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Reform of Social Care

My Lords, the Government deserve credit for establishing the commission and choosing Mr Andrew Dilnot to chair it. I welcome the constructive way in which the Minister has summarised how the Government intend to take this forward. I have two questions arising from the Statement. I shall ask them in the sequence in which they arose from the Minister’s announcement. First, he observed that financial markets have no answer to this problem. That is quite extraordinary. Our colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Turner, in his capacity as chairman of the Financial Services Authority, told us that much of what goes on in the City is socially useless. Here is an area where the financial community in the City could be socially useful, yet it seems to be turning its back on the opportunities to create long-term annuity products appropriate to meeting people’s expenditure requirements in the later period of their life. Will the Minister raise this with the Treasury and the FSA and consider establishing a working group to investigate particularly whether EU legislation on capital requirements for variable annuities is frustrating a market response? Secondly, the Minister mentioned Southern Cross. There is much concern in the country about Southern Cross and I am grateful for the Minister’s Statement. Will he confirm that no resident of a Southern Cross home will be required to move against their wishes from the home in which they are currently being cared for?