An exclusive piece For ALDC by Ed Davey MP
Today I met the new Prime Minister to start cross-party talks on fixing social care – something we have been pushing for as a party for many years now.
This is personal for me. Not just because of my own experience as a carer for most of my life – first for my mum when I was a teenager, and now for my son John – but because of all the family carers I’ve heard from over the years. I know the amazing work they do, and I know how badly they and their loved ones are being let down by the current crisis.
They desperately want to see social care fixed, so that everyone gets the high-quality care they need, and carers get the help and support they deserve.
And we also know: if we don’t fix social care, we’ll never end the crisis in our NHS or the crisis in local authority finances either. Social care now consumes 78% of councils’ net revenue spending across England. We simply have to get this done.
We have set out our own detailed plans on social care, including our three key tests for fixing it: putting family carers front and centre; a universal safety net of care including free personal care; and protecting people from catastrophic costs.
But we have also always argued that the only way to fix social care is to do it cross-party, because any solution has to stand the test of time and changes of government. We’ve seen before what happens when parties aren’t fully signed up – when the Conservatives ripped up the Dilnot reforms that we legislated for.
So these talks are an essential step forward. After fighting on this issue for so long, it gives me hope that we might finally get a solution.
And I have made clear: we are determined to make this succeed. So if we can find a proposal that both Labour and the Conservatives sign up to, we will back it – even if it’s not our preferred option. Because we know that unless everyone is signed up to it, it won’t happen.
I am hopeful today – more hopeful than I have been for a long time that we can finally fix care. But there is a lot of hard work ahead – and we need to keep fighting for carers, for people who need care, and for all the families affected by the social care crisis.
I know the social care crisis is something Liberal Democrats in local government have to deal with every day. I hope we can finally change that.