Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate he has made of the cost to the public purse of introducing the national living wage into social care from April 2016.

At the time of the Summer Budget 2015 the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) estimated the costs of the National Living Wage to employers across the economy would be almost £4 billion in 2020, equivalent to just over 1 per cent of corporate profits.

It was in recognition of costs such as the NLW and growing demand for care services that the Spending Review announced we would be making additional funding available to local government for social care, worth up to £3.5 billion a year by 2019/20. This will support councils to continue to focus on core services and to increase the prices they pay for care, including to cover the costs of the National Living Wage.