ALEX BRUMMER: Fresh betrayal for social care
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When it comes to social care, successive governments never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Labour's mindless decision to set up a social care taskforce headed by Baroness Casey, which won't report until 2028, kicks a perennial problem into the long grass.
Some 14 years have passed since the publication of Andrew Dilnot's thorough-going report on paying for social care. In 2019 Boris Johnson stood on the steps of Downing Street and vowed to make reform of social care a priority. His government planned to pay for a new service through a 1.25 per cent 'health and social care' levy, with the funds raised being ring-fenced. Instead, the receipts fell into the black hole in the public finances after the Covid-19 pandemic.
Meanwhile, the pathway from hospital into social care remains blocked. An elderly cousin spent five unnecessary weeks in the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton last summer waiting for a social care package. Lessons to be learned: Keir Starmer should learn from the post-war Attlee Labour government which didn't tarry and rapidly legislated for a 'cradle-to-grave' welfare system.
There are countless similar stories. The answer to the funding problem is in plain sight. In the years following the establishment of 'opt-out' private pensions, as created by Adair Turner's commission, some £30billion has been accumulated in the National Employment Savings Trust and countless more billions in defined contribution pension schemes. Very few people opt out of a plan where funds are collected at source from pay packets.
