Social care in the general election – is there room to do more?

Welcome to Carers week.

It’s a particularly important one this year as we approach a General Election.? So, which of the political parties has a grasp on social care in this country??

Before we answer that question, a quick reminder…

Social care in the UK is fundamentally broken.? There are still more than 150,000 job vacancies across the UK, carers have left the industry in droves due to a mixture of low pay, many European workers having left the country and the impact of the pandemic.? This means that many disabled people are poorly looked after and unable to get the support that they need.

In many cases, the care burden therefore falls to the families of those who need this support.? The impact is profound – three quarters of parents who have a disabled child have had to give up work and many are suffering from the physical and emotional exhaustion that comes with performing that role, 24/7.? Carer’s allowance is just ￡80 per week, so it’s no surprise that financial struggles are also a feature for many.?

This army of carers puts in the equivalent of ￡162bn of work hours per year, equivalent to a second NHS.? So, with more than 15% of the UK’s population having a disability and such a huge financial contribution from these family carers, you’d imagine this topic would be high up the agenda for the upcoming election.

Frustratingly for the millions of people working in and cared for in the sector, social care remains a background issue in this election. This could change with the publication later this week of the Conservative and Labour Party manifestos, but any observers of social care policy will know this to be wishful thinking.

The paring back of Labour’s social care plans – in line with their ‘ming vase’ strategy – was well documented earlier in 2024. Social care is nowhere to be seen in the five missions or six first steps. A National Care Plan will have to wait, while Labour instead will focus on recruitment and retention in the social care workforce. For the Conservative Party, it’s harder to disassociate their plans from current government policy, but a decision on the implementation of the ￡86,000 cap on personal care costs will have to be made. Labour too are poised to adopt this policy.

Workforce support and personal contributions to care are important policies, but on their own they will not come close to solving the social care challenges in the UK. So, what’s driving this lack of policy action?

The Conservatives and Labour each have their own reasons to stay silent on the issue. Having promised to “fix the crisis in social care once and for all,” politically, Sunak may be wise not to draw attention to something which very clearly has not been fixed. Above all, though, the silence from both major parties comes down to social care being a political football. Election rows in 2010 and 2017 illustrate the perils that can await a party willing to put forward meaningful social care reforms.

Is there a way forward, a chance to show that sensible policy can win votes at the same time as not opening a party up to attacks from rivals? The size of the prize is hard to assess. Most polling companies don’t segment social care specifically on surveys which assess voter priorities, meaning it’s hard to determine, relative to other issues, how strongly the public really feel and therefore how popular a policy might be.

While as a third party, the Liberal Democrats are not judged – and attacked – on the same grounds as the two vying for Government, electoral success for Ed Davey’s party – still a big if – may come to illustrate the electoral allure of social care reform. Voters like authenticity and few party political broadcasts have shown the true personality behind a political persona as the Liberal Democrats did last week. But, above all, the party would not have made it such a prominent part of last year’s conference or this year’s campaign had it not fared strongly in ‘blue wall’ focus groups. Social care is clearly an opportunity to differentiate the party, as today’s manifesto launch highlights. Free personal care for adults and a higher minimum wage for the sector are not solutions to every challenge in the sector, but these and the many other important pledges are a long way ahead of other parties’ commitments.

The snap election means the timing of this manifesto pledge with Carers week is of course coincidental. But it couldn’t be more fitting. While they may vote other ways, millions of people up and down the UK will be hoping the Liberal Democrats’ leadership on social care – especially if it rewards them with electoral success – prompts the Conservatives and Labour to follow suit, if not pre-election, certainly within the next Parliament. Social care can’t go on being ignored.

James Melville-Ross (Partner) and Ben Mitchell (Associate Partner)