Britain needs the coming break. If the December election provided a splenetic denouement to a dangerously polarised period in public life, Christmas offers a chance to relax and reset the dial of the national mood to a more sustainable level. When politics does return to a divided country, which badly needs to unite and agree on something, the crisis in social care must finally be given the attention it deserves.
Over the past two decades, there have been five independent commissions, four government white papers and two green papers addressing the care funding crisis, which becomes more urgent every year as people live longer. No progress has been made, for reasons primarily to do with political cowardice and cynicism. With Brexit no longer consuming all energies, 2020 must be different.
Since becoming prime minister, Boris Johnson has shape-shifted, dissembled and obfuscated on social care, as on so many other matters. In the summer, he said he had “a clear plan” that would fix the problem. There was no plan. Instead Mr Johnson has pledged an extra £1bn a year for the sector – the equivalent of a sticking plaster on a gaping wound – and said he will seek cross-party consensus on what to do next.
Hard as it may be, opposition parties should try to treat this approach with an open mind. It is vital that the politicking which has dogged previous attempts to reform a broken system is not repeated. Talk of a Labour “death tax” in 2010, and a Tory “dementia tax” in 2017, dumbed down public debate – and in doing so betrayed people who were vulnerable, lonely and in dire need. While parliament has prevaricated and kicked cans down the road, tens of thousands of people die waiting for a care package each year; Age UK estimates that 1.4 million people who have difficulty eating, washing, dressing and going to the toilet are not getting the support they need and one in 10 people over the age of 65 face future lifetime care costs of over £100,000. The journey to this appalling state of affairs has been a collective political failure and is a stain on the nation’s conscience.
That said, this is now Boris Johnson’s problem to solve. A healthy majority and the prospect of a five-year term leave no room for alibis or finger-pointing across the aisle of the House of Commons. The prime minister has said he will lead a “people’s government” committed to one-nation Conservatism; restoring dignity and security to those elderly members of society who desperately need the state’s help is an obvious starting point. The crisis in both residential and home care has been exacerbated by 10 years of swingeing Conservative cuts to local government funding, which have hit the poorer areas of the country hardest. If Mr Johnson truly intends a new deal for such places, funding adequate social care is one way to show it.
The consensus that the prime minister claims to seek is largely already in place. There is broad agreement that public funding for adult social care needs to be significantly increased, and that a balance needs to be struck between individual and collective responsibility for care costs. It is generally acknowledged that there should be a reasonable limit on the lifetime liability of individuals. The Dilnot commission’s proposals, which combine the principle of means-testing with a cap on individual payments, are now almost a decade old. Whether Mr Johnson’s government chooses to return to them or take another route, there can be no more stalling. He must get social care reform done.
