Britain has been repeatedly betrayed on care – and we will all pay the price

It took a while, but the public is slowly understanding the full cunning of Jeremy Hunt and Rishi Sunak’s stealth income tax heist.

Freezing the main income tax thresholds, and lowering the starting point for top-rate tax, in a time of high inflation and wage growth has filled the pockets of the Treasury. The National Insurance “giveaway” isn’t fooling anyone, we are all paying far more tax as a result of the Tories – and the polls show that messing around with NI rates no one has heard of isn’t going to cut it.

However, what most haven’t cottoned on to yet is the scale of the betrayal over care costs, a perennially neglected policy area in need of reform.

Here, too, there is a form of stealth tax. Put simply, in England, those with assets above the “upper capital limit” of £23,250 are expected to meet all their personal care costs from their income or capital. Once the value of your assets drops below the lower limit of £14,250, the assets are ignored and the local authority picks up the tab.

Boris Johnson promised to raise these limits to £100,000 and £20,000 respectively this autumn – but the plans were pushed back to 2025 once he was forced from Downing Street. Instead, just as with income tax, the burden on individuals is growing because the thresholds have been left unchanged.

If the thresholds had risen by inflation, the lower limit would now be about £21,000 – meaning an extra £6,600 or so of assets would have been protected, according to pension company Just Group. Likewise, if the upper limit had risen, it would be more like £33,000 – meaning people would start receiving state support on care fees far earlier.

Mr Johnson’s promise to cap at £86,000 the overall cost of what an individual would be expected to pay towards their care (although room and board, and any “upgrades” beyond basic care homes are on top) has also failed to materialise.

No government has been brave enough to tackle Britain’s worsening care problem. For reform to be a vote winner, a government would have to spend billions of pounds. So instead we ‘No government has been brave enough to tackle Britain’s worsening care problem’ have paralysis. The consequence of a total lack of progress is two-fold.

First, the insurance and healthcare industry is simply not developing the kinds of financial products that people could buy to ensure they have enough cash to pay for their care years. And saving more can just mean paying more till your assets are depleted.

Second, while the system remains impossible to understand, families will spend hours grappling with how to get their affairs in order – and worrying themselves sick.

Many readers I speak to are mainly concerned about the family home having to be sold to pay for care (a myth) or (correctly) fear that the value of the property will be swallowed up after their death when the council comes for its share.

And that’s before you have to try to navigate the “continuing healthcare” rules that can see the NHS pick up every single penny of the cost of nursing care, yet are rarely used.

These problems transcend party politics. As with the introduction of near-compulsory workplace pensions a decade ago, we need national agreement on the way forward. Rishi, Keir – be brave.