Tories and Reform UK tell Burnham they will fight any plan to reform adult social care involving tax rises – UK politics live

Defence secretary Wes Streeting says the country will see a prime minister that ‘runs towards big and difficult issues’ Denis Campbell is The Guardian’s health policy editor. Andy Burnham must convince voters of the “moral” and “positive” case for reforming social care, not just that it will help the NHS, health thinktanks said today. It is right to recognise that the NHS and social care are deeply interconnected but the case for fixing social care extends far beyond protecting the NHS. There is a moral imperative to ensure older and disabled people can live independently with dignity and a compelling economic case too. Millions of people have unmet care needs, while unpaid carers and disabled adults are too often prevented from working, participating in their communities and planning for their futures because the support they need simply isn’t there. Better social care would undoubtedly help some patients leave hospital more quickly but we should avoid suggesting that fixing social care alone will fix the NHS. Debates about social care are too often haunted by ‘death tax’ rhetoric and the costs of improving the system rather than focussed on the tangible benefits reform could bring for people and families. If the prime minister wants to succeed where previous governments have failed, he must make a positive case for reform and build a shared understanding of why change matters. There are people here in Greater Manchester who pay a much higher council tax than people living in much larger homes in London. So the chancellor before, Rachel Reeves, was right to start to reform council tax to create some fairness there in relation to people in homes that are of much greater value, who haven’t seen their council tax go up over the years because of the failure to revalue the banding. We need to honour the manifesto upon which Labour was elected, and if I was to bring forward any changes, obviously people would rightly say, well, is this consistent with that manifesto? So there are big decisions ahead, you are right about that. Two models are competing for support: a proportional property tax, which would replace both council tax and stamp duty with a flat 0.48 per cent annual charge on a home’s current value; or a land value tax – an annual charge based on the value of the land a property sits on, rather than the building. Continue reading...