Jenrick presses Burnham on social care taxes

Robert Jenrick has stepped up pressure on Andy Burnham over the adult social care review, urging the prime minister to rule out future tax rises to pay for changes in England’s care system. The clash has sharpened the political fight over how to fund reform, with Burnham saying he wants to examine existing budgets first but has not closed the door on taxes.

Speaking at a press conference, Jenrick said the government should reject what he called a universal death tax and instead pay for reform by cutting foreign aid and reducing payments linked to migrants. The Reform UK Treasury spokesman said care workers are badly paid and argued that a future Reform government would redirect spending away from overseas aid and stop visas for overseas workers in order to employ more British citizens. He said he could not ask taxpayers to fund another levy before ending aid to richer countries overseas.

Burnham, who has made social care a priority, has said the review into the system will be published next summer after being accelerated by his government. He has said the review should look at how to fund a national care service and how to build a system that is closely integrated with the NHS. He also said he wants to work with Chancellor John Healey on boosting pay and training for care workers, which he said would be fully funded from existing budgets. On the wider overhaul, he said he wants to squeeze more from current budgets before tax rises are discussed.

The arguments carry echoes of earlier political battles over social care. Burnham was health secretary in Gordon Brown’s government when a compulsory levy was proposed that people could pay after death, an idea branded a death tax by the Conservative Party. But Burnham has not proposed introducing that same levy now, and he told reporters that his 2009 ideas were meant to stop people from having to sell their homes to cover care costs.