this is you need to find somewhere for all these people to go. And, you know, some people, it might be difficult to just kind of suddenly give them a totally new environment. So I suppose even that might be a process that can't be done overnight, but needs to be done in a way that is kind of sensitive and has the needs of these people at the heart of it. Camilla one of the people you spoke to told us about the shocking way in which the owners of the care home treat their residents let's just listen to a clip of that there's a few clients that have kind of jobs that have been appointed to them by the owners but I don't believe that given an actual choice they they would want to do that I think it's expected of them it's routine it's repetitive and all of the clients accept and it baffled me how everyone accepted this nastiness, this callous control of everyone.

25:33Both the staff and the clients do that to avoid being a further target of the owners because if they don't do as they're told they will not be able to have a treat. They would kind of take away their phones or they would have less cigarettes, you know, like they were punished for trying to stand up for themselves. There was always an issue with belongings going missing, not just high value items, just anything, but it did include, you know, jewelry watches. That was Alex Williams, the whistleblower who Camilla referred to earlier. Camilla, I noticed the language there of clients when using to describe, that's referring to the residents of the home.

26:23But this is not an employer-client relationship, is it? I'm just trying to think about what's gone wrong here, that they're not seeing these people as human beings, or their charges, or the people they're there to look after, or even as a client who's maybe paying, I don't know if they are paying. How does this happen that they start to treat people this way? That's right. They are paying to be there. In a lot of cases, it's tens of thousands of pounds. Personally or from the council? A mixture. So some people, their fees will be paid in total by their local council. For example, someone who's been sectioned under the Mental Health Act, the local council where they lived originally will always pay the fees of their care, regardless of their wealth.

27:04It's like if you're sentenced to prison, you don't pay for your care in prison just because you're wealthy. And then others will have their fees paid in part or wholly by their local councils, meaning that the taxpayer is actually funding all of this appalling treatment of these residents. And as I say, so my question is, given that they are being paid to look after these people, how on earth do they end up treating the people they're being paid to look after in this way? They're not looking upon them as clients at all. That's right. And it's been really sad and sort of shocking to hear from these whistleblowers and listen to the allegations of what they witnessed and what they saw at the care home.

27:41I suppose it seems to me like it's also a failure of the whole system. They're saying this has gone on for some time, for many years, and despite concerns being raised, the system just seems to be moving incredibly slowly to step in and do anything about it. But there are other staff beyond the whistleblowers who aren't in charge of it, who aren't making the money out of owning the care home. They seem to have gone along with this. Yes, that's right. And I suppose all I can say is I wonder if they were put in an environment when they were normalized to these kind of behaviors, perhaps normalized to this kind of setup.

28:18The people I spoke to said that they'd worked in care homes and in the care industry in previous roles. And they said this kind of thing was absolutely shocking. They'd never seen anything like it. And they knew from their experience, this was absolutely not how you treat people. but yes that presumably would have been others who went along with it and didn't or perhaps you know thought it was awful but just didn't quite feel the courage to speak up about it it's difficult I suppose if it's your job it's happened in many institutions where bad behavior is normalized you get everyone to go along with it and treat it as if it's normal you punish those who speak out you make it impossible to speak out you make it make them feel that they're letting everyone down by speaking out.

28:59Alex also told you about one particularly disturbing allegation in relation to sexual assault of a resident. Let's listen to that. So one of the most serious incidents was a alleged rape where a client disclosed to me that she had been allegedly raped by a member of staff whom I also worked with at the home. The owner on one occasion when her and I were having a conversation about it said who would rape her she's fat and herself and I can remember thinking I honestly don't know what to say to that they haven't created a loving kind caring home they've created an abuse system a spokesman for Wiltshire police said they are investigating following a report of a rape at a care home in Salisbury in May 2023 they added that a man in his 40s has been arrested on suspicion of rape and has been released under investigation while inquiries continue.

30:04The nature of the allegation is horrific enough. It also reflects a situation in which people are not being regarded as human beings, right? I mean, it's not just a matter of it's unprofessional to use that kind of language to describe someone. It's also inhuman and degrading. And it's so distressing to think of that happening anywhere, but particularly in a care environment. That's absolutely right. These are people who should be, as Alex said, in a loving, kind and caring environment. And instead, what I heard time and time again from the whistleblowers I spoke to was that the environment wasn't safe, people weren't being cared for.

30:40And in this incredibly shocking incident of the alleged rape, the former employees I spoke to were incredibly concerned about the whole structure around it, how this had happened, the approach the care home took after it had happened. And one whistleblower told me that they felt the care home sought to brush it under the carpet. They told employees then not to talk about it, not to comfort the victim if she brought it up to ignore her. There were also instances of missed warnings about the alleged perpetrator. So the whole kind of system appears to have failed in this case in a very kind of harrowing way.

31:16Now, a lot of the audience will be asking themselves, where were the relatives in this? and you did speak to someone who was a brother of a resident called Mark, am I correct? Yes, that's right. Who explains what it was like to deal with the situation when a relative of his was being abused. That's right. So Mark was a resident in Dunraven Care Home. He suffered from schizophrenia and he'd been sectioned under the Mental Health Act. And almost as soon as he moved to this care home, his brother, who I spoke to at length, was suspicious of what was happening. He felt his contact was being limited with his brother.

31:52Whenever he visited, he was never allowed to go up to the brother's room. That was always incredibly discouraged. He felt his brother immediately became frail. His condition deteriorated. He seemed to be incredibly fearful of ever leaving, even though previously he'd been outgoing and relatively independent. The last time they went to visit Mark before he passed away, they did go up to his room because they sort of turned up unannounced and went up and they were really shocked to find that it was freezing cold, no heating, all his personal belongings weren't there, the wardrobe was sort of empty, there was just a pile of clothes that smelt of urine.

32:27It just seemed to them like he really wasn't being looked after at all. And shortly after that, within a few weeks, Mark was admitted to hospital and his brother was really quite horrified to see the condition he was in. The ambulance crew who'd taken him said they were concerned this was a safeguarding issue. because his body temperature was so low, it was 11 degrees lower than it should have been, I think it was 26 degrees. They cut the clothing from him, and he was wearing an extremely thin jumper with nothing underneath. When it came to his trousers, he was wearing, again, a very thin trackies, no underwear.

33:07To our utter horror, Mark was lying there unconscious, and his head had been shaved. And it had been shaved badly. There were marks on it where it had been shaved. His head had been shaved. And Mark had never had his head shaved. He always had hair. So Mark never regained consciousness. I posted something on the website which got taken down. and what I said is if you love somebody don't send them here. So all of this just left his brother incredibly concerned about the treatment he was getting at the care home. I just wonder if people use safeguarding as an excuse to cover up abuse because going up to people's rooms, I know that my children are boarding school and the parents are not allowed to go up to their rooms except at the beginning and the end of the term because of safeguarding And is there a way in which a bad care home can use safeguarding to say, well, you can't go up because you might go into other residence rooms actually to cover things up?

34:18And do we need to look at how rules and regulations are applied to stop bad care homes being able to hide things away? Yeah, that's a really interesting point. I think often that it can be used as a kind of covering term, perhaps also used as a convenient term if there are certain things you don't want families to see or hear or do. And you can sort of hide behind this safeguarding phrase. A spokesman for Dunraven House and Lodge said they denied all the allegations which it said were false. They added that they have been, quote, transparent and open at all times with official investigations and that feedback from residents and their families about their care is very positive.

34:59Camilla, first of all, thank you for doing this investigation. This is exactly what newspapers exist to do. It's fantastic and very important. What's been the outcome? What effect will it have? Who's investigating? What do you hope will happen? So the CQC has an ongoing investigation. were actually due to see a new report from them in the coming weeks. So a potential outcome from that could be closing down the care home, it could be launching a criminal prosecution of the care home bosses. The care home does already have a requires improvement status since its most recent investigation in just earlier this year.

35:35So we've got ongoing action there by the social care regulator. Separately, Wiltshire Council launched a sort of safeguarding investigation, which was quite a big multi-agency investigation because there are other councils in the surrounding area that also send clients to this care home. And that investigation, as a result of that, Wiltshire Council said they're no longer sending any new people to this care home while they check up on its progress. So there is action ongoing. There's of course the ongoing police investigation into the alleged rape case as well. So I think we'll need to sort of wait and see just how strongly the CQC do react to this.

36:13When I contacted them for a comment and presented my findings to them, their chief inspector for adult social care was quite robust in his comments and he said all these allegations are deeply disturbing. But when you go back to the case about Mark and his brother, the authorities seem to pass the buck, don't they? The police say, oh, well, it's safeguarding and we'll hear about it later and the ambulance men are very concerned but nothing much happens. and it's as if the bureaucracy doesn't quite know what to do. It's a lot of work. It's much easier to catch a motorist for doing 11 miles an hour in a 10 mile an hour speed limit area than it is to do a full investigation.

36:50And there does seem to be something really weak about the authorities' response. Yeah, that's absolutely right. And Mark's family are still desperate for answers. When they asked the care home, you know, what happened in the run-up to Mark's death? How did he come to have such a low body temperature? He received three different versions of events from different members of staff there. One said, oh, he came down and had some Weetabix. Another said, oh, yes, he had porridge for breakfast. Another said, oh, he had a shower that morning. And Mark's brother said, none of that is possible when your body is in a coma.

37:20So none of that could possibly be true. They've had a coroner's report. They've sort of tried to find answers, but they just really haven't got to the bottom of what really happened to their much-loved brother, Mark. Camilla, nearly half a million of us are living in care homes. That's projected to double by 2050. I want to stress not all care homes are like this by a mile. You know, I've had relatives in care homes and they've been very good run by people, by professionals who really care and do really go beyond to look after the residents. Nonetheless, it's reliant heavily upon unskilled foreign labour working minimum wage.

37:56Does this case show the necessity of a wider review into the quality of care homes and the future of this industry, which is only going to grow? I think it absolutely does. And we've had sort of multiple governments, most recently our current government, the Labour government, sort of delay and, you know, kind of put off really doing a shake up to the social care system. The Labour government have promised action, but again, have delayed this till 2028, meaning that any recommendations might never actually come to fruition, given that that's so close to the next general election. Okay. Jacob, I feel successive governments have failed to act on this.

38:36Is that unfair? I think you're confusing two completely different things. One is how you fund it, which is a major, major problem. And the other is how they run and regulate it. And it depends, Camilla, whether you found this is a problem across the sector or whether this is one very bad instance. And if it's one very bad instance, it's an issue of management, not of the labour that is used or the minimum wage or any of those sorts of things. It's bad management. On the other hand, if it's symptomatic of things that are happening across the sector, that is degrees more concerning. Yeah, that's absolutely right.

39:13I think we've got on the one hand, the issue of the regulation of the sector and the authorities involved. Are they keeping a close eye on what's happening in these places. And then the second issue, which is, as you say, the funding and the whole sector's kind of structure, whether we're prepared to cope with an increase in the need for adult social care in the coming years, of course, an ageing population as well, and whether our systems are set up to be equipped for this kind of growing desire. Camilla Turner, thank you very much. And for anyone who wants to, you can watch the full video of our investigation now on the Telegraph YouTube channel or by going to telegraph.co.uk.

39:52Thank you.