Prime Minister Andy Burnham said he will use his ‘political capital’ to push for sweeping reform to the ‘broken’ social care system – and hinted that claiming benefits could become harder
Andy Burnham has warned the NHS faces collapse unless the social care system is finally sorted after years of promises.
The Prime Minister vowed to use his “political capital” to find solutions – saying he does not want to leave office without bringing about substantial change. In an interview with the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, Mr Burnham also indicated he wants to make it harder to claim benefits, saying the country must “get serious” about bringing the welfare bill down.
Mr Burnham – whose dad Roy has Alzheimer’s disease and lives in a care home – is expected to give a major speech on social care this week.
He told the BBC: “I will go as quickly as I can on the reform of social care… I think there are major changes you can make before the next election.
“This costs the NHS billions of pounds and we will never get the NHS back to good waiting time standards until we fix social care.”
Ms Kuenssberg told him that proposal after proposal has been put forward, and asked: “This is about political will, is it not?” The Prime Minister responded: “I’m not going to take different positions than the ones I’ve long put to you in interviews.
“Whatever political capital I have, I will put in to fixing broken social care, and I would not want to leave office without having brought in the substantial change, the new system of social care that you described.
“I can’t put a timeline on it right here, right now. If we don’t do it, the NHS will collapse under the weight of trying to care for people who’ve really not really needed to end up in the NHS system.”
Last month there were 14,000 people stuck in hospital each day in England – mainly because they cannot get social care to be safely discharged somewhere else. This was up 70% since 2021. Mr Burnham first proposed a universal social care system in England back in 2009, when he was Health Secretary under Gordon Brown.
On Sunday Defence Secretary Wes Streeting, who was Health Secretary for nearly two years, backed his boss to get a grip on the system. He said: “It’s why Andy Burnham’s leadership matters, because I have no doubt that he will prioritise this issue.
“I think you’ll see him this week spelling out why and how he intends to grip this issue, and why it means so much to him in a way that I think will resonate with so many people across the country.”
Elsewhere Mr Burnham suggested it should be harder for people – particularly young people – to be able to claim benefits. He indicated he plans to “increase the conditions on people required to receive benefits”.
The PM said: “Well, I wouldn’t necessarily go straight to blaming those people. What I would say is that there are people in the benefits system, young people in their 20s, who have been, I would, say, quite seriously let down because the support wasn’t there for them when it should have been there…So I don’t blame them. I don’t think the support has been there for them in the way that it should have been.”
Pressed to elaborate he said: “It’s about changing the nature of the support and making some of the support conditional upon people taking opportunities that are presented in front of them. So you might increase the conditions required to receive benefits.
“I think it’s a good thing that the government has given guarantees of opportunities for young people. And I think we need to continue down that approach and where mental health support is needed, for instance, it’s provided in work to support people in an opportunity.
“Let me just say something more though about. What you’re driving at, which is the welfare bill. I think we’ve got to get really serious as a country at getting the welfare down.”
Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden is drawing up proposals to reform the benefit system. Last year plans championed by Keir Starmer and former welfare chief Liz Kendall had to be abandonned following a rebellion by Labour backbenchers
