Social Care Funding

Lord Lipsey Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, and pay tribute to his work over many years in this field and in the royal commission some years ago. I will convey his wishes to my noble friend and other members of the usual channels. I agree that it would be unsatisfactory to have an unduly short debate on a complex and important subject.

As regards the thresholds, I hope I can reassure him. It is our intention, as I mentioned, to introduce clauses into the care and support Bill when it reaches Parliament that would embody the essence of the Dilnot proposals but to leave it to regulations to set the relevant numbers for the cap and the means test, for example, so that it would be a relatively easy matter for a future Government, if they so wished in brighter economic circumstances, to change those figures if they felt that that was the right thing to do.

[Lord Lipsey]

My Lords, better half a loaf than no loaf at all and, to that extent, I welcome the Government’s Statement. Does the Minister agree with all noble Lords who have spoken who have emphasised the importance of all-party agreement, if it can be obtained on this subject, so that old people know the background they have to plan against when looking to their futures? With that in mind, will he meet one of the points made by my noble friend Lord Hunt by trying to make this package slightly more favourable to the less well off and not, as it is, somewhat, at the moment tilted towards the better off, so that it is easier to achieve that all-party agreement and to go forward united to something that all old people will so greatly welcome?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord. I am with him in spirit. I say that because not only do I believe in cross-party consensus on a matter as important as this, but I hope he will accept from me that the way we have tried to structure this package, taking the cap and the means test in combination, has precisely been to target those of more modest means. Currently only those with assets of less than £23,250 and a low income receive help from the state with their care costs. Our changes will mean that those with property value and savings of £100,000 or less in 2010 prices will start to receive financial support. That means that the most support will go to those in greatest need. I am advised that had we, for example, opted for a higher means-test threshold, it would not in practice have brought into the net that many more people. We felt that the fairest way of cutting the cake was to try to concentrate the benefit on those of lowest means while also removing the fear of catastrophic care costs from everybody in the system.