SOCIAL CARE: WHO IS GOING TO PAY FOR IT?
Andy Burnham wants a National Care Service. But there is one question he has yet to answer properly:
Does he have any understanding of the scale of the problem and how it would be funded or is he just using rhetoric to seek popularity?
Local authorities in the UK already spend around £25 billion a year on adult social care. This is only paid to those with assets of less than £23,000, a threshold not changed since 2010. Across the UK, unpaid care provided by families and other carers is estimated to be worth around £184 billion a year.
And the problem is only going to grow as our population ages.
This is not a new problem. David Cameron commissioned the Dilnot Commission in 2010 to find a sustainable solution to social-care funding. Successive Prime Ministers have kicked the Dilnot proposals into the long grass because of the enormous cost. The proposed reforms were finally abandoned by Rachel Reeves.
Yet we are once again being promised a National Care Service.
If the PM thinks that around £15 billion of savings from changes to the pensions triple lock will help finance it, he is deluded as that would fall catastrophically short of the scale of the challenge.
There is another fundamental issue. The millions of people who currently provide care themselves by coping with their disabilities, or rely on their families or pay privately for it would opt for freely provided care, increasing the demand for publicly funded care substantially.
More demand means more cost.
Ultimately , the bill would have to be paid by taxpayers.
One cannot promise a £40 billion-plus care system with £15 billion of savings.
Burnham is not being honest with the British people in promising a National Care Service. He is seeking popularity whilst again kicking the delivery into the long grass.