Dilnot: Burnham's NHS-style social care could take decades — SkimNews
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- Sir Andrew Dilnot, who led a commission on social care reform 15 years ago, told the BBC that Andy Burnham's proposed NHS-style system could take "many years, even many decades" to come to fruition and would carry a "very substantial" cost.
- Dilnot said an NHS-style system would cost "well in excess of £18bn" annually, while the Health Foundation has estimated a universal English system would cost around £18.5bn a year and a Scottish-style model roughly half that figure.
- Burnham refused to rule out tax rises to fund his proposals but said they would not be implemented before the next general election, citing Labour's 2024 manifesto pledges against raising national insurance, income tax, or VAT.
- Labour MP Darren Jones said scrapping the pensions triple lock — which guarantees the state pension rises by the highest of wage growth, inflation, or 2.5% — was an "option that the government should consider" to fund social care, despite the triple lock itself also being a Labour manifesto commitment.
- Dilnot pointed out that if reform only reaches Labour's 2029 manifesto it would be 30 years after Tony Blair's royal commission and more than 15 years after his own commission proposed a £35,000 lifetime cap on care costs, which was accepted by the Cameron coalition but never implemented.
- Previous reform efforts have repeatedly collapsed: Theresa May's government scrapped home-care funding proposals branded a "dementia tax," and Burnham's own earlier national care service plan as health secretary was branded a "death tax" and dropped after Labour lost the 2010 election.
Why it matters: With the next general election not due until August 2029 and Labour bound by manifesto pledges against raising the three main taxes, funding a universal system estimated at over £18bn annually would force the government to either break those pledges or eye politically toxic measures like scrapping the triple lock. The historical record is unforgiving — Dilnot's own accepted cap, May's dementia tax, and Burnham's earlier death tax all died on contact with the political process.
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