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Personal Care at Home Bill

My Lords, I always hate to disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, on these kinds of issues because she understands so much about them. However, like my noble friend Lady Gardner, I am worried about the costs and the work which we are imposing on local authorities. I should make plain that if someone would like to pay the costs which my wife and I incur for her care, I would be extraordinarily grateful. However, I wonder whether anybody has a realistic idea of what those costs are. That is one of my worries about the Bill. If we then added to all these costs the perverse incentive that my noble friend Lady Gardner mentioned of allowing those who qualify for free care at home to take that free care with them into a care home, that would be quite extraordinary because it would mean that they would be better off than people who had been in the care home originally. Although Her Majesty’s Government were no doubt inspired by all sorts of good and decent feelings in this matter, they have not quite thought through—nor have some of my noble friends thought through—the complications, possible perverse incentives and sheer scale of the cost involved. I think that my wife qualifies for about £60 a week for her care. We sometimes have a good laugh about just how much care can be provided for £60 a week. It is pretty darned little. I would be very happy to tell the Minister in private exactly what it does cost to care for someone like my wife at home.