Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to ensure that adequate levels of a wide range of adult social care is available in each local authority area.

Local councils are responsible for ensuring adequate provision of social care services for eligible users and carers in their area.

However, social care is a key priority for this Government, and we are giving councils access to further funding to manage social care pressures in their local area across the next few years:

- Next year councils will be able to raise the precept by up to 3%, and 3% the year after (2018/19). This could raise £200 million in additional funding for adult social care in 2017/18 and over £400 million in 2018/19.

- The Government is also providing an additional £240 million to fund adult social care through the Adult Social Care Support Grant, funded by reforms to the New Homes Bonus.

These new changes provide access to an additional £450 million for social care next year, following calls from the sector that funding was most needed in 2017/18.

Taken together with the funding announced in the autumn 2015 Spending Review, this means that local government will have access to the funding it needs to increase social care spending every year in this Parliament. The spending review gave councils the flexibility to introduce a 2% social care precept for adult social care, and access to additional funding for adult social care worth £1.5 billion by 2019/20 through the Better Care Fund, starting in April 2017.