Personal Care at Home Bill

My Lords, the financing of this Bill is a puzzle to me but then lots of things to do with finance are a puzzle. As I understand it, the Pre-Budget Report suggested that annual savings of £250 million could be achieved from the reduced costs of residential care by 2012-13—and thus I suppose available to local authorities. However, after implementation on 1 October local councils would be expected to find an additional £250 million a year straight away. Are these two sums unrelated, though strangely the same figure? The submission from the LGAs seemed to me persuasive, as did the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Best, tonight. It is intriguing for a bishop that the Government’s declared commitment to ensure new burdens falling on local authorities should be fully funded is commonly called the "new burdens doctrine". I fear doctrines are much misunderstood. They are thought to be rigid and inflexible by those who do not understand them. Cardinal Newman, soon to be beatified, wrote a lot about the development of doctrine. I will spare you too much theology. The essential truth remains, in his understanding, that the understanding of doctrine develops and a doctrine gradually discloses more of its truth through history. Thus the doctrine is reshaped as its truth unfolds. I wonder what sort of unfolding of the "new burdens doctrine" we are actually witnessing in relation to this Bill. There seems to be a curious flexibility built in about local government financing of the provisions of this Bill, which is not carried across into the very sharp distinctions that are drawn between care at home and care in residential care homes. I was much struck by the explanation given by the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, of her amendment. It seems to me what we probably need is both a short-term review, for the very reasons that the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, has explained, as well as much longer-term reviews of what this Bill might lead to. It could well be what the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, has explained will happen. The fear in my part of the world is a rather different one—some of the adult day care centres in Norfolk have been under threat already. They certainly do not care for those in the greatest need, far from it, but as well as specialist services they provide meals, companionship and a life beyond their home for those who would otherwise have very little social engagement at all. Being continuously at home without any social encounter can cause many older people to decline in spirit pretty rapidly and that often leads on to greater physical decline. Such unintended consequences of this legislation could be very expensive in a host of ways, not simply financially, but in terms of our social fabric. I noted that the briefing from the Equality and Human Rights Commission, while broadly supportive of the Bill, raised this point about negative trade-offs. What I am sure none of us wants to see is the free provision of personal care for some in great need at home leading to others, with lesser needs, feeling imprisoned in their homes.