Boris Johnson's 'no home sale' manifesto promise broken by social care plans, Rachel Reeves says

The Conservative party manifesto for the 2019 General Election stated that its long-term solution for social care would include “a guarantee that no one needing care has to sell their home to pay for it”.

Ms Reeves told The Yorkshire Post that the plan for people to still pay up to £86,000 towards their care costs means “that is clearly not happening” with people in less wealthy areas effectively still being forced to sell up.

“What Boris Johnson promised is that no one would have to sell their house to pay for social care,” she said.

“To be fair to him, if you live in a big house in London or the south-east then he absolutely has kept that promise.

“But if you live in a house worth less than £186,000 – and in the north of England two-thirds of constituencies have an average house price under that – to those people he has not kept that promise.

“With a cap on care costs of £86,000, how do you find that money without selling your home?

“Most people with a home worth £150,000 have not got £100,000 in the bank. If you have assets of £100,000, you’ll lose 80 per cent. If you have assets worth £1m, you’ll keep 90 per cent.

“It’s just totally wrong.”

New research by Labour has suggested the Government’s changes to its social care plan will disproportionately hit families in Yorkshire and the North of England hardest – particularly in red wall seats won by the Tories in 2019.

Median house price data for constituencies in the House of Commons Library shows two-thirds of constituencies in Yorkshire and Humber are under the £186,000 figure. They include the ‘red wall’ Tory seats gained in 2019 of Don Valley, Rother Valley and Great Grimsby, as well as Ms Reeves’ own constituency Leeds West.

The Conservative manifesto also promised National Insurance would not rise – something that is happening from next April to help pay towards the costs of the reforms.

Earlier this month, Sir Andrew Dilnot, who led a review into the future of funding social care a decade ago, said those with less assets “will not see any benefit” from the changes, with the Government set to make savings “exclusively” from this group.

Sir Andrew said he is “very disappointed” that only people’s personal contributions will count towards the £86,000 cap.

In a policy paper, the Government said this is to ensure people “do not reach the cap at an artificially faster rate than what they contribute”.

But Sir Andrew said there is a “sort of North-South axis to this that people living in northern and other less high house price areas are likely to be hit harder by this on average”.

He said poorer people with long care journeys will end up paying as much as their better off counterparts, and for some the amount of time they spend paying contributions towards their care could double.

In 2011, a commission headed by Sir Andrew recommended capping the amount someone should pay for care in their lifetime, fixed at between £25,000 and £50,000.

The Government is proposing a lifetime cap of £86,000 from October 2023, with people with assets less than £20,000 paying nothing and those with up to £100,000 contributing to their care.

Sir Andrew told the Treasury select committee people with significant care needs and assets of £106,000 will be hardest hit by the changes to the cap, but it will not make a difference to anyone with more than £186,000.

He said around 60 per cent of older people who end up needing social care have assets less than £186,000 and about 30 to 40 per cent less than £106,000.

Earlier this week, 19 Conservative MPs - including three from Yorkshire - rebelled to vote against a change to social care reforms amid anger over how it will hit poorer pensioners.

The Prime Minister narrowly succeeded in getting MPs to back his new policy to cap care costs in England on Monday evening, which senior Tories declined to back amid criticism the plans were being watered down.

Ministers were unable to say whether the change to the £86,000 cap on care costs would fulfil an election pledge to guarantee no-one would have to sell their home to pay for care.

Backbench Tory critics joined experts and Labour MPs in warning the move to count only individual payments towards the cap, and not local authority contributions, would cost poorer recipients more in assets than the wealthy.

In September, the Government announced that a £86,000 cap on lifetime care costs will be put into place from October 2023.

However, a policy paper last week showed that only personal contributions will count towards that cap for people who receive financial support from a local authority for some of their care.

Experts said that means poorer individuals will reach the cap faster than those who are wealthier and will therefore see more of their assets eaten up by care costs.

The Resolution Foundation think tank warned that people in the North and in Yorkshire are most at risk from having their “wealth wiped out by care costs”, and said the changes approved on Monday would make the reforms worse.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman was unable to say whether people may still have to sell their homes to pay for care, arguing: “I can’t predict individual situations.”

Johnson's defence of changes

Prime Minister Boris Johnson insisted this week that the Government social care reforms are “incredibly generous and much better than the existing system”.

“Under the existing system nobody gets any support if they have assets of £23,000 or more,” he said. “Now you get support if you have £100,000 or less, so we are helping people.”

People with assets of less than £20,000 will not have to contribute anything to their care – up from the current £14,250 – while those with assets worth up to £100,000 will be eligible to receive some local authority support, up from £23,250.

Read more:

Social care funding is grossly inadequate - Stephen Chandler

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