Two years after standing on the steps of Downing Street and vowing to fix the crisis in social care, the prime minister Boris Johnson has finally made a start on grappling with a problem that has eluded prime ministers for decades.
Namely, providing a funding solution for the NHS and social care with the creation of a health and social care levy, forecast to generate £36 billion over the next three years. Approximately £30.6bn will be spent on the NHS to help it deal with the 5.5 million people waiting for elective surgery, while £5.4bn will be spent on social care.
The levy will be funded by a 1.25% increase in National Insurance Contributions which will be paid by employees, the self employed and businesses alike. Working pensioners will also pay the levy and there will be a 1.25% increase in dividend tax.
Setting aside the fact that the amount allocated to social care will not be enough to tackle the current unmet care needs or to plug the £6bn funding black hole, much disquiet has been expressed about the intergenerational unfairness of asking the working-age population to bear the brunt of a tax rise to pay for a service used by the old.
But that’s a fallacious argument. Firstly, half of all local authorities’ adult social care budget is spent on working age adults. Secondly and more importantly, the average pensioner has paid tax over the entirety of their working life. In the 1950s, 60s and 70s, the average tax rate for people on low to middle incomes was over 40%, compared to today’s 20% basic tax rate.
Let’s also not forget that the majority of today’s over 65s left school and started working at 15. So, that’s 40 plus years of paying tax on the understanding that when they are older and in need of care, healthcare services would be available having already been paid for.
As things stand, millions of people of all ages have been left languishing in pain on waiting lists for months on end and having their requests for state-funded social care declined. So much for the NHS’ ‘cradle to the grave’ system of healthcare.
The ‘intergenerational unfairness’ argument is as toxic as the ‘benefit scroungers’ rhetoric. It is a false narrative which is ageist and dangerous and it needs to countered vigorously. Otherwise, older people, who already struggle to accept help, will be even more reluctant to ask for the vital care they need for fear of being branded grasping and selfish.
