Care reforms ‘must be properly funded’
A CABINET minister has stressed the need to ensure social care reforms are “adequately funded” as the government considers a manifesto-breaking national insurance hike to cover the costs.
With a long-awaited announcement of reforms touted as soon as next week, ministers have been debating how high a tax rise is needed to fund the NHS and social care.
A source close to Health Secretary Sajid Javid strongly denied he had pushed for an increase to national insurance as high as 2 per cent, but did not dispute that he had argued for a rise of more than 1 per cent.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak is said to be arguing against an increase higher than 1 per cent, with any rise being a breach of the Conservative’s 2019 manifesto.
Conservative former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt urged the Government to “bite the bullet” and announce a tax hike, but warned against a national insurance increase by saying it “disproportionately targets the young”.
With two manifesto pledges seemingly at odds, Justice Secretary Robert Buckland chose to stress the commitment to longterm reform social care.
“I’m confident that something will come
forward very, very soon because a lot of us have been waiting anxiously,” he told BBC Breakfast.
“What we said in the manifesto about social care is no-one has a monopoly of wisdom about these issues and the British public are sensible enough to know that when it comes to the issue of social care, we have got to find some way in which it will be adequately funded.”
The Times reported that five Cabinet ministers would oppose the hike to national insurance.
Multiple newspapers have reported that new plans could be revealed next week when Parliament returns from its summer recess.
Mr Hunt, chairman of the Commons Health and Social Care Committee, said the “eye-watering” sums required are far bigger than what the Chancellor “can find down the back of a Treasury sofa”.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I’m really arguing that we need to bite the bullet and say there has to be a tax rise of some sort.”
He wrote in the Telegraph that a “rise in income tax feels very un-Conservative” and “national insurance disproportionately targets the young”, so instead argued for a new “health and care premium”.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has faced criticism for a delay in setting out the reforms, having said his plan was ready when speaking on the steps of Downing Street in 2019.
During the general election that year, the Tories pledged not to raise the rate of income tax, VAT or national insurance.
Downing Street did not deny a tax raise was being considered, but it was stressed that no decisions have been made.