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Personal Care at Home Bill

My Lords, I thoroughly agree with every word the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, has uttered. Let us face it, depending on this afternoon’s decisions in this House, after the election there will be a further debate to refine the arguments and discuss the costings and administrative implications. At the end of that process, the Government of that day may decide to proceed with the Bill. In that case, this amendment is otiose. It will have no effect because the Bill will be in force within two years. The other way things could go is that the Government, after an election and after that due process of debate, may conclude that this Bill is unaffordable or irredeemably unfair. In that case, I hope we will be looking for a consensus in the way forward. But if this Bill is still on the statute book, that is going to be harder. There will be organisations for the elderly, which, as the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, has said, support the Bill in principle but not always in practice, and which keep on hankering after it, saying, "If only we could persuade the Government to implement it". They will not be inclined to go along with the search for consensus. The sensible thing is for the Government of that day to conclude that this scheme is not going to work and is not the way forward and that not only should the scheme die but also the legislation which gave birth to it so that we can move on to the next stage of designing the kind of policy for the long-term care of the elderly that they need and deserve.