Jeremy Hunt set to delay social care reforms to assist repair UK public funds

A plan to restrict the quantity a person in England must pay in the direction of private social care, because of take impact subsequent yr, shall be delayed for a minimum of two extra years as chancellor Jeremy Hunt seeks to fill a £55bn fiscal gap in subsequent week’s Autumn Assertion.

The choice means yet one more delay to the coverage, which has been on the statute ebook since 2014 and is judged by specialists to be key to addressing the danger of a person dealing with catastrophic care prices. It was final yr readopted by Boris Johnson’s authorities as a part of his much-vaunted declare to have “mounted” social care.

Nevertheless, folks accustomed to discussions stated prime minister Rishi Sunak had by no means favoured the coverage whereas serving as Johnson’s chancellor.

Sunak’s reluctance was a part of the explanation he pressed for the introduction of a nationwide insurance coverage rise — axed by Liz Truss’s authorities — to fund it, eager that Johnson be carefully tied to the pledge’s fiscal implications.

As chair of the Home of Commons well being choose committee, Hunt championed the cap, which beneath the present plan would stand at £86,000. However whereas a closing determination has but to be taken, he’s now thought to have accepted the necessity for a pause, in accordance with authorities officers.

Sunak and Hunt want to seek out an extra £55bn for the general public funds, cut up between spending cuts and tax rises forward of the Autumn Assertion on November 17. Suspending the cap for 2 years would save an estimated £1bn within the first yr, rising ultimately to £3bn a yr if the coverage was scrapped.

A two-year delay would imply the coverage wouldn’t take impact earlier than the subsequent common election, when a brand new spending evaluate interval would start. Any incoming Labour administration would then face a problem over methods to fund it.

Well being and social care specialists voiced concern that the delay, first reported by The Occasions, would in impact sound the loss of life knell for the coverage, including that the way forward for a extra beneficiant strategy to means-tested assist, additionally because of be launched subsequent yr, was unsure.

Economist Sir Andrew Dilnot, the unique architect of the reforms, stated he can be “genuinely astonished if the federal government had been to backtrack on this manner” as a result of each Sunak and Hunt “have repeatedly stated that they’re going to be defending probably the most susceptible”.

He added that any delay “can be a merciless, merciless breach of [the manifesto] promise” made by the Conservatives in 2019 and wouldn’t considerably contribute to stabilising the general public funds.

Natasha Curry, deputy director of coverage on the Nuffield Belief, a think-tank, pointed to the size of the disaster in social care, the place about 10 per cent of posts are vacant. She stated a delay risked “dropping the momentum that we’re constructing round probably extra vital reforms sooner or later to place social care on a extra steady footing”.

Simon Bottery, senior fellow in social care on the King’s Fund, one other think-tank, stated the “big concern is that if we do delay the cap . . . historical past tells us that there’s an actual danger {that a} delay turns into primarily an abandonment”.

The Treasury declined to remark.