I will have to raise taxes, admits Rachel Reeves

Rachel Reeves’ decision to scrap a cap on social care costs is a “tragedy”, the architect of the original reforms said this morning.

Sir Andrew Dilnot, who chaired a cross party review in 2011 which recommended the introduction of a lifetime cap on care costs, said the issue had been “tossed aside” by the new Government. 

He told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: “I think it is a tragedy and it is also very disappointing given what was said in the election campaign. 

“On your own programme, Wes Streeting, the now Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, said in response to a question ‘we don’t have any plans to change that situation, that is the certainty and stability I want to give’.”

He added: “To rip this up is unbelievably disappointing for hundreds of thousands of families who need care, for the people who are providing it, for those who are trying to make decisions about it.

“It is another example of social care, something that affects people at some of the most difficult times of their lives, being given too little attention, being ignored and being tossed aside and it is very, very disappointing.”

Under reforms proposed by Boris Johnson when he was prime minister, councils would have been forced to implement a lifetime cap of £86,000 on care costs from October next year, while the threshold at which older people would become responsible for paying their care costs themselves would have been raised from £23,250 to £100,000.

Ms Reeves, the Chancellor, scrapped the policy yesterday as she said there was no money to pay for it.