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Personal Care at Home Bill

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time. This is a small Bill containing just one substantial clause, but, as has been remarked, it will have a great significance for thousands of the most vulnerable adults and older people in our constituencies. As was said, we know that social care needs a radical overhaul, and the Green Paper published last year reflects our commitment to taking decisive action. However, the promise of fundamental reform in the future must not prevent us from taking important measures here and now to help those with the greatest need living in their own homes. The Bill means we can take action to reduce the unfairness and uncertainty that many people feel as their health worsens and their care needs grow. The Bill will provide support and financial relief to 400,000 older people with the greatest care needs, including those with conditions such as Parkinson's, dementia and motor neurone disease. Some 280,000 people who require high levels of intimate personal care on a day-to-day basis will now get these services for free in their own home. Many of them have faced the burden of paying large amounts of money for care as their conditions deteriorate, and this Bill will remove that millstone. In addition, a further 130,000 people will receive free reablement or rehabilitation to help them to recover their independence after a fall, bereavement or serious illness. The Bill is practical and will be financially manageable for councils. Indeed, many local authorities already offer some form of reablement support, which is helping them to use their resources more efficiently. Because of that, we have a running start on many of the financial and logistical hurdles that were discussed in Committee, including recruiting and paying for the additional work force required to honour the commitment. We are consulting widely on how the system will work and how people will be assessed. I want councils to have flexibility over how they resource the free personal care offer, while we ensure consistency across the country over who receives it. Above all, the Bill supports a simple principle—one that I must have reiterated in every intervention on the right hon. Member for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell)—which is that we must do everything we can to help people to live as well as they can, for as long as they can and in their own homes. That is what people tell us they want and why the Bill focuses on providing personal care for those who live in their own home, including sheltered or supported accommodation. Let us remember that the Bill will not only benefit older people but support their family members, many of whom face the difficult task of looking after an elderly relative while also bringing up their own family and holding down a job. It will bring wider economic and social benefits for carers, as well as long-term savings for the taxpayer by preventing hospital admissions and reducing care costs down the line. In other words, the Bill makes sense financially, as well as morally. Social care is changing across the country thanks to the £500 million that we have put into the transforming adult social care programme. Today's Bill is another big step forward and a vital bridge to the radical proposals for funding social care heralded in our recent Green Paper. This is a significant moment for the House. By passing this Bill, we can extend the promise of a fairer, more affordable and more sustainable care system in the future, and we can make an immediate difference, here and now, to our most vulnerable constituents, giving a hand up to those laid low by age and illness. I commend the Bill to the House.