Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure that elderly citizens on low incomes are able to access social care.

The Government is committed to ensuring individuals have access to the care and support they need. When local authorities charge for care and support, they must undertake a financial assessment to determine what the individual can afford to pay from their income and assets and ensure they retain enough income to pay for any needs that are not being met by the local authority.

Local authorities make assessments based on a range of factors. The Minimum Income Guarantee determines the floor for income retained for those receiving care in their own home and the personal expense allowance for those receiving care in a care home. On 7 September 2021, the Government announced that from April 2022 it will unfreeze these allowances and they will rise in line with inflation.