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Reform of Social Care

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. At the heart of this, we know that additional resources have to be brought to bear and that given the financial circumstances we face, we also know that this will have to be a partnership between taxpayers, families and individuals—it cannot simply be handing costs over to the state. Although Andrew Dilnot makes no specific recommendations about how to pay for his proposals, he is very clear that even if it were to be through a tax mechanism, he believes it should come from an existing tax and should bear particularly on the same groups of older people rather than be a further intergenerational transfer from working age adults. What that immediately points to is the necessity of engaging fully with some of the stakeholder groups such as Age UK and others and of engaging properly with the public so that before we embark on this major reform, they can feel confident that they understand those trade-offs and precisely how these costs are to be met.