C by E leaders call for higher taxes to fund NHS-style welfare system | Social Welfare

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Top leaders of the Church of England want tax increases to fund a new universal NHS-style social care system that could cost an extra £15 billion a year.

Challenging the government to reform support for one million elderly and disabled people, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York have called for a “national care charter” with a stronger role for the state and citizens who provide more care.

A 20-month investigation ordered by Justin Welby and Stephen Cottrell concluded that taking no action to fix what Welby described as a “broken welfare system” would be a “collective sin”. She said wealth and income taxes should share the cost among individuals, families and businesses.

The bold intervention comes four months after Rishi Sunak suspended plans to raise taxes to boost welfare funding and amid a deepening crisis blamed on NHS obstructions costing lives. More than half a million people await care or evaluations.

The review attacks “the very limited proposals made by recent governments” and says they have been outpaced by improvements in Germany and Japan, and plans in Wales and Scotland for the National Care Service.

The review concluded that social care should become a “universal benefit on par with the NHS” rather than being rationed through “tests of meanness”. It calls for paid leave for 5 million unpaid caregivers, help for people with moderate needs and a system that enables people to “live the best lives they can,” not just meet basic requirements.

The bishops did not put a cost to the changes, but the review’s co-author, Rt Reved James Newcomb, the Bishop of Carlisle, said he would be “on the right track” with proposals from the House of Lords Social Welfare Committee. It said £8bn a year was needed to bring funding back to 2010 levels and a further £7bn for free personal care by 2026.

The review also notes that the weekly care allowance of £69.70 should be “urgently reviewed”, there should be new community funds to support citizens in caring for neighbors in their homes, and care recipients should have a greater say in how they spend their care budget.

“It’s going to cost money, but those costs currently fall on families; it falls on the economy with people not working and caring; it’s on the NHS in terms of waste,” said Co-Chair Dr Anna Dixon.

But the review also seeks to portray welfare reform as a moral issue. Dixon said the committee began by thinking about “love, trust, mutuality – perhaps not words that are usually used in political discourse on social welfare”.

“The power of appreciating the apparently helpless is a test of a well-functioning society,” Welby and Cottrell said. No one should be “treated as a surplus and a ‘mere burden’ because of their age or ability.”

The Guardian revealed last week that Runwood Homes owner Gordon Sanders made at least £21m in five years despite inspectors discovering multiple breaches of the rules at his company’s homes.

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The Bishop of Carlisle spoke generally of care homes, and said, “When they make millions and millions and make that money from the hard work of people who are underpaid… it doesn’t take much imagination for people to come to their own conclusions about the morality of it.”

In November the government pledged up to £7.5bn of new money to support care services over two years, down from the £7bn a year the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, said 2020 was just necessary to meet needs. current. He made this assessment prior to returning to Cabinet when he chaired the Health and Social Care Select Committee in the House of Commons. The pressures are only expected to increase with the number of people living with dementia expected to increase from 900,000 to 1.6 million by 2040.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care said it had worked with “a range of stakeholders on how best to improve adult social care”. It claimed to be making progress in enhancing workforce capacity and improving oversight of the system and in the spring it will publish a two-year reform plan.

Liz Kendall, the shadow care minister, said the archbishops’ proposals were “refreshingly bold” and “in line with Labor’s goal of returning power to those who matter most – care-dependent people and their families”.

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