EMMA LEWELL-BUCK: You can’t deliver good social care in order to make a profit

He has introduced a National Insurance hike to pay for health and social care, that’s it, no other plans no other suggestions. He said in 2019 he had a plan for social care, yet he claims this NI hike is necessary because of covid. Once again, he’s making it up as he goes along.

Health and social care have been in a dire state for the last decade, it is not covid that led to this but underfunding, lack of care and lack of interest in it from the Tories.

Of course, health and social care need to be funded properly and for the long term if we want these services to avoid further erosion and privatisation but focusing on the finances alone misses the fundamental problems in our health and social care system. A for-profit, fragmented, market-driven sector with poor pay, training and career prospects are all contributing factors.

People will not countenance paying higher taxes to fund a system that is moving towards privatisaiton, that will put their money in the pockets of those who already make staggeringly high profits from providing, often substandard, health and social care.

The reality is you can’t deliver good care for a profit, good care costs, when profit becomes the bottom line then good care goes out of the window.

I have long advocated for a system of reformed taxation to pay for and make the system sustainable for the future but making those who earn the least pay for it is not the answer.

Under these proposals families will see the biggest rise in their taxes for over 50 years, the New Economics Foundation have calculated that this coupled with the cut to universal credit will see over 2 million working households lose out on over £1200 come 2022/23.

The pandemic saw the biggest increase in billionaires for 33 years, a decent PM would explore a wealth tax instead of increasing the working poor, sadly our PM and his Government are far from decent.