Kemi Badenoch has urged Andy Burnham to rule out tax rises or increased borrowing to pay for social care reform.
In a challenge to the Prime Minister ahead of an expected intervention this week, the Tory leader said her party was willing to work with the Government but only if two “core principles” were met.
Mr Burnham is expected to make a speech on adult social care in the coming days as he aims to “run towards problems that have been neglected”, according to a No 10 source. He believes the issue of how adult social care works and is funded in England has been “neglected” by previous administrations.
In a letter to the new PM, she wrote: “First, any solution to the issues around social care must also be fair to those who have made provisions and saved up over the course of their lives.
“Second, the money must be found by reducing current spending. You must rule out any tax rises, or increased borrowing that will ultimately fall on the next generation to pay for.”
Continuing: “The tax burden has risen to a record high under Labour, and there is already speculation that you will increase taxes further at the budget this autumn in order to pay for all the things you have announced in your first week, plus the outstanding gaps in funding for the defence investment plan.
“On borrowing, over the course of this Parliament the Labour government is currently planning to borrow over a quarter of a trillion pounds more than the plans you inherited, and debt is forecast to rise every single year.
“With businesses closing or relocating, youth unemployment higher than in the eurozone, and the cost of living already causing real hardship for many people, the last thing Britain needs is further tax increases to pay for social care.”
Unlike NHS care, social care is not free at the point of use and high costs sometimes mean people are forced to sell their homes to pay for what they need.
People with savings worth more than £23,250 are not entitled to help with the cost of care from their local council.
Mr Burnham has already pledged to “use some of my political capital” on overhauling the system, which prior governments have promised and failed to do.
Mr Burnham previously set out plans to overhaul social care for the elderly with the creation of a national care service for England when he was health secretary in Gordon Brown’s administration in 2010, but the plans were scuppered by the Tories’ claim Labour would levy a “death tax” to pay for it.
In her letter Mrs Badenoch said she hoped they could “find common ground” on a “hugely important issue for so many people and one that matters a lot to me”.
And she cautioned that “previous efforts to form a durable consensus around social care has not been at all simple”.
