Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent discussions he has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on potential long-term sustainable funding solutions for adult social care to inform the Comprehensive Spending Review 2020.

At the 2019 Spending Round we announced that we would be providing councils with access to an additional £1.5 billion for adult and children’s social care in 2020/21 on top of maintaining £2.5 billion of existing social care grants and will support local authorities to meet rising demand and continue to stabilise the social care system.

This includes an additional £1 billion of grant funding for adults and children’s social care, and a 2% precept that enables councils to access a further £500 million for adult social care.

We have now made £3.2 billion available to local authorities so they can address pressures on local services caused by COVID-19, including in adult social care. On 15 May we published details of an additional £600 million Infection Control Fund for Adult Social Care.

Future funding for social care will be set out at the next Spending Review.