Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to put in place a comprehensive new spending package for the social care sector; and if he will make a statement.

We have provided councils with access to an additional £1.5 billion for adults and children’s social care in 2020/21 on top of maintaining £2.5 billion of existing social care grants. This 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.

The additional funding for social care was part of a Local Government Finance Settlement that increased Core Spending Power by 4.4% in real terms, the largest year on year real terms increase in a decade.