Theresa May’s flagship manifesto proposal to shake up the funding of social care for older people has come under fire from the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies and opposition parties.
The IFS warned on Friday that the complex new system outlined in the Conservative party’s manifesto, which would force more elderly people to pay for their own care, “makes no attempt to deal with the fundamental challenge of social care funding”.
While some households would fare better because of a higher, £100,000 means test, the IFS said that overall the new system would be “less generous”. It would fail to tackle the “insurance problem” that means individuals cannot plan for the risk of having to pay very high costs in their old age.
On Thursday, the Conservatives announced plans to make people needing help in their own homes pay the costs of long-term social care, with only £100,000 of the value of their estate protected. Announcing the plan, the party said it would “address the fundamental unfairness at the heart of Britain’s elderly care system and tackle the long-term challenges of an ageing society”.
Labour attacked the plans as part of a “triple whammy” for hard-up pensioners, alongside the weakening of the triple-lock guarantee on the basic state pension and the means-testing of the winter fuel allowance.
The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, called the changes a “savage attack on vulnerable pensioners” on Friday as he sought to position Labour as the party representing older voters.
Speaking in London alongside the shadow business secretary, Rebecca Long-Bailey, McDonnell unveiled a new Labour election poster warning of a “triple whammy for pensioners”. The slogan and poster deliberately echo a famous 1992 Conservative poster warning of a Labour “double whammy”.
McDonnell also criticised May’s party for providing few projected costings for its pledges. He contrasted the Tory manifesto with Labour’s, which offers a supporting document of assumed costs and tax revenues, and he predicted that this could be a tipping point in the election campaign.
“Yesterday the Conservative party abandoned older people,” McDonnell said. “There was a triple whammy: the tearing up of the triple lock, the attack on the winter fuel allowance and the plans on care costs, so people can lose their homes.”
He cited a calculation by the Resolution Foundation thinktank showing that the projected savings from means-testing the winter fuel payment meant five out of six pensioners, or around 10 million people, would lose the allowance. “To be frank, I am angry,” McDonnell said. “This is a savage attack on vulnerable pensioners, particularly those who are just about managing. It is disgraceful and we are calling on the Conservatives now to withdraw it.”
A Conservative spokesman said: “Theresa May and her Conservative team are offering a long-term plan to ensure that elderly people in need of social care receive the dignified and high-quality care they deserve, with the funding to make the system sustainable.”
Separately, the Conservatives were accused of hypocrisy after the Scottish Tory leader, Ruth Davidson, confirmed that the winter fuel allowance would remain universal for pensioners in Scotland.
Appearing alongside the prime minister to launch the Scottish Tory manifesto, which is more centrist in key areas than May’s, Davidson said the Conservatives would use Holyrood’s devolved powers to keep winter fuel payments as a universal benefit, because Scotland’s winters were worse.
The Liberal Democrat leader, Tim Farron, said: “The Tories are utter hypocrites. How can they take cash off English pensioners and then give it to Scottish pensioners? It looks like a cheap election bung and it won’t wash.
“It is utterly scandalous that the Conservatives want to axe the triple lock and now do this. Theresa May and her ministers are just taking pensioners and their votes for granted. They don’t seem to care about them.”
Pensioners voted overwhelmingly for the Conservatives in the 2015 general election, and are more likely to turn out and vote than their younger counterparts. The former prime minister, David Cameron, repeatedly pledged to maintain pensioner benefits, but May appears to be sufficiently confident in her commanding poll lead to risk policies that could be unpopular with older voters.
Speaking in Edinburgh on Friday alongside Davidson, the prime minister said the Conservatives would help Scotland to “grow and flourish” after Brexit, by investing heavily in the country’s industries and deprived communities.
Repeatedly referring in her speech to the “Conservative and Unionist party” and her “unionist government”, to bolster her hardline stance against Scottish independence, May said she would offer “a unionist government at the service of ordinary working families”.