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Care and Support (Reform)

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his comments, but that is the logic of our proposals. However, unlike the national health service, the basis for funding social care will have to come not from taxation but from a partnership between the state and the individual, and the new resources will come from one of the three options that are proposed. I am grateful that he picked up on the sentence that he cited—I carefully inserted the notion of health and social care as more equal partners. It is not possible to say that they are equal partners today. Alongside the debate, we need to focus seriously on improving quality, and the calling of social care as a profession. I very much hope that someone with the right hon. Gentleman's authority will add to that debate.