Four Seasons Group

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

I fully agree. Our interest is in the residents in the homes. The CQC’s oversight regime is not intended to prop up a provider—that is an entirely different matter. My noble friend is absolutely right that when Southern Cross went into insolvency, very few homes—in fact, I do not think that any homes—closed as a direct result at the time; most of them carried on as going concerns.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, is the Minister working with the Department of Health, the CQC and BIS to ensure that the new financial instrument, whereby an individual can invest in a single room in a care home for a guaranteed rent, protects the user of that room as much as it provides any yield for the investor? Evidence in the student sector has shown very mixed results. Students can move on elsewhere, but elderly care residents have nowhere else to go and their protection, and indeed the trading viability of a care home, could be affected if investors had to move out quickly.

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, I could not see where the question was coming from. I am not fully briefed on the financial instrument that my noble friend—I am sorry; the noble Baroness—referred to. I will have to research it and get back to her.