In the next Parliament, Labour will build a National Care Service. This will be the biggest change to the provision of care in Britain since we established our NHS in the 1940s. At Labour Party Conference, Prime Minister Andy Burnham explained why. Everyone knows that Britain’s social care system is broken. And for decades, politicians have failed to fix it. That’s left millions of older people facing care costs which are too much to bear, and living in conditions which are not up to scratch. It’s also increased pressure on our NHS. Visit any hospital and you will see the impact: older people who should be supported at home forced into A&E, and beds occupied by people who could leave hospital, but can’t get access to the help they need as they recover. We won’t let this system continue. So, the Labour way of looking after older people in our country will be a fundamental change. By setting up a National Care Service, we’ll build a way of delivering care with the same principles as the NHS: where everyone contributes and everyone is covered. Older people will be able to access good quality, free personal care with support for their needs. And our National Care Service will deliver care in the home wherever possible, giving older people the respect they deserve. We’ll pay for it by adjusting the triple lock. The triple lock will stay the same throughout this parliament. Labour pledged it in our manifesto and we’ll keep that promise. From April 2030, we’ll adjust it, but it will always continue to rise. We will guarantee that the state pension will rise every year by either inflation or by 2.5% - whichever is higher. Nobody’s pension will go down, and the state pension will be on a sustainable footing for the years to come. We will start laying the groundwork for the National Care Service now, and introduce it in the next Parliament. So this is Labour’s deal. A state pension that rises every year. And a high-quality National Care Service to give peace of mind in later life.

A National Care Service based on NHS principles, where everyone contributes and everyone is covered.