Burnham Pledges Free Social Care for All in England

Andy Burnham wants to offer access to free social care services to everyone in England, and will put his plans before voters at the next general election. The prime minister told the BBC it would be a system in which everyone contributes and everyone is covered. He did not rule out tax rises, acknowledging they may prove difficult or unpopular with some.

Burnham said he wants to set out his vision on Tuesday, and that Whitehall troubleshooter Baroness Casey, who is conducting a review, will advise on the best way of doing it. He has made reforming social care one of his flagship policies and has spoken of the experience of his father Roy, who had Alzheimer's and died earlier this month. While clear on his ambition, he has yet to explain how any changes would be funded.

Adult social care provides state support to help people live more independently, including assistance at home. Unlike the NHS, it is not free at the point of use. In England and Northern Ireland, people with savings worth more than £23,250 are not entitled to help with care costs from their council. Different eligibility rules apply in Wales and Scotland. Personal care offered in Scotland is available to all adults assessed as needing help with tasks including eating and bathing.

Speaking to the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, the prime minister said he was talking about a system that works on NHS principles because that is the only way to make it work. There is free personal care elsewhere in the UK, he said, and he did not think it right that people in England do not get the same. It was not something the government would rush.

Burnham said the changes would have to be done carefully, without putting extra strain on the public purse. But he said nothing was off the table at this moment in terms of how the proposals would be funded. When told it had been estimated that a system for everyone in England that is free at the point of use could cost taxpayers £18bn a year, Burnham replied that it was not that high. He said people already face a huge cost and that social care in England is as unfair as American healthcare, where the most vulnerable in society can lose everything. He added there is also a cost to the NHS due to the huge number of people in hospitals across England who cannot be discharged home because the social care isn't there.

Asked whether everyone will have to contribute to his proposed system, Burnham replied that it would be a system of that kind, so everyone contributes and everyone is covered, but not necessarily in precisely the same way the country currently pays for the NHS. He said the details developed by Baroness Casey would be subject to cross-party talks in a bid to build consensus. Baroness Casey was originally tasked by former prime minister Sir Keir Starmer to deliver her review of social care in 2028, but Burnham asked her to bring that forward to next summer. On the timeline, Burnham said he would stick to the manifesto because he has to keep people's trust, and there are commitments in the manifesto that would make it hard to act in this Parliament. The Labour manifesto in 2024 made clear commitments on tax, including not to increase national insurance, income tax or VAT.

Burnham added that he does not think the system can be reformed without consensus. He said he will develop a very clear plan and put it to the public at a general election, which is where the plan gets tested and people will then be able to decide.

Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said the prime minister was suggesting Labour wanted more tax rises to pay for the reforms, adding the Conservatives would not support this. He said tax increases would be a red line for his party and they would not under any circumstances support more of them. The country is already taxed too highly, he told the BBC, adding that if more money is needed for social care or defence, the Conservatives would find it through savings elsewhere, particularly in the welfare budget.

Labour MP Darren Jones, who served as a cabinet minister in Sir Keir's government, said Burnham was being very bold and brave on social care. Politics is about prioritisation, he said, and these things do cost money, so we will need to see the detail of that policy. He told Laura Kuenssberg that scrapping the pensions triple lock was an option the government should consider alongside others in order to fund social care reforms. The triple lock guarantees that the state pension will increase by either average wage growth, inflation or 2.5%, whichever is highest.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said Burnham can show he is serious about fixing care by getting on with the cross-party talks that began in July. He added that this cannot just be a series of No 10 headlines with no real action. Reform UK's economic spokesman Robert Jenrick said Andy Burnham refuses to rule out his universal death tax. He is too weak to cut the benefits bill, Jenrick added, so he is coming for your home instead.

Burnham accused previous generations of politicians of cowardice for failing to reform social care, although his push for change is not without jeopardy. He previously produced a plan for a national care service while serving as health secretary in Gordon Brown's Labour government. It was suggested this would be paid for through a compulsory contribution, including from people's estates after they had died. The idea was branded a death tax by Labour's opponents and the proposals went no further after the party lost the 2010 general election. At the 2017 general election, then-Conservative prime minister Theresa May was accused of trying to introduce a dementia tax by proposing that people receiving care at home pay for the full costs if they were worth at least £100,000.