Burnham to give speech on social care as Louise Casey plays down cost concerns saying many families ‘already paying’ – UK politics live

PM will not discuss details but will focus on need to find ‘common ground’ and to build political consensus Andy Burnham has posted a video on social media about his desire to find “common ground” for social care reform. In it, he says he is “prepared to put everything I’ve got” behind this goal.This morning the Times has splashed on a story saying “privately run nursing home chains face being cut out of a radical shake-up of social care in England to prevent taxpayers’ money being used to subsidise the profits of private equity”.The Times understands that the prime minister is reluctant to allow the new service to be operated by large private sector providers for profit and wants to base the model around community-led services run by charities, local authorities and not-for-profit companies.“He is coming at this from the principle that he does not want to see private sector firms making large profits over the provision of a vital public service,” a senior government source said. “The model is going to be more like the NHS or the Live Well scheme he pioneered in Manchester rather than the system we have at the moment.”I don’t like the idea of profiteering out of human misery and human life. I object to that.I’d object to it, whether it was homelessness you were asking me about, or whether it was anything else I’ve been responsible for.I do think, though, that we do see examples where some private companies have been making ridiculous amounts of money.It’s an issue if we are wasting money, if we’re wasting taxpayers’ money, and people are paying way over the odds. So you do it in the normal way … you have regulation, you have rules, and I think this whole area has not been looked at properly. Continue reading...