I have been contacted by constituents about National Care Service.
As the Member of Parliament for Milton Keynes South, I have included below my response:
During this Parliament, the Government has made several proposals for reforming adult social care in England, including measures that would have provided additional funding, the Social Care White Paper and the social care cap. The Opposition has consistently opposed each of these proposals to date.
I am opposed to proposals for a National Care Service, and there are significant flaws in the Fabian Society's report (conducted on behalf of the Opposition) advocating for this approach. For example, the Fabian Society states that “delivering on people’s aspirations for what an NCS would achieve will require a very substantial increase in public funding over many years.” However, the report does not state the cost of such measures or how they would be paid for.
Current proposals for a National Care Service risk causing a complex, centralising, top-down reorganisation of health and social care across England. The Fabian Society’s report proposes new legislation that would impose new duties on central and local government, as well as introducing a national care guarantee, codified in a new National Care Service ‘constitution’. No information is provided on how the income would be raised to fund central and local government for the costs of these new duties, but the independent Kings Fund has stated that this would require wider reform of local government finance.
In the meantime, the Government remains committed to reforming adult social care in England and is providing up to £2.8 billion in 2023-24 in England and £4.7 billion in 2024-25 to put the social care system on a more sustainable footing.
Thank you to those constituents who took the time to contact me about this issue.
