From October 2023, no-one will have to pay more than £86,000 for care over their lifetime as part of the government's social care plan, the PM has announced.

Anyone who has assets of less than £20,000 will have their care costs fully covered by the state.

Those with assets between £20,000 and £100,000 will receive some means-tested state support.

To fund the plans, National Insurance contributions will rise by 1.25% and tax on share dividends will also go up by 1.25%.

The changes will come into effect from April 2022.

From 2023 the NI increase will appear on people’s payslips as a separate Health & Social Care levy.

Moving on to reforms of the social care system in England, Johnson outlines the impact of social care problems on the health service.

He says that "when the Covid storm broke last year there were 30,000 patients occupying beds that could have been better cared for elsewhere".

He claims this was "costing billions every night" with the fear of the cost of social care "keeping many at home without care at all".

He says the "anxiety" of funding social care affects people across England.

The PM explains that private insurance is not a solution "because demand would be too low".

He says a "universal system of free care for all" would be "needlessly expensive".

Instead, he says the state should "target its help against catastrophic fear" the cost of care creates.

Boris Johnson tells MPs a new levy will raise almost £36bn - to be spent across the whole of the UK.

It won't be paying awards for middle management, he says, but will go straight to the frontline.

It will be spent on radical innovation including better screening equipment, dedicated surgical facilities, faster access to specialists and new digital technology.

We will do all this in a way that is right, reasonable and fair, he says.

The costs will be shared between individuals and businesses, including those above state pension age.

He adds those who earn more will pay more - and Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will get an extra £2.2bn a year.

Pete Saull
Political Reporter, BBC Westminster

The House of Commons is packed and MPs are listening intently as the prime minister sets out his plan.

So far, Boris Johnson's main focus has been on the funding boost for the NHS to tackle the backlogs caused by the pandemic.

In an attempt to sell the rise in National Insurance contributions - and justify the breaking of the Conservative manifesto pledge - the increase will be rebranded as a "Health and Social Care Levy."

It remains to be seen whether his arguments will do enough to allay the concerns of many of the MPs sitting behind him.

The PM adds that as well as paying for the treatments people didn't get during the pandemic, we must also pay "good wages" for the 50,000 nurses who will help with the treatments and tackle waiting lists that risked expanding to 13 million in future years.

He says the government needs to "go further" than the "record funding" it has already provided and the 48 hospitals and 50 million more GP appointments in its plan.

He says today the government will begin the "biggest catch up programme in NHS history".

Boris Johnson begins his statement by saying our NHS "is the pride of our whole United Kingdom" and even more so following the pandemic.

It treated over half a million patients, he says, saving countless lives - but Covid has "placed massive pressures on our NHS".

He says that thousands of people "did not come forward for the treatment they needed".

The PM says that we must provide the money needed to deal with a backlog in care.

Boris Johnson has begun his statement in the House of Commons. We'll bring you the latest updates here, and you can watch live using the player at the top of this page or on the BBC News Channel.

The social care system is devolved across the four UK nations, meaning governments need to develop separate solutions.

In England, social care is generally not provided for free. Typically, only those with savings and assets worth less than £23,250 can get help from their council and there is no overall limit on costs.

Personal care, such as help with washing and dressing, is free in Scotland for those assessed by their local authority as needing it. Those in a home still have to contribute towards accommodation costs.

Some care costs are capped in Wales, and home care is free for the over-75s in Northern Ireland.

The details we're expecting to hear today from the prime minister apply to England only.

Boris Johnson has given us a taste of what we might expect from his plan for social care in England shortly.

In a Twitter thread, external, the prime minister says his plan will ensure the health service "has the long term funding it needs so that we can help our NHS as it helped us" during the coronavirus pandemic.

He pledges to set out how the government will help the NHS with "the biggest catch-up programme in its history" as it works to reduce "record high" treatment backlogs incurred during the Covid crisis.

The PM adds that his social care plan will ensure "older people get the best possible care, without the fear or anxiety of catastrophic social care costs".

He vows to "build back better from the pandemic" and ensure health and care services are "fit for the future".

Stay tuned for Johnson's Commons statement at 12:30 as we bring you all the key updates.

Expect to hear the Dilnot report crop up a fair bit today.

It came out 10 years ago so, for those of us in need of a bit of a reminder, it was an independent review of how social care should be funded in England.

Its main recommendations included:

• People should only have to contribute a lifetime maximum of £35,000 towards their care
• This would prevent people losing a large proportion of their assets
• Council-funded home help and care home places for the elderly and adults with disabilities should be offered to anyone with less than £100,000 in assets
• So-called "hotel costs" for food and accommodation would not be included
• People in residential care should pay between £7,000 and £10,000 a year towards these living costs

Reports have suggested Boris Johnson's plan will place a limit - or "cap" - on the lifetime contributions made by individuals, with the taxpayer funding costs on top of this.

If so, this would be a version of Sir Andrew Dilnot's plan.

It was put into law in 2014 under the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, but delayed and then eventually ditched under David Cameron.

His successor, Theresa May, later suggested and then abandoned a form of the proposals in 2017.

Alongside the upcoming announcement on social care, the government confirmed overnight an additional £5.4bn in funding for the NHS over the next six months.

Ministers hope this money will go someway to clearing a backlog that has built up during the pandemic - and encourage people to see their GPs for problems they have yet to seek help for.

Tim Mitchell, vice president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, says that - without "substantial investment" - there will be "great difficulties going forward to address this backlog and to maintain services".

He explains: "Patients waiting for hip and knee replacements, for instance, often find their operations are postponed, and they are therefore waiting in pain, waiting for their operation, unable to function... people who are unable to work as a consequence, and this has got dramatically worse following Covid."

Laura Kuenssberg
Political editor

It is understood the government may also increase the amount of tax that is paid on income from share dividends to help cover the cost of today’s package for health and social care.

Currently tax on dividend payments is lower than tax on regular income for example, basic rate payers pay just 7.5% of they receive cash from shares.

Image source, Andrew Parsons/No 10 Downing Street

As we've heard, the cabinet met this morning and have backed Prime Minister Boris Johnson's plan to reform health and social care funding in England. We're expecting to hear more on the proposals soon.

The prime minister's official spokesman says Boris Johnson, Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Health Secretary Sajid Javid set out the plan to tackle Covid backlogs in the health system, reform adult social care and "bring the health and social care systems closer together on a long-term sustainable footing".

"Cabinet agreed the challenges faced by our NHS and care sector are closely linked, and a lack of integration means people are often stuck in the wrong care setting," the spokesman says.

"The prime minister highlighted that under the current care system, anyone with assets over £23,350 pays for their care in full, which can lead to spiralling costs with around one in seven people now paying over £100,000."

The spokesman adds the prime minister told his cabinet the changes he will announce later will fix this problem "which is causing chronic and unfair anxiety for millions of people up and down the country".

Why workers face the bill for care revolutionpublished at 11:41 British Summer Time 7 September 2021

11:41 BST 7 September 2021

Faisal Islam
BBC Economics Editor

Image source, Getty Images

We're nearing the confirmation of three hugely important decisions which will have consequences for how we live in older age, and who pays for the increase in any necessary care.

These decisions have been repeatedly delayed. Put bluntly, the British political system has lacked the capacity to make tough long-term decisions in this area.

The inadequacies of the care system, partly a result of decades of political short-termism, were then cruelly exposed by the pandemic.

So, something around £10bn a year has been found to make the care system fit for purpose.

This is the state stepping in to help individuals plan for something that it is currently not possible to plan for - how much should you save to finance for your own care?

Read more from Faisal here

As we've been reporting, Prime Minister Boris Johnson will set out the details of his plan for social care in England in a statement to the House of Commons at 12:30 BST.

He will then be joined by Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Health Secretary Sajid Javid for a Downing Street press conference at 16:00.

Nicola Richard, director of Palms Row Healthcare, has been painting a picture on BBC Breakfast of the reality of the social care crisis.

She explains the sector was already fragile pre-Covid but now costs are "spiralling out of control".

During the pandemic she was forced to close one of her care homes when it was no longer financially viable.

This meant making staff redundant, many who had been in social care for 20 years and had been fighting a pandemic.

"It was a sad and desperate situation - the worst I've seen in over 25 years of social care."

Now, she says, investment is "absolutely critical".

She says she needs to be able to pay staff what they deserve, having lost nearly 20% of her workforce over the past 12 months.

"We're losing staff to the NHS because we can't match what they pay. The staff all deserve more."

Image source, NUMBER 10

The Cabinet has supported Prime Minister Boris Johnson's plan to reform health and social care funding in England.

The group of top government ministers met in No 10 Downing Street earlier, for the first time since the pandemic began.

The prime minister's official spokesman says: "The Cabinet agreed to the proposals set out.

"There was strong agreement that this is a long-standing issue, particularly on the social care side, which had been ducked for too long and which needed to be addressed."

We haven't heard a great deal from Labour this morning but shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth has said a long-term plan on social care and a rescue plan to address the crisis the NHS has been in for years are both long overdue.

He says the prime minister needs to set out how he will bring down waiting lists quickly, support the NHS workforce, fix "crumbling" hospitals and deliver modern equipment to speed up diagnosis of deadly diseases and, crucially, ensure more people can access the social care they need.

No doubt we'll hear more from Labour once the prime minister has delivered his statement to the Commons. Stay with us for that.

• Councils in England received 1.9 million requests for social care support during 2019-20, according to the NHS
• Requests have risen by more than 100,000 in five years
• 1.4 million of these were from older people - but 560,000 came from working-age adults
• Despite the rise in demand, total expenditure on adult social care was only £99m more than in 2010-11, with council spending in England about 3% lower than in 2010
• An ageing population also means growing demand - Age UK estimates 1.5 million in England don't get the help they need
• There are no standard fees for social care elements in England - meaning people face a postcode lottery
• People who don't qualify for free care are often charged more, even within the same care homes, with no maximum limit
• There are huge staff shortages - the King's Fund think tank says average wages are lower than some retail staff and cleaners.

Simon Bottery, a senior fellow at the King's Fund - a charity working to improve health and care in England - is not convinced the government's plans will amount to a "giant stride" to fix social care "once and for all".

But he does believe it's a "good step forward".

Social care has been essentially forgotten for 20 years, he says. If we're going to develop a reliable system, there's going to have to be a package that looks, for example, at the workforce.

He explains it's difficult to recruit care workers because they are not paid enough. He also says money is urgently needed upfront to make sure local authorities - which are really struggling - can continue to provide care.