Keir Starmer slammed over three-year delay to social care reforms

Keir Starmer Departs Downing Street for PMQs in London

keir Star (Image: Getty)

Keir Starmer’s three-year delay into reforming Britain’s broken social care system is “inappropriately” long and will let down millions of frail, ill and disabled people.

Sir Andrew Dilnot blasted the for launching another lengthy probe into the long-term funding of support for the elderly.

The architect of the abandoned “Dilnot reforms” slammed Labour for waiting until 2028, a year before the next general election.

Health Secretary last week announced an independent commission, led by Baroness Louise Casey, will begin in April.

Sir Andrew said ideas for reform should come in the first half of this parliament and the PM should even consider putting up taxes again to pay for them.

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Sir Andrew Dilnot

Sir Andrew Dilnot (Image: -)

He told the Commons Health and Social Care committee: “I’d certainly like to see the Commission report earlier and I’d very much hope that it will.

“I don’t get the impression that Louise Casey is somebody who likes to hang about. I can’t think of any reason why it should take three years, I simply can’t. The commission that I was part of took a year, a year from being commissioned to final reporting.”

The top economist blasted ministers from the current and former governments for having “not had courage to go forward and do something”.

Sir Andrew said that it is “blindingly….bleedin’ obvious” that in an “affluent society” care should be properly funded – and the responsibility now lies with the PM to sort out the issue once and for all.

The economist, who was the architect of plans for a care costs cap more than a decade ago, welcomed the fact that a newly announced commission would be “another chance to try to raise this set of issues up the agenda”.

But Sir Andrew insisted it should not take three years to produce a final report and recommendations, suggesting it is “perfectly feasible” for the Government to set out by the end of this year what it is going to do.

He described it as “completely unnecessary” to wait until 2028 to decide what to do and urged Sir Keir not to “hide behind waiting until everybody has agreed” because he leads a Government with a “very, very large majority” in Parliament.

Mr Streeting has said the commission will “work to build a national consensus around a new National Care Service able to meet the needs of older and disabled people into the 21st century”.

It will be split over two phases, with the first, reporting to Sir Keir in mid-2026, looking at the issues facing social care and recommending medium-term reforms, and two years later reporting from its second phase.

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Around 2.6 million people in England aged over 50 have been unable to access care, according to Age UK. Meanwhile, the cost of care has soared for local authorities, who say they do not have the resources to meet surging demand.

Town halls are also struggling to recruit staff, with a 9.9 per cent vacancy rate reported in 2022/23. Sir Andrew led a review into the future of funding social care and published his proposals in 2011.

But despite his reforms being accepted and praised by previous governments, they have never been enacted.

At the October Budget last year Rachel Reeves faced enormous backlash for scrapping plans by former Tory leader to place an £86,000 cap on the amount anyone in England would need to spend on their personal care over their lifetime.

The cap would be paid for by a hike in national insurance, a decision that was later reversed by ex-PM .

The Chancellor insisted the proposals were not “deliverable” – but Sir Andrew slammed the move as a “tragedy”.

Kathryn Smith, chief executive at the Social Care Institute for Excellence, said that each time reform is promised but fails to be delivered feels like “groundhog day”.

Waiting for recommendations in 2028 will be “too late for too many people”, she added, telling MPs: “There has to be action now, there has to be funding now.”

Sir Andrew said improving social care would lead to short-term benefits for the NHS, but could in the long run add to costs for the state for the simple reason that people would be able to live longer.

He told MPs: “I wouldn’t want to make an argument that by doing social care better, in the long run we will save money.

“But now in the short to medium run I think we definitely will because we’re doing social care so badly that we’re jamming up the NHS in a wholly unhelpful way.”

He said people living longer is “one of the great triumphs of the last 150 years” and that hearing ageing described as a burden makes him “fume with anger”.

Better social care, he said, can give people “better and more flourishing lives”.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said Sir Andrew is “absolutely right” on the timing for reform, adding: “The social care crisis is forcing patients to be treated in hospital corridors while elderly people sell their homes to pay for care.

“After years of being let down so badly by the , they cannot afford to wait while the Government drags its heels for another three years.”

Responding to a plea from Sir Ed in the Commons to speed up the work on reform to make 2025 “the year we finally rise to the challenge of fixing care”, Sir Keir said he wanted “cross-party consensus” on the issue.

The Prime Minister noted social care funding announced in the Budget as well as an increased carer’s allowance, but did not commit to a new timetable for the commission.

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