Andy Burnham commits to NHS-style social care reform even if it means unpopular tax rises

Andy Burnham has promised to “grasp the nettle” on social care, telling the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg that he will set out a timetable at Labour’s Liverpool conference for a national care service built on “NHS principles” — free at the point of use and pledged in Labour’s next manifesto.

The prime minister said he was prepared to spend political capital on reforms he knew could be unpopular, blaming the “cowardice” of past generations of politicians for decades of inaction.

On funding, Mr Burnham said “nothing is off the table”, including a possible levy on estates — but stressed he was “not going straight back” to the 2010 proposal condemned as a “death tax”. He said Labour’s manifesto pledges on income tax, VAT and national insurance made reform “hard to do in this Parliament”, so the plan would go to voters at the next election, expected in 2029.

He rejected a Health Foundation estimate that a free care service could cost up to £18.5bn a year by 2035/36, pointing to savings the NHS would make as better social care kept people out of emergency treatment and hospital beds.

Mr Burnham described the current English system as “as unfair as American healthcare”, and said the death of his father Roy, who had Alzheimer’s, earlier this month had left him more determined.