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Personal Care at Home Bill

My Lords, I take my chastisement from my noble friend like a man, but I do not resile from a single word of what I have said; I would prefer to be in the company of some of those who spoke supportively because I think history will show us to have been right. A very large number of concerns have been raised today about the affordability of this, whether we have the figures right on the funding, the administration of the complex new system and the sustainability of this proposal. However, we have not spoken much about the fact that it is only eight months from today that the Government have said that they will have the scheme up and running. Many of us have considerable doubts about our ability to implement this and not let people down after the promises that have been made. I tabled this Motion because the Government have said that they will devote only one day to the Bill in Committee. A host of things are of great concern to many of the people who have spoken today about the practicalities of implementing it. It would be easier to get the Government’s business through in one day if we had actually completed the process of consultation on the content of the regulations and guidance, and we had had from the Government their responses to it. As things stand, I understand that we will not have completed that process of consultation and we will not have that response from the Government about the outcome of it, so we will have to probe all that in Committee in one day without the advantage of the knowledge from the completion of that consultation. That strikes me as a very tall order, so I beg to move.