Personal Care at Home Bill

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, raised an important point regarding the personnel available to deal with these issues. They are not available. From both direct personal experience and anecdotal comments from people who have told me of their histories, I have found that in many cases local authorities cannot assess anyone within three months. If that is the case, how will they carry out all these new assessments? Getting people trained for these jobs will be a major issue, not just in terms of expense but in terms of getting them all to a point where they can operate efficiently. I said on Second Reading that the whole Bill is pure electioneering. That is tragic because this is a worthwhile cause which we should all be looking at. The points made by the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, are very interesting, and I appreciate his comments. However, I support the amendments. The whole thing has to be thought out much more thoroughly and local authorities must be sure that they can produce not only the money but the trained staff necessary to carry out the assessments and deliver the care.