Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what proportion of national gross domestic product was spent on social care in each year since 2010; and where the UK ranked among other countries in the EU in this regard in each such year.

Public spending on adult social care as proportion of gross domestic product spent was approximately 1.1% in 2010/11, and approximately 1% for each year between 2011/12 and 2015/16.

The attached table sets out the relevant internationally comparable data on expenditure published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Social care is defined in different ways in different countries. The OECD has therefore developed a comparable measure of “long-term care,” which includes some elements the Department would classify as health care and therefore the OECD estimate is slightly different from the above. The OECD’s long-term care data is only available for the United Kingdom in 2013 and 2014.