Badenoch offers to work with PM on adult social care reform

Kemi Badenoch has written to Keir Starmer offering to work with him on adult social care reform, as pressure builds over how England’s care system will be paid for. The move lands in a political contest that goes to the heart of the policy: any deal must decide whether the bill falls on taxpayers, on other public services, or on families and local authorities already carrying much of the burden.

The intervention comes after years of broken promises and abandoned plans. In September 2021, Boris Johnson set out a package to raise taxes on workers, employers and some investors to help fix the health and social care funding crisis in England, arguing it would be irresponsible to rely on more borrowing and debt. That plan was expected to raise about £12bn a year and it broke a Conservative manifesto pledge.

The same year, the government said it would provide £3.6bn between 2022/23 and 2024/25 to reform how people pay for social care in England. A House of Commons Library briefing says those reforms were originally planned for October 2023 but were later cancelled. The result is a familiar policy gap: a system with long-running demand pressures, but no settled funding model.

The House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee has kept the issue on the parliamentary agenda with its report Adult Social Care Reform: the cost of inaction, the second report of Session 2024–25. The committee gave the government two months to respond, underlining that the question remains unresolved even after successive announcements.

Badenoch’s offer to work with Starmer also sits inside a broader row over taxes and spending. The BBC reported in 2025 that she called on the prime minister to sack Rachel Reeves if she raised taxes, while Reeves has faced speculation over fiscal choices and thresholds without ruling out tax rises. That leaves limited room for a cross-party settlement if one side rules out one of the main funding routes before talks begin.

The Institute for Government has said funding changes signal an end to the government’s ambitious social care reform package. For England’s care sector, that means the central argument is no longer whether reform is needed, but who pays for it, and how much strain is pushed onto councils, providers and the families who depend on them.