Key Takeaways

  • Baroness Casey's Independent Commission on Adult Social Care launched a major public consultation on 29 July 2026 and is due to deliver its first report later this year, with a longer-term phase reporting in 2028.
  • New taxes or a dedicated care levy are being actively debated — including ideas floated by Andy Burnham and options reportedly examined by officials — but none is confirmed government policy, and decisions await the commission's findings.
  • The backdrop is acute funding pressure: means-test thresholds frozen since 2010, the £86,000 Dilnot cap scrapped in 2024, the Health and Social Care Levy abolished in 2022, and total spending of £34.5 billion in 2024/25.

As Baroness Casey's commission opens its public consultation and ministers pledge a National Care Service, the vexed question of how to pay for care is back in circulation. Tax rises remain a live debate, not settled policy.

Adult social care in England is once again at the centre of political attention. On 29 July 2026 the Prime Minister set out fresh commitments on the care workforce, and Baroness Louise Casey launched "The Big Conversation on Care", a large public consultation intended to build consensus before major reform. Running alongside is an uncomfortable reality that has defeated governments for a generation: someone has to pay. With her independent commission due to deliver its first report later this year, speculation about tax rises or a dedicated levy has returned to the headlines, even though ministers have committed to taking no firm funding decisions until the review reports.

The commission at the heart of the plan
The Independent Commission on Adult Social Care, chaired by Baroness Casey, was announced in January 2025, with its terms of reference published in May 2025. It is structured in two phases. Phase one, reporting in 2026, is tasked with practical improvements to the current system and laying the groundwork for a National Care Service. Phase two, reporting in 2028, is to address longer-term transformation, including how care should be organised and funded for an ageing population. The July launch of the public consultation is central to that work; Baroness Casey has warned that reform "will fail without the public's backing" and that England cannot "keep pretending that a few tweaks will fix adult social care".

How England pays for care now
Understanding the funding debate requires understanding the current system. Unlike the NHS, adult social care is not free at the point of use. Access to council-funded support is governed by a means test, an assessment of a person's income and capital. In England the thresholds have not moved for years: anyone with assets above £23,250 (the upper capital limit) must generally meet the full cost of their care themselves, becoming a so-called "self-funder". Those with assets below £14,250 (the lower limit) are not asked to contribute from their capital, while people in between pay on a sliding scale. These limits have been frozen since 2010, so as prices have risen, more people have been drawn into paying for themselves, and self-funders often pay higher fees than councils negotiate.

The sums are considerable. Total public spending on adult social care reached £34.5 billion in 2024/25, according to The King's Fund. Care-home fees commissioned by councils average around £1,019 a week for older people, with self-funders frequently paying more still.

The abandoned cap and the ghost of the levy
Two recent episodes explain why funding reform is so fraught. The first is the Dilnot cap, a proposed lifetime limit of £86,000 on what any individual would pay towards their personal care, named after the economist Sir Andrew Dilnot, whose 2011 commission recommended it. After repeated delays, it was due to take effect in October 2025. In July 2024, Chancellor Rachel Reeves scrapped it, citing the state of the public finances. Sir Andrew called the decision deeply disappointing.

The second is the Health and Social Care Levy, a 1.25 percentage-point charge on earnings introduced in April 2022 under the previous government to raise money for the NHS and social care. It was abolished barely seven months later, in November 2022. A levy is simply a tax earmarked for a specific purpose; the short-lived episode showed both the appeal of ring-fenced funding and the political fragility of such schemes.

Money pressures on councils
The reason the question will not go away is the mounting pressure on local authorities, which commission most publicly funded care. Councils can already add an adult social care "precept", a ring-fenced percentage increase, to council tax bills, and central grants have grown: the Social Care Grant rose from £2.3 billion in 2022/23 to £5.0 billion in 2024/25. The 2025 Spending Review made up to £4 billion more available for adult social care by 2028/29. Yet The King's Fund notes that councils' finances are worsening, with external debt rising and usable reserves falling. Rising demand, higher provider fees and staffing costs continue to outpace the money available, and repeated overspends have left many care budgets under strain before the year is out.

Tax rises: debate, not yet decision
It is here that talk of new taxes has resurfaced. Andy Burnham, previously Mayor of Greater Manchester, has spoken of applying an "NHS principle" to care, whereby if everyone contributed a little, individuals could protect most of what they had saved. Press reports, including in City AM, suggest officials have examined options such as a 1.8% levy on earnings above £6,240 for workers over 34, alongside wealth-based contributions; a charge on estates at death has also been floated elsewhere.

None of this is government policy. Ministers have been explicit that funding decisions await the commission's findings, and Labour's manifesto ruled out increases to income tax, VAT and National Insurance for working people. Any levy would therefore have to be designed around those constraints, and would probably not be decided before a future Budget. In short, tax rises have returned to the debate, but not to the statute book.

Conclusion
The government's direction of travel is clear: a National Care Service, a workforce settlement and a genuine attempt to build public consent through consultation. What remains conspicuously unresolved is the money. History suggests that without a durable funding answer, the ambition will falter as it has before. Baroness Casey's first report, expected later in 2026, will be the moment at which the abstract debate about levies, caps and means tests must start to become concrete. Until then, tax rises are a possibility being weighed, not a decision that has been taken.