Rishi Sunak draws up tax-raising options to fund English social care

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

59% : In 2002, Gordon Brown, then-Labour chancellor, announced a 1 percentage point rise in national insurance on both the employee and employer rates to fund NHS improvements -- a levy that proved relatively popular.
58% : Social care and health policy are devolved to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but some of the tax options, such as an increase to national insurance, would affect the whole UK.
56% : UK chancellor Rishi Sunak is drawing up tax-raising options including a new "social solidarity" levy that could fund clearance of the post-Covid NHS treatment backlog and long-term reforms to social care in England.
56% : Prime minister Boris Johnson hopes to announce a plan for social care before MPs depart on their summer holidays later this month, with one government official saying it was "50-50" whether he could strike a deal with his chancellor in time.
52% : A levy similar to income tax for those over 40 of 2 to 3 per cent could raise the required amount, Bell said.
50% : An alternative being looked at within government is the creation of a new tax, probably paid by those over 40 years old, to provide a social insurance element to social care funding.
48% : Sunak is considering delaying wider decisions on taxes until a Budget next spring -- rather than holding the big financial event in the autumn as planned -- partly because of Covid uncertainty.
47% : Torsten Bell, director of the Resolution Foundation, said such a new "social solidarity" levy had the political advantage that "it clearly looks different from income tax and national insurance" and could fund most of the additional costs of social care reforms.
44% : Increasing national insurance by 1 percentage point for both employees and employers would raise about £10bn a year, but officials argue that using NI would not be fair because people stop paying it when they reach state retirement age.

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