Everyone who relies on or works in social care has been waiting for far too long for urgently needed increased funding and reform. We need action to ensure everyone who needs care, both working-age adults and older people, can access the care they need; to address the staffing and funding crisis in social care, and to ensure everyone has a voice in their own care.

Last week the Government announced an increase in National Insurance contributions to raise money for the NHS and social care, a tax increase which will hit younger working people the hardest, including the same low paid workers who are the backbone of our social care system who will now face a cut in their take home pay.  But the Government has failed to explain how the funding raised will benefit social care, or when the social care sector will receive it, and it has failed to produce a plan for the reforms that are urgently needed. 

This simply isn’t good enough.  The Government has neglected social care for more than a decade, and now they are ignoring many years of considered cross-party work on options for reform in favour of a half-baked plan which will not deliver the change that is urgently needed. You can see my speech from earlier this week below >>