Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the announcement in Budget 2017 of an additional £2 billion of funding for social care, whether any of the additional funding (a) for 2017-18 has been used and (b) for 2018-19 or 2019-20 is planned to be used to meet social care providers' (i) historical back-dated costs or (ii) ongoing costs of complying with the tribunal ruling on sleep-in payments and the National Minimum Wage.

The Government recognises the pressures these liabilities are placing on providers of social care and we are exploring options to minimise any impact on the sector.

The Government has worked with the sector, and commissioned market analysis to assess the impact on the sector nationally, however this forms part of the evidence base that is being used to assess options and is subject to further analysis and refinement.

In the Spring Budget 2017, an additional £2 billion of funding was made available for local authorities to fund social care. A key purpose of this new funding was to support the social care market. The Government took account of the rising future cost of paying national minimum wage in deciding to provide this sum of additional funding.