Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper has criticised the Conservatives for doing “next to nothing” to fix social care over the last 14 years.

This comes despite the Tories’ promises to “fix” the sector, and Boris Johnson’s claim in 2022 that his government had done just that.

Writing a guest column in the New Statesman, Cooper admitted that fixing the sector is “one of the UK’s biggest challenges”, but said that it “cannot wait”.

The MP for St Albans and party spokesperson for health, wellbeing and social care added: “These plans come with a price tag… but the cost of inaction is far higher.”

Discussing the Conservatives’ failures in an interview with Caring Times in March, Cooper elaborated: “Simply put, it’s just not a priority for them.

She said: “What we’ve seen time and time again is that the government seems to wait until there’s a crisis in the NHS”, before throwing “large sums of money at the problem, hoping to solve it. There’s never a long-term plan to look at the issue.”

Cooper added that the Liberal Democrats will not make the same mistakes; instead it will make sure care is “at the heart” of its manifesto, which is yet to be revealed.

Read Caring Times‘ full interview with Daisy Cooper below: