The MP for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire has initiated a push for the Health Secretary to reconsider the adult social care capital limit, timing the move to coincide with this month's Autumn Budget following contact from 22-year-old constituent Maxwell McKnight.
Ian Sollom, who holds the parliamentary seat, has called on ministers to reform the rules governing social care funding, arguing that the current framework leaves many disabled people unable to build financial reserves or gain greater control over their day-to-day lives.
Under the framework currently in place, those receiving social care face full liability for their own costs whenever assets — spanning savings, investments, and property — exceed £23,250. That ceiling had not been adjusted since 2010/11.
Sollom has contended that the threshold functions as a financial barrier for working-age disabled adults, leaving them unable to accumulate savings, put money aside toward a home, or make longer-term plans. Inflation-adjusted projections drawn from King's Fund research, as cited by the MP, place the upper capital limit at roughly £35,600 — the level it would have reached had the threshold tracked price rises from 2010/11 onward.
McKnight, who uses a wheelchair and depends on continuous care, holds a first-class degree and is employed full-time in central London. He is also a trustee at a national charity focused on disability advocacy, a cause that also features in his digital presence.
Sollom contended that people of McKnight's generation had fulfilled every requirement placed before them by the Government under difficult circumstances — maintaining employment, paying taxes, and pursuing further education — yet continued to be disadvantaged by a savings threshold that had not been updated in over 15 years.
Proposed changes to long-term care funding — ones that advocates said held the potential to protect younger generations from a lifetime of mounting treatment costs — were set aside by the Government in 2024, a decision that drew considerable disappointment from those who had backed the overhaul.
McKnight said existing regulations leave disabled people with complex care needs unable to accumulate financial security, even as they are actively encouraged to enter the workforce. He called on the Health Secretary to engage with disabled young people and bring forward solutions to address what he described as the savings trap. He also noted that completing a university degree and establishing a professional path had taken considerable effort on his part.
Disability advocates have argued that government employment targets for people with disabilities are undermined by benefit and financial support structures that, in their view, leave those with more complex needs unable to accumulate long-term economic stability. Sollom also noted that disabled people who pursue paid careers can sometimes find themselves in a position where earning a wage leaves them financially worse off than not working at all.
McKnight stated that he was not seeking preferential treatment, expressing a desire for the same financial footing as his contemporaries — including the ability to set aside money toward homeownership and to benefit from the returns of employment.
Sollom has sought a meeting with the Health Secretary and called on the forthcoming Casey Commission on adult social care reform to examine the barriers that working-age disabled adults face when attempting to accumulate savings and get onto the property ladder. The MP has also cited proposals that did not become law — among them provisions drafted under the 2014 Care Act and recommendations put forward by the Dilnot review, both of which would have raised the capital threshold considerably.
