Andy Burnham's social care pledges could cost £21billion more than he bargained for

By GABRIEL MILLARD-CLOTHIER, POLITICAL REPORTER Published: 22:09, 1 August 2026 | Updated: 22:23, 1 August 2026 Andy Burnham's social care pledge may cost £21billion more than expected, an analysis of his flagship policy has revealed. The Prime Minister has vowed to expend 'political capital' on reforming the 'broken' system and set out preliminary plans for a National Care Service last week. Mr Burnham said this would require 'difficult decisions', raising fears that it will lead to increases in tax. Analysis by The Mail on Sunday suggest these rises could be extremely steep. Mr Burnham is expected to base a new system on the existing one in Scotland, where health and social services are integrated at a cost of £18billion. Experts say he has failed to heed the experience in Scotland, where the percentage of volunteers who provided care for free has dropped from 26 per cent to 18 per cent. If this was replicated across England and Wales, where there are four million volunteer carers, it would leave a shortfall of £21 billion. Costings have been an uncomfortable topic for Mr Burnham since he became Prime Minister two weeks ago. Prime Minister Andy Burnham takes a selfie with the newly elected Mayor of Greater Manchester, Bev Craig, on Saturday Last week, the MoS revealed that he has run up £96 billion of policy pledges with no explanation of how they will be paid for. He has repeatedly refused to rule out tax rises, and has previously said Britain is 'under taxed' and that he may have to 'ask for a little more' to pay for his agenda. Shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride said: 'Like so many of Andy Burnham's shifting plans, he has not done the hard work to figure out the detail before making an announcement. The key question here is, 'Who is paying?' ' Maxwell Marlow, from economic policy think-tank the Adam Smith Institute, added: 'The Prime Minister's social care plan is littered with pitfalls. If he chooses to copy the Scottish model, he may encounter a mass exodus, creating a significant black hole.' There have already been calls for Mr Burnham's policy to generate more paid jobs in care. Emily Holzhausen, of charity Carers UK, said: 'There are 4.7million unpaid carers in England... We want unpaid carers' futures to be at the heart of this conversation.' Some 600 people give up their jobs every day to provide unpaid care, the charity says. It claims that 35 per cent of them would not have to if there was a reliable social care service. At a speech at a care home in Golders Green, north London, last Wednesday, Mr Burnham trumpeted his plans to reform social care. He said there had been a 'major dereliction of public duty' by politicians for not resolving the problems sooner.  He announced he would accelerate the independent review into adult social care in England led by Baroness Casey to finish next summer – a year early. Mr Burnham also began cross-party talks on reforms with the Tories and Lib Dems. But Kemi Badenoch was unable to attend, with one critic saying the short notice given suggested the talks were 'only being done for show'.