Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of removing the cap on adult social care costs on the cost of adult social care.

We inherited a commitment to implement charging reform in October 2025, which included the cap on care costs. The full policy would have cost government an additional £4bn by 2030 on adult social care spend per year.

Public finances are in their worst position since the Second World War. Funding was not guaranteed by the previous government and preparations for full rollout were not on track, therefore the cap on care costs would have been impossible to deliver by next October.

We are committed to building consensus on the long-term reform needed to create a National Care Service based on consistent national standards. We will set out next steps for a process that engages with adult social care stakeholders, including cross-party and people with lived experience of care.