Labour can't keep papering over the cracks - fixing social care is an urgent problem

When Yvette Cooper announced she was cancelling visas for social care, in a round of tough-talking TV interviews this month, she said pay and conditions in this chronically understaffed sector must improve.

- Heather Stewart

The home secretary is right. As any regular care home visitor will attest, these are highly skilled, overwhelmingly female workers, surrounding those they look after, not with an "island of strangers", but with diligence and love. Wherever they come from, we should be treating them better.

Improving terms and conditions across this neglected sector remains an urgent national challenge. Labour came into government with a plan, to improve these low-paid and undervalued workers' lives - though like so much of its agenda, the question of whether the Treasury is ready to foot the bill is left hanging.

Wes Streeting has postponed confronting the political trade-offs involved in long-term reform of social care funding, handing the fraught issue over to Louise Casey to have a good long think (the final report is not expected until 2028).

In the meantime, Streeting and the deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, have pressed ahead with discussions over a "fair pay agreement" (FPA) for England's 1.6 million social care staff.