Adult Social Care: Long-term Funding

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Betts]

I saw the King’s Fund report and I have seen the analysis. That was an aspiration eventually. However, the Select Committees’ felt that the immediate pressures of the funding gap, which will grow if we do not do anything about it—because of the demographics over the next few years, the fact that we are not meeting the needs of those with moderate care needs, the fact that we are not paying our workforce properly and that many care providers are in financial difficulties—mean that those issues have to be addressed and then, eventually, we can move on to the free care aspiration set out in the report over the longer period.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his statement, and both Select Committees on their report. He said that if everyone contributes something, we should be able to sort out the funding problem. He put great emphasis on the need for a social care premium and praised the German model. In the report, he specifically says that under 40s should be exempt from the social care premium. The argument from the older generation will be that they have paid taxes throughout their lives, so why should they be unfairly burdened? What is the experience in Germany with regard to the social care premium? Does Germany exempt people under 40?

[Mr Betts]

It is a difficult decision. Germany does not exempt people under 40, but there are other tweaks to the system. For example, people without children pay extra and people who are not working pay extra in retirement because they do not have an employer contribution. We have not just mirrored the German system absolutely. We have taken elements from it, which I think is quite right. Japan’s system is not dissimilar and it does restrict payments to those over 40. We have looked at different systems. It is a challenge, but in the end we felt that there were considerable pressures on younger people at this point in time: family pressures, housing pressures, job pressures. We therefore felt that to start at 40 was a reasonable benchmark, bearing in mind that for the vast majority of people it will mean that they will pay into the care system at some point in their lives.