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Zood for the Liberal Democrats. Sir Ed Davey’s campaign promised that his party, if elected, would finance free social care in homes is the most significant policy announcement yet in a crucial area. The last 14 years were not without failures in social policy. But the Conservatives’ lack of action on care is one of the most glaring. This is a matter on which they should have taken the lead. Instead, they made promises only to break them.
Sir Ed has a lifetime of care behind him: for his mother, who died of cancer when he was a teenager, and later for his grandmother and his disabled son. His proposal is to raise £2.7bn by scrapping tax cuts for banks. This, the party says, would be enough to pay for free personal care, including laundry and medicine, for everyone in England who lives at home and needs it (social care is devolved and the Lib Dem proposals resemble the Scottish system). Carers will also benefit from a new minimum wage £2 higher than the national minimum wage. Residential care costs will not be covered.
Politics is not perfect. Care organizations and other experts questioned the calculations. Sarah Ulnow of the King’s Fund think tank, for example, does not think £2.7bn is enough to “put social care back on a sustainable footing”. Many younger disabled people as well as older people struggle to access sufficient support. But the Lib Dems can be commended for putting ideas and numbers on the table. Importantly, the policy addresses the failings in the current system, both from the perspective of people receiving welfare and those employed to provide it.
Sir Andrew Dilnot, who chaired a government-backed welfare commission more than a decade ago, said earlier this year that the two biggest parties has to “grow up” and stop acting like “this huge problem we all face as we get older is gone.” Labor has committed to new national standards for the sector, covering quality of care, financial regulation and working conditions. Plans to mediate new fair pay agreements, although no details were laid out on how the negotiations would proceed. This week the party promised to investigate treatment of migrant workers after the Guardian uncovered dozens of cases of alleged exploitation and abuse of the visa system by sponsoring organizations. Outside of these specific cases, the health and care workforce is an increasingly urgent priority, as is the role of private capital.
The Conservatives, who have been in government for 14 years, are the ones who rightly face public anger. While NHSrather than social care, is at the forefront of voters’ concerns, it is widely understood the two are closely related. Boris Johnson promised “fixing the social care crisis” back in 2019. But Kwasi Kwarteng scrapped the planned increase in National Insurance in his disastrous mini-budget and his successor, Jeremy Hunt, deferred changes to care fee rules and thresholds until 2025.
The Liberal Democrat leader was a minister in the coalition government that appointed Sir Andrew. He bears some responsibility for the failures of those years, including an attack on local government funding, with the welfare system among the victims. But it was the Tories who abandoned the Dilnot review after the party won back-to-back elections. Sir Ed’s proposals deserve a hearing. Social care reform must not be delayed any longer.
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