ANY new investment in adult social care must ensure that staff are paid £15 an hour, the GMB said today.

The move would benefit the sector’s underpaid and overstretched key workers as they battle to protect residents from Covid-19, the union stressed. 

It condemned reports that Tory ministers plan to introduce a 1 per cent national insurance hike to pay for reforms as regressive, warning such a move would hit the lowest-paid workers harder.

As national insurance contributions are only made by those working, people relying on dividends or savings for their income would not be affected by any increase, meaning those already better off would benefit the most.

GMB national officer Rachel Harrison called for any fresh investment to be ring-fenced and targeted at improving pay and working conditions. 

“If ministers are serious about ‘levelling up,’ we can’t go back to the failed business model of the past — and that means plans are not just skewed towards men.  

“The largely women workforce in social care deserve no less than £15 an hour. Government and employers must make this a priority.”