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Personal Care at Home Bill

My right hon. Friend and I are not the only ones who think that there is a serious argument to be answered. The Government clearly share that view. I invite him to assess exhibit A: the explanatory notes, in which the Government have devoted two pages of typescript to explaining why they are safe under this exposure. Let me now deal with the second amendment. The two are linked. As I have already pointed, in assessing the principle of proportionality we must first assess the 2,000 people against the 500,000. We must then assess the 2,000 against the £500 million that are being spent on meeting this policy objective. Is the Bill proportionate, given that it has assessed 500,000 people against 2,000? Is it proportionate when it is recognised that the public spending cost of the Prime Minister's commitment to achieving the change in care arrangements for 2,000 people is, according to the Government's own estimate, £500 million? I do not believe that the Government have delivered their estimate of cost beyond the two-and-a-half year horizon. As my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury pointed out, if we look beyond that horizon, the £500 million will increase geometrically when the behavioural consequences of the measure are taken into account. According to Lord Lipsey's analysis of behavioural change and its financial consequences, the policy will result in a public spending cost well north of £1 billion. I invite the Committee to consider again whether that is a proportionate way in which to deliver the policy objective of enabling, supporting and encouraging""more people to avoid or delay entering residential accommodation"," given the Government's belief that 2,000 people will be affected. Enlarging on the spending element, my hon. Friend was right to observe that apart from the principle of article 14 of the ECHR, there is the further question of affordability, value for money and the policy assessment of that £1 billion expenditure. We should bear in mind not just the general financial environment with which everyone is familiar, but the fact that the context of the Green Paper that the Government presented last July was correctly recognised to be the demand pressure, and therefore the spending pressure, that is already building in this sector, reflecting rising demand for social care, and rising expectations about the standard at which that care will be delivered to the next generation of elderly people. That is why my hon. Friend is entirely right to ask for a proper statement of the Bill's financial consequences looking beyond the current two-and-a-half-year horizon. We should remember, of course, that the projection by Derek Wanless did not confine itself to two and a half years, but looked forward to 2020. If my memory serves me well, he envisaged the cost of social care rising from 1.2 to 2 per cent. of GDP over that period—in other words, a marginal, additional cost merely to maintain the current level of social care delivery of 0.8 per cent. of GDP. My hon. Friend will probably remember better than I the current size of GDP, but such a percentage must equate to about £20 billion—and merely to maintain the current delivery of social care. Despite the words in the Green Paper and the weasel words of the Minister from the Dispatch Box when he tried to evade the point, the Government are encouraging people to believe that the underlying rising demand for social care cannot be met on the basis that it all be paid for by the taxpayer. The Government are now half promising, however, that the taxpayer will meet the bill, which will further constrain our ability to deliver on the rising amount and quality of care that we all want.