Andy Burnham is today promising an “honest conversation” with the British public about difficult issues - including youth unemployment, housing and social care. He is using his speech to Labour’s annual conference to promise “a serious prospectus for Britain”. But he will admit: “I accept people will not agree with every part of it”.
National Care Service proposal
One of Mr Burnham’s proposals in particular is set to cause an outcry that he clearly isn’t ready for. He wants to set up a National Care Service that will be up and running by 2030. The idea is that it will provide social care for free, in a similar way to the National Health Service, which of course provides free healthcare.
But nothing is really free. We fund the NHS through our taxes. And creating a National Care Service is going to have to mean that we pay for that too.
Funding through a wealth levy
You might think that this indicates tax rises are on their way - but it’s actually worse than that. Because the Prime Minister has made it clear in the past that he doesn’t think social care can be provided by general taxation.
Bear in mind we are talking here specifically about care for older people, not children or younger people who might need care because of a disability. It’s the (relatively) old that will benefit. So Mr Burnham thinks it’s the old that should pay.
He’s been working on this plan since he was Health Secretary in a Labour government back in 2009. On a number of occasions, he’s spoken about creating a social care levy - for everyone to pay once they reach a certain age.
Details and potential backlash
We don’t know the full details of his current plan. While he is talking about it at the party conference, the precise arrangements are being left to Baroness Louise Casey, the former civil servant who was already leading a review into social care. But we know that in the past, Mr Burnham has suggested people should start paying his levy once they reach the age of 65 or so. And he wants it charged on wealth - not income. So that means savings, and maybe even the equity in your house. It could be as much as 10% of everything you own.
The goal is a noble one in many ways. He wants everyone (or every older person at least) to share the risk. It would end the current situation where some people pay massive amounts for care, because they live for years with dementia, perhaps forcing their children to sell their home. Instead, under Mr Burnham’s plan, those people who never get an illness such as dementia, or simply die shortly after their 65th birthday, would contribute too. In other words, the amount you pay would be based on your wealth, rather than on whether you get ill or not.
And it’s possible that in return for paying the new care levy, there would be cuts in inheritance tax. However, while many of us understandably resent inheritance tax, the fact is that only one in 20 estates is liable for it. We’d all have to pay the care levy.
There’s a good reason no politician has managed to fix social care funding before. These sorts of ideas are condemned as a “death tax” or “dementia tax”, and are hated by the public. Andy Burnham seems to think that in his case, it will be different. But he’ll find he’s unleashed a monster. Voters are going to hate it.
