This week, I would like to discuss adult social care reform – an issue that affects so many of us at some point in our life.

I support calls for a world-class National Care Service that makes people as proud as the NHS does: improving quality and standards, and transforming access to make sure everyone who needs care and support can get it when and where they need it.

The Fabian Society’s report, ‘Support Guaranteed: The roadmap to a National Care Service’, includes recommendations that echo the long-term plan of reform set out by Labour, to raise standards across the sector, join up health and care services, and give people more choice and control over their care.

For too long, social care has lacked the priority, funding and reform it needs. Cuts to local government have resulted in £8 billion being lost from adult social care budgets, leaving thousands of families paying 100 per cent of care costs. 

Around half a million older and disabled people are on council waiting lists for care and there are 152,000 care worker vacancies across the sector.

Despite repeated promises to fix social care, the Government delayed reforms until October 2025 and has instead repeatedly asked councils to increase taxes on working people to plug funding gaps.

In my view, we need to put social care at the heart of a modernised welfare state as an essential part of our economic infrastructure. But this must start with improving standards in the current system, delivering better pay, terms and conditions for care workers, and supporting unpaid carers. 

It also means establishing stronger national standards to reduce inequalities in access to care, and enforcing high standards across the private sector to ensure care homes are run in a financially sustainable way.

There is no quick fix to the social care emergency and reforms will take time.

The Fabian Society’s report is an important contribution to the debate about the future of social care.

Alongside my colleagues, I am committed to ensuring better terms and conditions, proper training and fair pay for care workers, with national standards guaranteeing good quality care, as the first steps to building a National Care Service.