I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman is in a very strong position to talk about Members’ abstaining in votes on amendments. I shall say more about that shortly.
Let me now list three reasons for our argument that the Bill is not what it seems. First, as I have said, it is no answer to the care crisis. It proposes that a cap should be paid for by the restriction of eligibility for care, and the removal of care from some people who are already receiving it. Last week we heard from Age Concern that 800,000 people who had previously received support no longer received it. The problem is that local authorities are being asked to implement the system with no additional resources, and are therefore having to move funding from preventive social care to the administration and funding of the cap and the deferred payment scheme. Rather than taking from one area of social care to give to another, the Government should have put new resources into social care.