PM promises changes to social care ‘by the end of this Parliament’

BORIS JOHNSON said he would bring forward a plan for dealing with social care this year and enact it within the course of this Parliament.

He told the BBC yesterday that his 80-seat majority would allow his Government to “get on with it” but admitted it could be up to five years until any plan was fully implemented, as he promised change “by the end of this Parliament”, which is set to run until 2025.

The Prime Minister said: “We will bring forward a plan this year and we will get it done within this Parliament.”

The move will be a blow to those who have already waited since 2017 for a new plan for social care to be published.

Mr Johnson said: “This is a big, big thing. I mean, this is a potentially massive change in the way we fund social care, and we’ve got to get it right. We have got to think very carefully about how we do it because there are lots of quite important moral and social issues contained in it.

“You know, should taxpayers be paying for people who might be able to afford it? What is the relationship you want to encourage, should families be looking after their own, their elderly relatives (and) to what extent? All these are very complex questions.”

He reiterated his campaign pledge that those entering old age would not have to sell their home to pay for care, saying: “The key thing is that everybody must have safety and security in their old age, nobody should sell their home to pay for the cost of that care. We will do that.”

Charity Age UK previously found 1.5 million older people nationally had an unmet care need.

The Independent Care Group chair Mike Padgham said the delay was a “kick in the teeth”.