Personal Care at Home Bill

My Lords, I, too, have a great deal of sympathy with what the noble Lord, Lord Best, has said. He is absolutely right that we should not willingly antagonise those who are the providers of care, because the best care has always been the result of good partnerships between the local authorities, the health providers and—most importantly—the users and carers. It is because of their needs that I cannot support the amendment. I am thinking of the 140,000 families—a number estimated by Carers UK—who would be denied free personal care if we delayed, of the 65,000 people who would not benefit from the reablement which they might have been able to access, and of the older and disabled people going into residential care, when that could have been prevented. As we are often reminded, most people want to stay in their own home. Therefore, although we have duties to the local authorities and to the workforce, we also have duties and responsibilities to the biggest providers of care—the carers—and the users. For that reason, we should try to reach a compromise of the kind the Minister has very helpfully suggested. I remind the House that, in response to what the noble Lord, Lord Warner, said, we are not actually starting afresh with the workforce. Let us acknowledge that many of the social care workforce are already extremely experienced in assessment and all the other areas of need that are required to implement such legislation as this. So I hope we will be able to find a compromise on this very important point.