Personal Care at Home Bill

My Lords, I also support the noble Baroness but I am concerned about a number of things. One is the point she has just made about the person who would prefer to be in a care home rather than live in their own home. As I understand it, there will be a perverse incentive there in that if, under the Bill, you are one of the people who will be eligible to receive free care, you will not receive it unless you are already in the very limited category of those who have their residential home paid for. Therefore, we are probably eliminating the element of choice for those people who would prefer to go into a home but not to have to pay for their care, whether it was in a home or wherever. I think we are almost discriminating in this way, in that the Bill proposes to help those in their own homes but not to help them if they make a choice as in the case described by the noble Baroness, Lady Masham. There are two different issues here. I support completely the right of appeal because I think that, under normal justice, we all expect to have the right of appeal on any and all issues. However, I am concerned about the bureaucracy that will be required to cope with the appeals, because I imagine that there will be a huge number of them. Once people get the feeling that, no matter what your income is, you can have your care at home for free, everyone will want to appeal on that. The proposal, according to the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, was to have a separate external body hearing the appeals. I think that is essential because local authorities will not possibly be able to cope. They will be hard-pushed enough coping with the assessments proposed under the Bill, never mind the appeals against them. Therefore, I support the principle of the right of appeal but I am concerned about how the process would work in reality.