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Personal Care at Home Bill

I am generally in favour of one-clause Bills, and most of us have sat in Committees considering Bills of 200 or 300 clauses. Nevertheless, such a short Bill means that trying to find out its implications presents a problem, and that Opposition Front-Bench Members must show ingenuity in engendering a debate that allows information to be put on the record. That information is needed so that the people who provide and receive the care can learn a little more. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell). I listened to what the hon. Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman) said, and he has participated in this debate for a long time, but the change in the six-week rule does make quite substantial differences to the overall pattern of care. If Opposition Members are cynical about the proposal that may be because one of the first things that the Government did after 1997 was to set up a royal commission that recommended free personal care, but that got dropped. Now here we are at the fag end of a Parliament and we get this rushed Bill, with questionable costings, which will fall after the election, and big implications for many of our constituents. Although amendments 9 and 10 may not be perfect, they at least allow us the opportunity to raise important questions. The Government themselves produced the Green Paper, and I thought that it was a good effort at looking at the whole system comprehensively. The Select Committee on Health is looking at personal care, so it is a pity that we are rushing ahead with this option without taking a comprehensive look at things. When one rushes ahead one creates cliff edges and biases in a system that benefit some and exclude others. As I think the hon. Gentleman said, the implication is that, subject to the funding arrangements, we will have to add another bit to the Bill to make it more comprehensive in the future. Definitions are very important, and I am still not sure that we have got to the bottom of that argument. Costings are also very important, and the Government are using the "magic pot of gold" argument that I have heard time and time again. The efficiency savings that they propose will be made at the expense of local government, which is going to have a difficult time over the next few years. Amendments 9 and 10 give us the opportunity to say a few words about that. When the Minister responds, I hope that he can answer some of the very important questions that have been raised and give some reassurance that the Government have thought through the Bill's implications rather more comprehensively than seems to be the case at first glance. However, I fear that perverse incentives are now going to be built into the system. If local authorities have to provide more money but do not have the budget to do so, my concern is that they will deal with the changes by spreading what they have rather more thinly. That could mean that although 380,000 people will benefit from the legislation, if the funding is not sufficiently robust, they will not benefit to the extent expected.