Care and Support

My Lords, I emphasise the extraordinary importance of all-party consensus on this matter. Without that, older people and their families will not know what to plan for in the long term, and indeed insurance companies that could help out will not be able to design policies to help them do so. Will the noble Earl deplore the leaking of the documents in front of us this afternoon? The leaks greatly exaggerated the benefits that the actual policies announced will deliver, and have derailed the all-party talks. These policies should have been floated with the Opposition before they reached the public domain. I am not saying that he did it, but will he apologise as a way of getting those all-party talks back on an even footing?