Johnson’s ‘vague’ social care funding plans flayed

Nicky Morgan has defended Boris Johnson over his decision to shelve plans to overhaul social care funding in the Conservatives’ manifesto launch.The Tories have pledged to allocate an extra £1bn a year for the social care sector as part of a cautious manifesto, while guaranteeing that no one should have to sell their home to meet the costs.But it falls short of Johnson’s rallying cry on the steps of Downing Street when he took office, claiming “we will fix the crisis in social care once and for all … with a clear plan we have prepared”.Theresa May was forced into a U-turn when her 2017 manifesto social care plan was labelled a “dementia tax”, and Johnson has now committed only to saying the party will “build a cross-party consensus” on how it should be funded in the long term.Sir Andrew Dilnot, the former chair of the commission on funding of care and support, said the Tory plans were “very vague”. And the head of a thinktank has said Johnson’s pledge is too little to plug the gap needed to cater for the country’s ageing population.However, Nicky Morgan, the secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport (DCMS), defended Johnson’s strategy.“There’s a very clear three-point plan - that’s the £1bn extra every year, the need to build a cross-party consensus – because social care is a long-term, complex issue – There is also a very clear statement, as the prime minister set out in the Question Time debate last week, that no one should have to sell their own home to pay for their care,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.