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Personal Care at Home Bill

I invite the hon. Gentleman simply to consider the point that I have just made: what will be the consequences of each incremental step that he is inviting us to take? If he agrees with me that the consequence of this policy formulation is to create an incentive in favour of residential care rather than care at home, for the reasons that I have set out, and if he agrees that in the long run we must provide a funding base for social care that includes co-payment, all I would say to him is that if, perchance, there were a Labour Government after the election—I profoundly hope that there is not—and if he were a Minister in it, I would look forward to hearing him make a speech from the Dispatch Box that explained to the House why it was a good idea to have free personal care ahead of the election whereas after the election that would evolve into a system of payment through co-funding for personal care delivered at home. That is the policy that I believe that he supported until the Prime Minister made his statement at the Labour party conference, and I believe that any incoming Labour Government would have to revert to it after the election—perhaps even before October 2010.