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Personal Care at Home Bill

I genuinely listen to what the hon. Gentleman has to say, and I recognise that he has knowledge in this area, but I think that he is wrong on this point. He says that the measure simply removes a bureaucratic rule, but doing so changes the nature of the rule on free personal care at home. The six-week rule was designed to facilitate the discharge of patients at the end of their NHS care in NHS hospitals. It was not designed as a means of funding social care for anything other than the shortest terms in that context. I have spoken about people changing their behaviour and so forth, but they will not do that in anything other than the most convenient way to ensure that they qualify for the six-week limit. Social care can go on for years, or even decades in some cases, so all the points that I have made about changing behaviour and the pattern of provision apply in a way that they do not in the context of the six-week rule. My final question to the Minister is very important. Under the direct payments legislation, individual beneficiaries of social care can convert their entitlement to social care into a direct payment, but will that apply to personal care provided in the context of this pledge? If so, that is another extremely powerful incentive for people to change their behaviour in order to qualify under the rules.