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Personal Care at Home Bill

With respect to the Minister, I did not say that we are in favour of a direction of travel that provides free personal care to people living at home; it is important that I make that clear. What I said was that we favour a direction of travel that encourages people, on a realistic funding basis, to live at home. That point has been made by the Minister and several others in the course of this debate. We want a funding basis for social care that encourages people to live at home. The Government, however, are saying, "If you live at home, the taxpayer will pay." That is great, except that it means that the formula for the delivery of social care that we all favour is the one that is cash-limited. Ministers may not agree with this, but the hon. Member for South Thanet has said again today—and I whole-heartedly agree with him—that the formula for the successful delivery of social care that meets the underlying demand at a quality level that we would want to deliver has to involve a form of co-payment. That element of flexibility has to be in the scheme if in the years immediately ahead we are to be able to deliver the quality of social care that we want at affordable cost.