Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of increases in employers' National Insurance contributions on trends in levels of fees for care homes.

The Government took the cost pressures facing adult social care, including changes to employer National Insurance contributions and increases to the National Living Wage, into account as part of the wider consideration of local government spending within the 2024 Autumn Budget process.

To enable local authorities to deliver key services such as adult social care, the Government has made available up to £3.7 billion of additional funding for social care authorities in 2025/26.

In addition, the 2025 Spending Review allows for an increase of over £4 billion of funding available for adult social care in 2028/29 compared to 2025/26.

We recognise the importance of fee rates, which meet the costs of delivering care and which enable providers to recruit and retain staff, which is why we have also provided the Market Sustainability and Improvement Fund to local authorities since 2023/24, with one of the three target areas local authorities can spend their allocations on being to improve fee rates to providers.