Social care: why won't politicians fix it?

The news that Rachel Reeves will cancel Winter Fuel Payments might have made headlines early this week but the announcement that she will be "finally killing off the beleaguered cap on social care costs" is the "bigger story", said Isabel Hardman in The Spectator. 

Addressing the Commons on Monday, Reeves announced the anticipated social care reforms would be scrapped, citing lack of funding by the previous Conservative government. She criticised the "costly commitments" and delays to the reforms made by the last government, stating that scrapping the reforms would save £1bn by next year, helping her drive to plug a £22bn "black hole" in government finances.

Labour plans 'worryingly distant-sounding'

"Outrageous!" shouted opposition MPs, but most parliamentarians "probably weren't surprised". The £86,000 care cost cap, first suggested in 2011 by Andrew Dilnot's Commission on Funding of Care and Support, had been repeatedly delayed by the Conservative government, who also "got rid of the National Insurance rise which was meant to fund" the cap, said the BBC. The plans would have introduced an £86,000 cap on the amount an elderly or disabled person would have to pay towards their support at home or in care homes from October 2025.

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Although Wes Streeting promised a cap during the election campaign, the Labour manifesto committed only to "build consensus for the longer-term reform needed to create a sustainable National Care Service", a prospect which is "worryingly distant-sounding", said Hardman.

"The only surprise, really, is that Labour bothered to pretend it would revive it," said Hardman. "History is repeating itself," one care provider told The Independent's Andrew Grice. Dilnot told the BBC the decision is a "tragedy", adding: "We've failed another generation of families."

While the National Care Service "might take 10 years to achieve" Streeting "genuinely wants to forge a cross-party consensus", said Grice, and is expected to set up a commission. "Consensus is the right route," he added. "It would stop a repeat of the Tories branding Labour's plans a 'death tax' (at the 2010 election) and Labour attacking Theresa May's 'dementia tax' (2017)."

'Outdated, unfair' and 'crying out for reform'

With around a million people in England receiving services that support them in care homes as well in their own homes, "many who rely on the care system want to know why the major political parties aren't talking about it more", said the BBC's home affairs editor Alison Holt. The current system is "outdated, unfair and crying out for reform – and on that there is broad political agreement". 

Both major parties avoided "detailed plans" on social care during the election, likely due to "nerves" over past campaign failures, with Labour's 2010 universal care plan and the Conservatives' 2017 proposal.

But to "get from where we are now to a place where public and political debate is fruitful, we need to start with a clear vision of what can be achieved and to build public support around a positive narrative of investment and strength", said Natasha Curry, writing for the Nuffield Trust. 

"Instead of reducing social care to a 'life and limb' service for older 'vulnerable' people, there is an opportunity for politicians to frame it as the essential service that will support us all to live well whatever our circumstances", said Curry. But "embedding this positive framing in the mainstream political debate" is a task that will require "bold political leadership".