Dear Labour, older people must be protected, not used to plug your financial black hole

The chief executive of Christian charity, Pilgrims’ Friend Society, is warning Labour’s policies will make the adult social care crisis worse. Instead, we should apply biblical principles to the funding gap, he says

The Conservative government left us with a gap in public finances to the tune of £22bn and urgent steps must be taken to close it up. So says our new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves. 

Earlier this week, she claimed her predecessor Jeremy Hunt had hidden a massive shortfall in public money and announced a raft of measures designed to “fix the mess”. 

As the Chief Executive of Pilgrims’ Friend Society, a charity seeking to champion the needs of older people, two of these measures in particular left me smarting because they suggest that again we risk having a government that won’t step up to the challenge of reforming and adequately funding adult social care. The current system is at breaking point and only hasn’t broken because care is being rationed – Age UK estimate that 1.5m people need care but aren’t getting it. Just think of the impact that is having on older people and their relatives.