Social care after the general election: will anything change?

Former New York governor Mario Cuomo famously said that politicians campaign in poetry but govern in prose. As we enter the final stages of electioneering, there is precious little evidence of either in what the major parties have said so far about social care. 

The good news is that social care has attracted more discussion in this election campaign than many expected. Journalists have continued to raise the issues directly with leading politicians, such as Laura Kuenssberg in a recent interview with shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting. But generally politicians have kept their heads down on specific commitments, especially about funding, and have avoided the weaponisation of social care that has scarred previous election campaigns and set back prospects for reform. Only the Liberal Democrats have placed a strong focus on social care, drawing on Ed Davey’s personal experience as a carer. 

What do the manifestos mean for social care? 

The Conservatives’ ambitions for social care are the most limited of all the manifestos, while the Liberal Democrats have the most specific and wide-ranging proposals. Labour’s are the most general – with a headline commitment to create a national care service but no detail about timescales or resources. Both the Conservative and Labour parties promise a multi-year funding settlement for local authorities (amounts unspecified…). As is the case for the NHS, none of the three has offered a comprehensive, fully funded plan for social care to meet growing demand, enable more people to access publicly funded care, and improve services.

For Labour and the Liberal Democrats, improving the pay and conditions of care workers appears to be the priority – just as it is for the public. The Liberal Democrats promise a workforce plan, a £2 per hour boost to basic pay and recommended pay scales. Labour’s pledge is to consult on a fair pay agreement covering pay, conditions and training standards, though without any details on when this might happen. With chronic staffing problems in social care and many care workers living in poverty, these are important commitments to build on.

To better support unpaid carers, the Liberal Democrats promise increased carers allowance, a statutory right to respite breaks, paid carers leave and other measures. But the government and opposition apparently have little to say here – a concerning omission, given that most social care is provided unpaid by friends and family but currently many carers go without support. 

Plans for reforming the funding system for social care also crop up in manifestos. The Liberal Democrats would introduce a Scottish-style system of free personal care. Depending on implementation and funding, this would be a clear improvement on the current system. But free personal care would leave many people with the highest care needs facing catastrophic and uncertain costs – and while the Liberal Democrats estimate the cost of the policy to be less than £3bn a year, we estimate that it could cost around £6bn a year to introduce a Scottish-style free personal care system for older people in England. Instead, the Conservatives would continue with plans to implement the ‘cap’ on lifetime care costs and a more generous means test – reforms that have now been delayed for over 10 years. 

Social care funding reform was omitted from Labour’s manifesto but Wes Streeting has since confirmed implementing a cap on care costs by October 2025 as planned. The Liberal Democrats also propose a cross-party commission on sustainable funding for social care, an aspiration since echoed by Labour. But it isn’t clear why a Labour government with a big majority (as projected) would need cross-party support. The vast majority of the public think that the current means-tested funding system for social care is unfair (74%) as opposed to fair (13%). A fairer option – the cap and reformed means test – has already been legislated for and the costs are relatively modest. While there are concerns about whether these reforms can be delivered on time, they should be an important step forward.

From poetry to prose?

Whether or not these policies will be implemented is another story. For over three decades social care has been no stranger to manifesto promises, with Labour promising ‘a fair system for funding long-term care for the elderly’ in its 1997 manifesto. Pledges from parties of all stripes have followed. There have been numerous commissions and independent reviews setting out options for social care reform – Sutherland, Wanless, Dilnot, Barker – as well as several parliamentary inquiries. The search for political will to implement reform remains elusive. 

A wider theme of the campaign so far has been what the IFS has described as a ‘conspiracy of silence’ by the two largest parties about how, if elected, they would avoid higher taxation, cutting public spending or borrowing more. The post-election landscape this time is deeply inauspicious. The new government will be confronted with gargantuan national and international policy challenges and a fiscal environment far worse than at any time since the 1970s.

As the dust of the electioneering settles, attention will shift to the first spending review of the new parliament. Faced with intense competition from other public services with a higher profile and popular support, advocates for social care will have their work cut out to get a fair hearing. The case for investing in social care is strong but will need to be made even more strongly after the election than before it. If it chooses to, the next government can improve the lives of older and disabled people and those caring for them.