Personal Care at Home Bill

My Lords, in supporting everything that the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, has said, I would like to add my own very brief perspective on this amendment, lest the attitude of my party is in any way unclear. This amendment would in no way frustrate the Government’s ability to deliver on schedule their policy of free personal care at home to those in the most severe need; it does not tie the Government’s hands except in the loosest sense. Should the current Government be re-elected at the general election in a few weeks’ time, all they would need to do is lay the appropriate regulations immediately. If, on the other hand, a Conservative Government were elected, Ministers would be able to take what we believe is the responsible course, which is to cost this policy properly, make sure that it is affordable in the context of the overall public finances and that it is deliverable in terms of the human resources that will be needed. None of these things is clear yet. The Government have brought this policy in, as the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, has said, on the hoof, and they are blatantly playing to the gallery in so doing. I do not think that that is a responsible approach for any Government to take, particularly at a time of economic stringency. Our wish, if we are elected, is to achieve a political consensus on the long-term reform of social care policy, which would include a fair and coherent framework of social care funding to apply across the spectrum. In doing that, we would want to pick up the pointers and challenges laid down in the Government’s well argued Green Paper of last summer. As I said in Committee, I would have liked to see this Bill act as the enabling legislative vehicle for at least part of that comprehensive reform package. The undesirable and unintended consequences which I believe will ensue from this scheme if it is launched on its own could have been mitigated very substantially by a graduated scale of entitlements which avoided the cliff edge that this scheme will create and by creating appropriate counterbalances to the perverse incentives inherent in the Government’s policy. That is clearly not to be, but given that Ministers are not interested in that broader idea, I do not think it is in any way wrong for an incoming Conservative Government, if they arrive, to make the introduction of this policy dependent on a much more thorough analysis of the risks that it carries and the financial burdens that it will impose on local government—for we really cannot say, as of today, that we have certainty on either of those things.