Elderly Care: Thousands Will Now Lose Homes

Thousands of pensioners will be forced to sell their homes to pay for care in their old age after a Government U-turn, it has been claimed.

Peers accused the coalition of backtracking on a pledge that no one would have to pay during their lifetime, with the money recouped from their estate after their death instead.

Labour's Lord Lipsey claimed the Government had "welshed" on the deal because under the Care Bill the deferred payment scheme only applies to people with less than £23,250 in assets.

Ministers admitted that up to 40,000 people might now have to sell their homes every year but denied the plans had been watered down.

Care Minister Norman Lamb stressed on Tuesday that "no decisions have been taken" about introducing a cash and shares cap.

But he confirmed it formed part of the Government consultation and argued it was right to consider making people "with a vast amount of money on the bank" pay up immediately.

"If together with owning your own home you have more than £23,000 of assets in the bank or in shares or whatever, if you have more than that, then the question is should you be expected to use that money?," he said.

"We are talking about people with quite significant means."

A furious Lord Lipsey, a former member of the Royal Commission on long-term care of the elderly, launched his attack during the report stage debate on the Bill in the House of Lords.

"The Government has welshed on the deal. The original scheme as put forward by the Dilnot commission (on funding social care) has had its b**** cut off by the Government," he said.

"There is now a huge restriction which will mean that very few people will take advantage of the deferred payment scheme.

"You are only eligible for a deferred payment loan if your other assets in total come to less than £23,250.

"If you have got more than that you have to spend down until you get to £23,250 in the bank or wherever it is and then you can consider a deferred payment scheme.

"Most people who have reasonably valuable houses - and they are most of the people who are likely to be wanting this - will have far more than £23,250 in other assets and most of them won't feel the least bit happy if before they can get any help from the deferred payment scheme they have to spend down until they have got less than £23,250.

"It hardly pays for a daily delivery of the Racing Post for the rest of their lives. So really for them the deferred payment is not available."

He said in theory people could let their assets run down but in general people wanted to make decisions on how their care would be funded when they first went into care.

Urging ministers to think again, Lord Lipsey warned of a "tsunami" of opposition to the Government's plans.

Labour spokesman Lord Hunt of Kings Heath said he shared the same concerns about the threshold and raised other fears about how councils would run the scheme.

Another Labour peer, Lord Warner who was a member of the Dilnot commission, said it was "pretty rough" for the Government to give the impression that it was implementing its recommendations on deferred payments "when they palpably aren't".

Health minister Earl Howe said there would be circumstances where local authorities must offer deferred payments but that the Bill also provided additional powers to offer them more widely.

"We need to ensure that this arrangement is rolled-out in a way that is financially sustainable for the local authority in each case," the minister said.

Shadow minister for care and older people Liz Kendall said: "Ministers have repeatedly claimed that no-one will have to sell their homes to pay for their care and that their care costs will be capped at £72,000. This simply isn't the case.

"Now we discover that many older people will have to use up their other savings and assets before they qualify for any help.

"Elderly people who have worked hard and played by the rules will rightly feel angry that the Government has tried to pull the wool over their eyes about what their plans really mean.

"The growing care crisis is one of the biggest challenges we face. Older people and their families deserve to be told the facts so they can properly plan for the future."

Further debate on the Bill will happen on Wednesday.