Social Care’s the priority ; paying for it will squeeze workplace pensions.

This is the issue governments keep putting off. That ends now. pic.twitter.com/dv7oGd94Io

— Andy Burnham (@andyburnham) July 29, 2026

These are urgent and cannot get kicked down the road. They must be sorted out and that will need money that has been assumed to come to workplace pensions. I suspect that we will have new taxes to avoid selling our or our parent’s homes.

Tax – Contribution or Levy

A tax, a contribution or a levy amounts to the same thing- this must be paid for.

This is not the normal type of tax people have got used to, the kind you can opt-out of as it pays into your pension. David Robbins may not smile much but he makes me laugh.

– Hard to introduce a compulsory social care levy and increase default pension contributions at the same time (especially if other taxes also going up and pay growth subdued).

– The @restate_thinks report says the 1.8% tax would apply to earnings above the lower qualifying… https://t.co/XrJja79ALi

— David Robbins (@David_J_Robbins) July 29, 2026

David is right, he points to a proposal that looks remarkably like the 2017 auto-enrolment proposals that we didn’t get. The idea being proposed by Restate Thinks would be an extension of the “pension tax” that pays for workplace pensions. The extra 1.8% would be paid in line with auto-enrolment bands (except there would be no upper earnings limit).

That may not be what pension people want but pensioners money directed into social care.

Old people I know in hospital can’t seem to get out, those in residential homes are remote, cut- off from families. Those who are at home rely on social workers who are not properly treated.

These carers often not paid for travelling to the old, Burnham was eloquent yesterday in saying that they aren’t paid enough, that the national health is relied on too much and that care for pensioners the set up isn’t working.

Paying for social workers to be paid (and pensioned) as district nurses have been; that seems to be part of Burnham’s vision too

Andy Burnham announced that a review of social care by veteran Whitehall troubleshooter Baroness Casey would now be published next summer instead of 2028.

The decisions on what needs to be done have been brought forward from 2028 to 2027 with a report due at the same time as the Pension Commission. The Pension Commission will be up against the Casey Social Care Commission.

A challenge to our workplace pension funding system

2027 will be the last year that a Commission can have any chance of leading to a meaningful Act. If I was to toss up between an imminent Pensions and Social Care Act, I would anticipate a Social Care Act by the end of this parliament.

It is time that Pension- heads, to accept that no matter how the 15m under- pensioned need more pension funding that will only come from more efficient pensioning. There is no money spare for increased pension taxes.

The adventure that started out in 2012 has stalled in second gear but it least it has moved.

At the time when workplace pensions became semi-compulsory we could not find a way to get money from the working population to pay for social care.

It was in 2009 when Burnham last was on the social care job, he ran out of time once – I don’t suppose he wants to do so again.