Community Care (Residential Accommodation) Bill

House of Commons, 20 March 1998.

Marsha Singh (Labour, Bradford West)

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time. I shall try to be as brief as possible, but first I want to apologise to you, Madam Speaker, and to hon. Members as I shall have to leave before the end of the debate due to a pressing engagement in my constituency. Although I have tried to change it, I have been unable to do so. I shall be opening a post office and I cannot get out of the engagement. I hope that you, Madam Speaker, and the House will accept my apology. My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Pound) has kindly agreed to stand in for me and I am grateful to him. However, I cannot see him in the Chamber at the moment; I just hope that he is watching the debate on a television somewhere and will turn up soon. The Bill is not sexy; it is not controversial and it does not arouse the passions that we have recently witnessed in the House. It is nevertheless an important Bill which will ease the anxieties of older people already in residential care and the many thousands who may need such care in the future. It will enshrine in law their right to keep a proportion of their hard-earned income and savings. Indeed, it is a Bill that may even benefit right hon. and hon. Members, should the need ever arise. I shall briefly give some background to the Bill. Although there have been rules on capital limits since the National Assistance Act 1948, the current rules came into force in April 1993 under changes introduced in the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990. The changes in means testing for residential care included rules about both income and capital. Previous limits on capital caused grave and widespread concern and it was in response to that concern that in April 1996 the capital limit was raised, following an announcement to that effect in the Budget statement on 28 November 1995. Those changes were, first, that the level of assets at which people would no longer be eligible for assistance was doubled from £8,000 to £16,000 and, secondly, that the level of capital at which they would start to make a contribution was raised from £3,000 to £10,000. The former right hon. Member for Kensington and Chelsea, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, said: In this Budget I shall be helping people who are earning and people who are saving. But I also want to help the people who have worked and saved all their lives. Some of them may be unfortunate enough to need care in residential or nursing homes in their old age. If they do, they may find their savings eaten away quickly to pay for that care. Of course, that is one of the rainy days for which people save. But the balance between the state paying and the family paying must be right.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I apologise for interrupting the hon. Gentleman at so early a stage in the debate. I am slightly confused as he referred to the former Chancellor of the Exchequer as being the right hon. Member for Kensington and Chelsea. Will he confirm that he means my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke)?

Marsha Singh (Labour, Bradford West)

I apologise—I made a mistake.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I was confused.

Marsha Singh (Labour, Bradford West)

It was my confusion, not the hon. and learned Gentleman's. As I was saying, the former Chancellor said about the balance being right: If it is not, many prudent people will complain that they are being treated unfairly compared with those who are unable or unwilling to save at all. To help people who have already put money aside, it was recently decided to exempt from VAT some forms of care provided in someone's own home. I now have two important further proposals. First, I intend to exempt from tax the benefits from a range of insurance policies that provide long-term care benefits. We should encourage, not penalise, people who decide to take more responsibility for themselves. Secondly, at present only people with assets worth less than £3,000 are not asked to make any contribution from their capital towards the costs of residential or nursing home care. People with assets worth more than £8,000 receive no financial support from the Government. When applied to care in residential and nursing homes, those limits are far too low. From April, and sooner if practicable, we shall more than treble the lower threshold, from £3,000 to £10,000, and double the upper threshold, from £8,000 to £16,000. That means that people in residential care who have worked hard and saved will now keep more of their own money. It will give many elderly people and their families more financial security and greater peace of mind. But we also want to find more ways of helping people who are now in work or recently retired and want to plan ahead to prepare for their old age."—[Official Report, 28 November 1996; Vol. 267, c.1067.] The next day, the then Secretary of State for Social Security, the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) said: One of the main financial concerns facing elderly people is the prospect of needing long-term care. Providing for their needs in old age is, of course, one of the reasons why people save, but Age Concern and others have argued that the capital limits applying to people in residential and nursing care are tougher than the rules for people who stay in their own homes. They have urged us to raise the capital limits for residential and nursing care to those that apply to housing benefit. We are going further than that. We are not just doubling the upper limit to £16,000 but more than tripling the lower limit. Under our proposals, people with up to £16,000 of assets will qualify for state help and people with capital of less than £10,000 will not be required to make any contribution from their capital towards the cost of basic residential care."—[Official Report, 29 November 1996; Vol. 267, c. 1214–15.]

David Tredinnick (Conservative, Bosworth)

I am listening to the hon. Gentleman with great interest. Will he explain how he has arrived at the new thresholds? It will be interesting for the House to know whether the hon. Gentleman has talked to the Treasury about this matter, as there are grave financial implications.

Marsha Singh (Labour, Bradford West)

If the hon. Gentleman had listened to what I was saying he would know that those thresholds were introduced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget statement in 1995 and by the Secretary of State for Social Security the day after the Budget statement. Those thresholds are not new, but existing ones that were introduced by the previous Government—the money was allocated in the 1995 Budget.

David Tredinnick (Conservative, Bosworth)

The hon. Gentleman must forgive me if I did not understand him correctly. What I was getting at was whether the current Treasury team under the new Government had given its part or total blessing to the Bill. It is one thing to look at what the Conservative Government proposed, but there has been a change of Government—indeed, the hon. Gentleman is here because of that change of Government. It is germane to the debate for us to have an understanding of the hon. Gentleman's arrangement with the Treasury as, without that, the basis of the debate is undermined.

Marsha Singh (Labour, Bradford West)

The thresholds and the capital limits were contained in that Budget statement—the finances were allocated.

Paul Boateng (Labour, Brent South)

Perhaps I can assist the hon. Member for Bosworth (Mr. Tredinnick). I shall be making the Government's position clear in due course, but I can say now that we have no problem with the limits.

Marsha Singh (Labour, Bradford West)

I do not have the words to speak on the Bill as eloquently as did the then Chancellor of the Exchequer and the then Secretary of State for Social Security in the debates when the capital and income limits were introduced. Those changes were welcomed by the whole House and they should have been implemented without any problems, but local authorities began to abuse the rules in different ways. Sefton borough council decided to disregard the limits and adopted a strict rationing regime. Dozens of people were refused assistance—dozens of people had to wait until their assets were below £1,500 before they could receive help they needed. That £1,500 was just enough to pay the funeral expenses. Dozens of people in Sefton were subjected to misery and hardship. Help the Aged took the matter to judicial review and, to everybody's surprise, the judge upheld the actions of Sefton council.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

I think that on these occasions fair dues all round should be the case. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will also give credit to Age Concern, which also brought the judicial review to which he referred.

Marsha Singh (Labour, Bradford West)

I shall pay due tribute to Age Concern during my speech. The judge's decision led to widespread anxiety among older people, their families, their carers and organisations acting for them, such as Help the Aged and Age Concern. Thankfully, the Sefton judgment was overturned in the Appeal Court on 31 July 1997, but there is still a great deal of uncertainty and anxiety among older people and organisations acting for them because of the Sefton judgment. I am reliably informed that some local authorities are telling people with less than £16,000 to go on waiting lists. Long delays in assessments are leading people to eat into their own assets—assets which were supposed to have been guaranteed by the House—and local authorities frequently refuse to backdate the funding. The process constitutes a form of Sefton by the back door, which is a disgraceful state of affairs. That is why the Bill is necessary. It is essential that the law makes the position absolutely clear. If our previous guarantees to older people are being flouted, we must legislate. It is essential that, through the Bill, we amend the National Assistance Act 1948. I hope that the Department of Health will go further and ensure that assessment of need is separate from, and precedes, assessment of a person's financial circumstances. I hope that the Department will ensure that local authorities do not unreasonably refuse to assess someone for community care services and residential accommodation. I hope that the Department will ensure that local authorities do not delay assessments by setting deadlines. I hope that the Department will ensure that local authorities have a duty to carry out an assessment, whether or not care and attention is otherwise available. I hope that the Department will ensure that, once a person is assessed as needing residential care, lack of resources cannot be used as a reason for refusing or delaying care.

Nicholas Soames (Conservative, Mid Sussex)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way and I have a great deal of sympathy with the points that he is making. Does he agree that we are talking about a two-sided contract? It is not just that the local authorities should, as he rightly says, speedily undertake those assessments so that old people are able to move to another care regime; local authorities should pay nursing homes and other institutions promptly for the services that they have contracted from them. Some councils do not. I am dealing with such a case in my constituency, where a nursing home has persistently been kept waiting by a county council under a contract arrangement, to the great disadvantage of the people who live there.

Marsha Singh (Labour, Bradford West)

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I hope that the Government Bill that will set out a statutory right to interest on the late payment of bills will help. If there is a contract, the local authority involved should pay on time. I am sure that the Bill to which I have referred will involve local authorities. I said in my introduction that this is not a Bill which excites passions, but I believe it should. We should be passionate about the rights of older people. We should be passionate about the fact that older people are being ripped off. We should be passionate also if older people are being denied the care to which they are entitled. Older people should be able to keep the assets that they worked hard to secure and for which they saved hard. Every right hon. and hon. Member may one day be grateful for that passion. Finally, I thank Age Concern, Help the Aged and the Department of Health for their help and advice and I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for his encouragement. I commend the Bill to the House.

Richard Page (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Singh) on bringing the Bill before the House. There is a skill in choosing Bills that are available to private Members—ones that will not cause excitement and delay. It is wise to choose a Bill that can speedily pass through the House and take its place on the statute book, especially if it will provide the support and help that is intended. The hon. Gentleman mentioned passion. I believe that the Bill raises a passionate issue and one for which we should fight. If we cannot help the elderly, who can we help?

Marsha Singh (Labour, Bradford West)

I said in my introduction that the Bill has not excited passion and that has not aroused the passions that we have witnessed recently in the House. I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman that it should excite passion because we should be passionate about the rights of older people.

Richard Page (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

There is no dissension between us. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the Bill fully deserves the support of the whole House. Hon. Members on both sides who have supported the Bill have given us the opportunity to clarify the responsibilities of local authorities towards people who are in need of residential care. I find it rather sad that local authorities should abuse weaker members of society, but I suppose that Parliament is here to ensure that such people are protected.

Tony Baldry (Conservative, Banbury)

We should not talk of local authorities as a whole but of Sefton, which at the time had no overall political party control although it had a number of Liberal councillors. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is appalling that on a day when the House will be debating several significant Bills there is not one member of the Liberal party present in the Chamber?

Richard Page (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

rose—

Michael Martin (Deputy Speaker, Glasgow Springburn)

Order. Let us concentrate on the matters that are before us and not on who is here and who is not.

Richard Page (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

I entirely agree, Mr. Martin. I was about to chide my hon. Friend by saying that it is not my responsibility to run the Liberal party, tempting though that might be.

Marsha Singh (Labour, Bradford West)

Sefton council has become notorious for what it did, but let us not forget that other local authorities have been doing a Sefton by the back door.

Richard Page (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

That is a matter on which I shall touch lightly when I make some further remarks. I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Baldry) to the extent that Sefton is not alone; there are one or two other councils that are playing the same game. I am sure that if my hon. Friend reads the details that are in front of him this will all become relatively clear. It is right that people who have a reasonable amount of capital should be asked to make a contribution towards the cost of their care. I do not think that everyone should lie back and rely on the state, saying, "Give me the necessary money." That view was taken by the previous Parliament and I am glad that it is sustained in the Bill.

Nicholas Soames (Conservative, Mid Sussex)

I am sorry to interrupt my hon. Friend as he moves into the full power of his oratory. I am sure that he agrees that the Bill is important and that the hon. Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Singh), who I am sure is not moving too far from his place, deserves great credit for introducing it. However, there are many Conservative Members—[Interruption.] I think that of one of my hon. Friends' pacemakers is going off. Let us hope that it is nothing serious. A by-election would be inconvenient for my party at the moment. There are many on the Conservative Benches who feel that the Bill should have been introduced as a Government Bill. Is it not odd that the Government, when in opposition, were extremely earnest on this issue but have chosen the long, detailed and difficult way of introducing legislation—although extremely competently presented—through a private Member's Bill when the matter could have been dealt with perfectly well in last year's Finance Bill?

Richard Page (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

For the record, it was not my pacemaker that was going off. Mine is under control. I can only agree with my hon. Friend. The Bill deals with an issue which should have been dealt with on the statute book earlier. The private Member's Bill procedure is a well-known route but it is subject to the hazards and vagaries of the House, as one or two other hon. Members have discovered on producing private Members' Bills. I am glad that this Bill will not be thwarted by other hon. Members, but will go through the House and on to the statute book. I hope that that process will be as quick as possible. If I may proceed with my speech without the support of my colleagues intervening every 30 seconds we might make some progress. As I have said, I believe it right that members of the public should make a contribution towards their upkeep as they become older and if they have some resources. It is entirely wrong that some local authorities have cynically attempted to create and exploit the technical language—the hon. Member for Bradford, West referred to this briefly—in sections 21 and 22 of the National Assistance Act 1948 to avoid meeting their justifiable responsibilities. They have chosen to do so until elderly people's savings have been reduced to less than £1,500. As the hon. Member said, it was the intention of the previous Government, approved by Parliament, that once an individual's capital fell below £16,000, and subject to the level of their income, local authorities should begin to contribute towards the cost of their accommodation and that once that individual's capital had fallen to £10,000, local authorities should meet the full cost. The Bill would ensure that there is no legal loophole that allows local authorities that want to take advantage of the elderly to disregard those requirements.

Sir Nicholas Lyell (Conservative, North East Bedfordshire)

My hon. Friend says that the Bill would ensure that there will be no legal loophole. That is one of the things that we have the opportunity to test in the Minister's presence on Third Reading. There is a serious question whether the Bill does not still leave a legal loophole; I understand that if the local authority thinks a person is not in need of care and attention because he or she still has enough money—between £16,000 and £1,500—to continue to pay for himself or herself at home or in some other form of care, the Bill will not bite. Has my hon. Friend had an opportunity to consider that question?

Richard Page (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

My right hon. and learned Friend makes a valuable point. I hope that the Minister will clarify that issue when he replies. Accommodation today is so expensive that, frankly, it would be only a matter of months before the local authority's decision to take up, instead of avoid, its responsibilities would be thrust upon it. This issue needs to be clarified, not only to ensure that local authorities behave in future but for the peace of mind of elderly people. When they are young and active, as you are Mr. Deputy Speaker, people have confidence, but when they become elderly and frail they need help and support. They do not need the worry that they could suddenly be in desperate need of support from local authorities or the various bodies that exist to help. Hon. Members will be familiar with local authorities' claim that they are underfunded. The director of my local social services authority, Hertfordshire county council, wrote to me last October saying that demand from elderly people for services was rising in line with the growth in their number. He was afraid that the county council budget could not cope with the demand. As a result, basic services such as shopping and cleaning help have been withdrawn—despite a huge increase in Hertfordshire's council tax this year of some 10 per cent: it is a Lib-Lab-run authority—so that the authority can concentrate on those who, unfortunately, are housebound or unable to feed and wash themselves. I am deluged by letters from elderly people who need help and support. Their letters are exceedingly moving and worrying. It is difficult to reconcile the huge increase in Hertfordshire's council tax and the huge cut in its services with the fact that London seems to have survived swingeing cuts. The fact that there might be an election, of course, is pure coincidence, and I must not let anybody draw any inferences from the lack of services in Hertfordshire.

David Tredinnick (Conservative, Bosworth)

I am listening with interest to my hon. Friend. What specific concerns have been expressed by elderly constituents? Their main concern is covered by the Bill, but it would be interesting to know whether he has deduced anything in particular from his correspondence.

Richard Page (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

My hon. Friend tempts me down paths that are peripheral to the Bill. I make the point that the concerns expressed by the elderly in my constituency result from the cut in services and the lack of financial support. I raise this point because it is germane to the Bill. If we cannot get the financing right, we will not be able to look after people properly. I do not want people to suffer cuts in services through lack of support and finance if that can possibly be avoided. The list of concerns raised by the elderly is long and serious, but if I had to choose one item that is causing most concern it is the lack of home help for people who are unable to look after themselves but want to stay in their own home. If we do not tackle that properly there will be greater pressure on residential homes as more and more people say, "I want to move into a residential home because I can't cope in my own home." That is why the lack of support for home help is most serious and damaging.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

Does my hon. Friend agree that, often, the shortage of social services funding for home care and home help comes about not so much through a lack of central Government funding or a lack of funding from local taxpayers as through incompetent handling of the funds available to the social services department? He will be interested to hear that Wiltshire county council—a Lib-Lab council—spends some £70 to £80 a week more putting people in long-term care homes run by the county council as an ideological preference to the perfectly excellent private homes throughout the county. Does he agree that that is a disgrace and that the net effect is precisely the shortfall in home care that he describes?

Richard Page (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

I do not want to chide my hon. Friend, but he is trying to lead me into areas about which I have no knowledge and expertise. I have no idea about the way in which his council operates. I have no idea about its policies—just as I have no responsibility for the Liberal Democrats. I return to the point that I was making. If we do not get our finances correct, greater pressures will be placed on residential homes, and that will mean even greater pressure on the taxpayer. That is why I come back to the sensible, lower-cost support of home help, which has enabled people to stay in their own homes, in their own community, which, ultimately, reduces the bill to the taxpayer. It is a win-win situation. I suggest that my hon. Friend goes back to his council and suggests that this is a way in which costs could be reduced to the greater enjoyment of elderly people. I shall not go on about the shortcomings of councils—Hertfordshire or any other. I produced the example of Hertfordshire because I know that the arguments of local authorities that cannot meet their full obligations to the elderly because of a lack of financial resources is one with which Ministers in the present Government will become more familiar in the years ahead. I cannot believe that any local authority can seriously maintain that the capital of an individual in its area should fall below £1,500 before it feels legally bound to offer assistance to meet the costs of residential accommodation. The hon. Member for Bradford, West referred to the cost of a funeral. I am not an expert on the cost of funerals in Merseyside, but I studied some figures produced by the National Association of Funeral Directors. In parts of the country, a standard burial costs more than £2,000. If the Bill did not address the issue of savings, everybody in Merseyside in this situation would have to be cremated, as the choice of a burial would be beyond them. The conduct of Sefton metropolitan borough council in trying to insist that people in need of residential care should have their savings reduced to this minute level merits outright public condemnation. It puts its emphasis on its policy—draining the resources of vulnerable people—above its duty of care. Moreover, it does so on the basis of the argument that possessing capital of more than £1,500 and less than £16,000 means that people might have the means to secure the care and attention that they require. If that really is the substance of the council's position, it means that it places its accounting position ahead of its legal obligation to help elderly and vulnerable people. Morally, that is a shallow, repugnant argument. Legally, as has been said, the Appeal Court judgment last October showed that that argument is morally and legally bankrupt. The council's defence—that its actions were solely driven by its lack of financial resources and that it had no desire to challenge the law or attack people's savings; that line was taken by the chairman of the social services committee last April—is just not credible. As soon as the judgment of the Court of Appeal went against it, Sefton council's assistant director for older people, Mr. Alan Lewis, told The Independent on 23 October that years of financial stringency have paid off and after reviewing our financial circumstances we found we are now able to meet the provisions affecting this particular group of people". Halfway through this financial year there was money to meet the needs for residential care and accommodation that had previously been impossible to find. The only redeeming feature of the council's response was that it had become willing to recompense the people who had been wrongly forced to pay the costs of residential accommodation. They will be paid back with interest. The hon. Member for Bradford, West mentioned the statutory right to interest. I am not sure that it is a panacea for all late payment, but I am glad that some extra compensation is to be paid to those people. I am not certain how many are involved. The Independent quoted a figure of 70; The Guardian said that 100 people are affected. However many, if it is more than zero, it is one person too many. Whatever view the council took of the level of funding provided by the previous or the present Government for the community care programme, the effect of its policy decision was to place its assessment of its financial resources ahead of the assessment of the elderly vulnerable people who needed help to secure appropriate residential accommodation. The elderly in Sefton and one or two other places were being held to ransom in an argument between local government and central Government over the funding levels that the latter should provide. I hope that such a case will never happen again. I am happy to support the Bill.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I am most grateful to be called today, not least because it gives me an opportunity to talk about a subject that has concerned me for some little while and which I discussed with the Under-Secretary of State for Health when we debated, under the auspices of the Hansard Society, the question of the law and Parliament. I am brought to that subject because the Bill has its genesis in the case of the Crown v. Sefton metropolitan borough council. It is often said, as much by Conservative Members of Parliament as others I fear, that judges and lawyers are out of touch with the real world. In the case of Mrs. Blanchard, who was the victim of Sefton metropolitan borough council's community care policy, the Court of Appeal, presided over by the Master of the Rolls, Lord Woolf, reached a conclusion that demonstrated not that the courts were out of touch with the real world but that they were very much in touch with it. I hope that my hon. Friends who have taken a different view to mine—a view that the Minister shares—will from, in the light of maturer reflection and the Master of the Roll's judgment, come to take a more sympathetic view.

Andrew Rowe (Conservative, Faversham and Mid Kent)

Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that the chances of judges in the Court of Appeal being in touch are far greater in cases involving people over 75 than in almost any other kind of case?

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I disagree whole-heartedly. The retirement age for members of the Court of Appeal is 75, so the point that my hon. Friend makes is a bad one. It demonstrates one of the difficulties that we have. It is easy to assume that the Court of Appeal exists in some sort of Gilbertian world in which a lot of geriatrics are finding it difficult to string two words together or reach rational conclusions. If my hon. Friend cares to look, he will find that the quality of the intellects of those who sit on the Court of Appeal bench is immensely superior to that which is demonstrated by the profusion of words to which we sometimes listen in this Chamber. I have to be careful. Here I am trying to persuade my hon. Friend that my argument is good, attractive and worthy of support. The last thing that I want to do is to be accused of being abusive to him. All that I would say is that the premise on which he advanced that intervention was wrong. I hope that he will care to go to "Who's Who" and look up the ages of Lord Woolf, and Lord Justices Roch and Henry. He will find that they are some little way under the age of 75 and even 70. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Singh) on his Bill and on choosing a subject which is largely uncontroversial and brings with it a social benefit, unlike some of the other private Members' Bills that we have discussed recently. I dare say that many people in the hon. Gentleman's metropolitan area in the west riding of Yorkshire will feel that he has done them a service. I congratulate him on that. I want to analyse to some extent the decision of the Court of Appeal presided over by the Master of the Rolls last July so that my hon. Friends, who have appeared in greater numbers than Government supporters, can understand why I believe that the relationship between two great limbs of our constitution—the judiciary and the legislature—can be fostered to assist the third limb of our constitution, which is, the Executive, represented most ably today by the three hon. Members on the Treasury Bench—the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the Minister of State, Department of Trade and Industry, and the hon. Member for Tyne Bridge (Mr. Clelland). If that relationship is fostered, the House and the other place will produce and digest legislation in a way that produces better law. I believe that the Bill is a product of a sensible union of view and opinion. The Master of the Rolls said at the outset of the Sefton case that he identified three main issues. I suggest that those issues applied not only to the facts of that case but to the general area of social policy involved. As the Under-Secretary of State for Health already appreciates, having practised in the courts and no doubt dealt with similar cases, the case involved three primary issues. The first was whether a local authority, in deciding whether an elderly person was in need of care and attention—in which case it would be required to make arrangements for residential accommodation to be available to her—was entitled under section 21(1)(a) of the National Assistance Act 1948, to have regard to its limited financial resources. That is the big political question to which the Bill attempts to provide an answer that is acceptable to most people. The second issue that the Master of the Rolls identified was whether if Sefton's limited resources were relevant, they justified the policy that it adopted. It is a policy which many cash-strapped local authorities have to consider. It is perhaps unfortunate for Sefton that it is the first borough council to have caught the attention of the relevant charitable interest groups and that its activities and policy have persuaded a charity to take the matter to court. The third issue was whether, in determining whether care and attention was not otherwise available to a person, an authority was entitled to take the resources of that person into account, even if they fell below the levels prescribed by the National Assistance (Assessment of Resources) Regulations 1992 for the purposes of sections 22 to 26 of the 1948 Act. I appreciate that, at the moment, that sounds deeply dry, deeply boring and thoroughly technical, but, unless one understands the foundations of social policy and the legal framework within which it is constructed, it is extremely difficult to understand quite why the Bill promoted by the hon. Member for Bradford, West is a beacon, or perhaps even a lighthouse, for other jurisdictions and other countries.

Sir Nicholas Lyell (Conservative, North East Bedfordshire)

My hon. and learned Friend may be able to assist the Under-Secretary of State for Health by highlighting a real point in this case. It is not entirely clear to me whether Sefton borough council took into account the fact that it was strapped for resources, and therefore had a policy under which people had to spend their modest capital, down to £1,500, or whether it believed that people with between £1,500 and £16,000 were not in need of care, because they had a small amount of personal resource to look after themselves. Can my hon. and learned Friend elucidate that point?

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

After six or seven years as a Member of Parliament, I have learnt that the Under-Secretary rarely needs help, and when he does, he does not take it. However, I shall try to help with the argument put to me by my right hon. and learned Friend by having a go at explaining what Sefton borough council was doing, which may help with our deliberations. If I get my explanation wrong, I am sure that the Under-Secretary, who is listening with great rapture, will put me right with the assistance of his official advisers. There has been a great deal of press and other comment on the case. As I understand it, the borough council was applying its policy in a discriminatory way to distinguish, perhaps for financial or other reasons, between what it regarded as real welfare cases involving elderly residents who had become enfeebled enough to need residential care, as happens with elderly residents in Manchester, in Sheffield, in Bedfordshire or in north Wiltshire, and elderly people who had put themselves in retirement homes in the seaside resort of Southport pre-emptively—before they needed residential care as the Department of Health understands it—and while they were still in relatively good health. The bulk of Sefton borough council's policy addressed the issue of who was and was not to be assessed as needing residential care. The matter of their capital allowances were a detail of that policy, but it has taken on far greater significance for obvious political and social policy reasons, perhaps because Sefton borough council was insensitive and inept in the way in which it developed, arrived at and presented its policy.

Richard Page (Conservative, South West Hertfordshire)

Did not the chairman of the social services committee take the position that the council had no desire to take away the savings of elderly people, or to challenge the law? The council's defence was that its actions were solely driven by its lack of financial resource.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I am sure that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has no desire to bankrupt my constituents by imposing an extra 20p a gallon on fuel duty, but that will be the consequence. Any decision maker in national politics, national Government or local government must be taken to have accepted responsibility for, and anticipated the consequences of, his decisions. I cannot acquit the official at Sefton borough council of ignorance or of lack of responsibility for the consequences of his actions or advice any more than I can acquit the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whose colleague the Under-Secretary looks a little puzzled. I dare say that the cost of petrol does not affect his constituents in Brent quite as much as it does mine. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Page) will allow me to leave that point hanging for others to pick up. I am happy that Labour Back-Bench representation in the Chamber has now trebled, and three Labour Back Benchers are present.

Steve Pound (Labour, Ealing North)

Quality, not quantity.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I am sure that that is entirely right. I offer my congratulations to the hon. Gentleman on his half century this year: we should therefore discuss community care for the elderly with some care. In the Sefton case, which I was briefly analysing, the—

Michael Martin (Deputy Speaker, Glasgow Springburn)

Order. Perhaps the hon. and learned Gentleman will assist me. We have discussed the background to the Bill at great length, and we must now speak about its content. He has assisted me and given me a grasp of why we are having such a debate on Third Reading, but we have passed from the debate on the background—what is done is done. We are discussing Third Reading, and we should talk about content.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I fully understand your point, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Perhaps I may illustrate what I am doing by giving this example: a tapestry is composed not only of threads of wool, but of latticework through which the wool is woven.

Michael Martin (Deputy Speaker, Glasgow Springburn)

Order. The hon. Gentleman makes my point. The backcloth has been fully explained to me. Now I must look at the tapestry.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

You are, Mr. Deputy Speaker, a man of great and acute perception. My anxiety is that my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid-Kent (Mr. Rowe) is not quite as quick as you, and his intervention suggested that further explanation of the backcloth was required so that he would understand the interwoven colours created for us by the hon. Member for Bradford, West, who represents a textile constituency. I shall move on because, if I am not careful, my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Sir D. Madel), whose patience may not be as great and accommodating as yours, Mr. Deputy Speaker, may contrive to put me in a community care home. Rather than wait for my explanation, hon. Members should study the law report on the Sefton case; there is much to learn from it. My hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) wishes to intervene, but I first give way to the hon. Member for Bradford, West.

Marsha Singh (Labour, Bradford West)

I thank the hon. and learned Gentleman for giving way. I must leave the Chamber, not out of bad manners, but out of necessity. I hope that he will forgive me.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

The hon. Gentleman is a man of unfailing courtesy, and I fully understand that he has constituency engagements to attend to. I was slightly amused when he said that he had a post office to open and could not get out of it.

Marsha Singh (Labour, Bradford West)

I am afraid that stamp duty might be imposed if I am not there.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I send him to Euston station with our good wishes, and trust that by the time that he reads Hansard his Bill will have made the progress that he and its supporters wish for it. I wish him all the best. I would have made other arguments, but you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, required me to leave them to another forum. Before coming to the second thrust of my argument, I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend for giving way before moving to the second thrust of his argument, although I find it hard to understand why he has taken almost 20 minutes to get through the first thrust.

Eleanor Laing (Conservative, Epping Forest)

My hon. and learned Friend is a barrister.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

Yes, but my hon. and learned Friend is not being paid by the hour in this place. I bring my hon. and learned Friend back to the reason why he was expatiating a little on the judgment in the Sefton borough council case. An important point about the Bill highlights the difficulties caused by it not having been considered in detail by a Standing Committee. The point that the judge in the case missed was Sefton borough council's feeling that certain residents of Southport, being perfectly fit and healthy, did not need its financial support. The point about capital allowances is that they are awarded at the point when social services departments decide that a person needs care and attention that would otherwise be unavailable to him. Sefton borough council feels that, following the judgment, many people could receive support who would not otherwise be considered to need it.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

That is true, and relates to what I said in response to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Sir N. Lyell). If people are not assessed as needing residential care, the capital allowances for residential care do not apply. The Bill does not bite on that aspect of social policy. It would bite only in the cases of elderly people who had already been assessed as needing residential care, like Mrs. Blanchard.

Dominic Grieve (Conservative, Beaconsfield)

The fear that has been expressed in that context is that unscrupulous local authorities might exploit the loophole and fail to assess people at all, or simply not get on with the job. People who fell below the £16,000 threshold would then receive no support from the local authority. Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that, even if that problem cannot be addressed in the Bill, we may have to address it eventually?

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

It may be possible to address it in the Bill if their lordships take up my hon. Friend's point, but, on Third Reading, it is not for us to do more than acknowledge his point and hope that others who take a close interest in these matters—including the Minister—will do what they think appropriate. It is still possible for a council to save on the cost of caring for elderly people who have put themselves into homes simply by not assessing them as having any needs as defined by statute. The hon. Member for Bradford, West may not have come to grips with that, but the House should do so before the Bill goes to another place. The capital of elderly people could be run down with no more consideration than the council would have for someone aged 30 who was staying in bed-and-breakfast accommodation or an hotel. How councils behave in such cases will depend on their integrity and good will, and on how they make difficult choices about prioritising their resources. Government is difficult enough for the Conservative party, but we now have a Labour Government who have not made a decision of any complexity or national significance for 18 years except within their own party system. It is essential for us to remind not only the new Government but local authorities of the huge importance of getting priorities right, and having the courage to stand by their decisions when put to the test. I see that the Minister agrees whole-heartedly with my point about the need to order priorities properly. The Bill illustrates just one aspect of that need. I hope that, if we allow it a speedy passage to the other place and, eventually, the statute book, borough councillors throughout the country—as well as their officials and advisers—will realise that the House is now watching them to make sure that elderly people are not artificially prevented from gaining access to the care that they so richly deserve after a lifetime of hard work, thrift and saving.

Sir Nicholas Lyell (Conservative, North East Bedfordshire)

I am grateful for the opportunity to make a brief speech. I welcome the Bill, and congratulate the hon. Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Singh) both on promoting it and on steering it successfully through its stages so far. The question of how to pay for old age is probably one of the most difficult questions of the day. As people get older, they experience real anxiety about how they would manage if they had to go into a home: it preys on everyone's mind, in connection with themselves or elderly relatives. Indeed, they may worry about how their children will manage in the future. This is rightly a topic for political debate. I shall not dwell on the distinction between the Government and the Opposition—between the Labour and Conservative parties—as reflected in what is sometimes described as the Chancellor's smash-and-grab raid on pension funds through the abolition of advance corporation tax. In a sense, however, that is part of an overall approach to the subject. It is important to enable people to build up capital so that they can care for themselves, and—here there should be common ground between the parties—to keep at least some of that capital to pass on to their children. I have a particular insight, as one who was first a junior Minister in 1986, in what was then the Department of Health and Social Security. The Minister of State was one John Major, my right hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon. At that time, Conservative party policy was to increase the amount of protected capital from £3,000 to the still modest figure of £6,000, which has subsequently been increased to the £16,000 in the Bill. It must be borne in mind that that £16,000 is not wholly protected. When people's capital has dwindled to £16,000, which is probably only about half the value of a modest house—even in Sefton, in the north-west of England—they will still have to pay a substantially higher weekly sum for board and lodging in a residential old people's home. The Bill aims to resolve what was, frankly, an abuse introduced by Sefton borough council. The ideology of those councillors was different from the ideology that I think prevails today—in the country and, I hope, in the Government, although it is their party which predominates in Sefton. I am grateful to the Government for at least moving that far. Sefton borough council was saying that it would not provide accommodation for someone who was in need of care and attention because of the frailties of old age until that person's capital had dwindled from £16,000 to £1,500. The Bill seeks to correct that, which is why we welcome it. Let me make a point which, although rather technical, is important. Clarification of it, even on Third Reading, may assist the construction of the Act that this Bill will become, and of national assistance Acts generally. The point was highlighted by the Master of the Rolls when the Court of Appeal had to make a decision in the case involving Mrs. Blanchard. The point is that, provided that it is clear that an old or disabled person—people may be frail for reasons other than old age—is in need of care and attention, there is no entitlement to take into account the local authority's alleged lack of resources. I accept that local authorities are under pressure. I think that we can be sure, but I should like clarification on the point that one is not entitled to take into account the fact that a person still has £16,000 and that the amount has not dwindled to £1,500. A person who is down to £16,000 must be careful if he is in need of care and attention. He should not be told that he may spend £14,500 on looking after himself and then make another approach to the authority. Such a loophole seems to exist because the fundamental legislation, the national assistance legislation as amended from time to time, refers to people who are in need of care and attention that is not otherwise available to them. Of course, money gives freedom and the power to purchase services. Notwithstanding the Bill's intention, it could be said that people could spend their money on caring for themselves, perhaps marginally by upping the amount of private home help. That means that they could put off going into residential accommodation for a long time and, of course, that will prolong the anxiety of the elderly and, in practice, it may force them to deplete their modest resources from £16,000 to whatever figure the relevant local authority—it may not be the one in Sefton—may set. It may not stick to £1,500. I support the Bill and hope that it will be successful in overcoming the difficulty. I have highlighted the issue, albeit at the 11th hour on Third Reading because it is important to bring it to the attention of the House so that the Minister may comment on it. If we cannot put it right at this stage of the Bill's progress, I hope that the Government will be sympathetic to my point and will use some future Finance Bill or assistance Bill to close continuing loopholes.

Andrew Rowe (Conservative, Faversham and Mid Kent)

I fear that I have to join the Bill's promoter in apologising to the House because, if the subject is debated for the length of time that it deserves, I may not be here for the final speeches. I hope that the Minister will forgive me if I have to leave early. One of my local hospitals is threatened with closure and all hon. Members will understand that such a matter requires attention from the hon. Member concerned. We debate this important Bill against a background of quite alarming figures. The latest population estimates of mid-1996 show that the United Kingdom's population aged over 75 numbered 4,192,000. Of course, a high proportion of people who live until the age of 75 will live until they are over 90. One of the enormous difficulties for Britain's elderly is to have any idea of how long they have to budget for. They have absolutely no way—none of us has—of knowing when the asteroid will hit them, and they cannot know how much money they will need or how to apportion it. The mean cost of residential care is £275 a week. In my part of the country, that is modest, and it is easily seen that the fear of destitution in old age is acute. Research suggests only 7 per cent. of the elderly are confident that their children will look after them. I think that they are being unduly pessimistic because Age Concern figures show that we in this nation still look after elderly relatives. However, 90-year-olds have 65-year-old children and, at the age of 65, many people are not in particularly good health. Their capacity regularly to drive long distances to look after a parent who has moved or from whom they have moved is much impaired. Even those children who want to look after their parents are often in no position to do so. As the Chancellor told us on Tuesday that half the population have only £200 or less in savings",—[Official Report, 17 March 1998; Vol. 308, c. 1102.] the demand for publicly provided residential care at the full cost to the taxpayer will rise sharply. I can tell the Minister that, among the plethora of reviews that have been undertaken by the Government, the tangled and now entirely historically based relationship between national assistance Acts, national health service Acts and community care Acts needs to be completely overhauled. There is something ridiculous about the conflict between the regulations governing people in residential care, those in long-term hospital care or those who are being looked after in the community. For example, a person in a private residential home probably has to pay for medication, but a person in a long-term national health service bed does not, although he may be almost exactly the same kind of person. The anomaly that the Bill tries to correct clearly points up the fact that the way in which we provide residential care needs to be wholly re-examined. Given a sufficiency of respite care and the ability to take it regularly, many elderly people could survive satisfactorily where they would prefer to survive—in their own homes. However, the elasticity of social services provision is so tight that that is now difficult to provide. I also view with considerable concern the explosion in child care. Whatever my personal views about the sense of paying people to look after other people's children and denying the parents the kind of income that would allow them to look after the children themselves, which would be much better for them, the pool of carers from whom the elderly would expect support will be drained by an explosion in exactly the same kind of people being recruited into the rather more appealing task of looking after children. That will cause considerable anxiety to everybody in the field, and I hope that the Government are taking that on board. There is another enormous difficulty and a real conundrum. For the past 75 years, we have encouraged people—by mortgage tax relief and a host of other devices, intended and unintended—to view their homes as their principal stock of value. That is not the case in many other European countries. In many countries of mainland Europe, people rent accommodation and keep their savings in some other form, but in Britain the biggest store of value is in the home. Many people have bought their houses with the specific intention of having them as stores of value against a rainy day, but when the rainy day comes, they have become so emotionally attached to what they no longer call a house but now call their home that they are deeply resentful of any suggestion of moving out.

Sir Nicholas Lyell (Conservative, North East Bedfordshire)

My hon. Friend raises an interesting sociological point. That was not always the case. My grandfather, who could probably have afforded to buy a house, never did and always rented accommodation off a large landowner, which tended to be the Harrow Trust or something of that nature. Such a system left people with free capital to look after themselves, which was much more effective than tying it up, as we tend to do now. Perhaps we should not be so ideologically attached to putting so much money into our homes and should try to encourage people to go in a different direction.

Steve Pound (Labour, Ealing North)

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Although I realise that the accommodation arrangements of the ancestors of the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Sir N. Lyell) are of extreme interest to him and his immediate family, what remote relevance has that to the matter under discussion?

Michael Martin (Deputy Speaker, Glasgow Springburn)

I agree that we are going a bit beyond the scope of a Third Reading debate.

Andrew Rowe (Conservative, Faversham and Mid Kent)

I of course accept a rebuke, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but the fact is that the Bill seeks to set right an anomaly and, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Sir N. Lyell) has pointed out, there is some doubt about whether it will succeed in preventing local authorities from introducing various forms of informal rationing, which will be just as deleterious as the form of rationing that Sefton council introduced. I am green with envy about this measure because I have never yet won any of the ballots in this House. I have given up subscribing to the national lottery on the basis that my experience in this place suggests that I shall never win anything anyway. I have never had a private Member's Bill in all my time here, so I am deeply envious, but the fact is that, although this is a useful tidying-up measure, the Government have to get a grip on the issue at its heart and have a real shake around because, otherwise, we will not succeed. I give one further example. One of the reasons why local authorities are under such pressure that they behave as Sefton council behaved is local authority planning restrictions. Many of my constituents, and I myself, frequently applaud such restrictions but, when confronted with a particular dilemma, we start wondering about them. They make it difficult for 60-year-olds who want to look after their 80 or 95-year-old parent to adapt their home in ways that would allow the parent to come and live with them. That is partly because polices such as the green belt—policies of which I am largely in favour—make it difficult to allow extensions to houses, but also partly because there is a residual, inappropriate anxiety among local authorities that, somehow, by improving their home in that way, members of the younger generation are enhancing the value of their houses, and should not be allowed to do so. That is a real difficulty. The other great pressure on local authorities is that many of them, as we have heard already from many interventions today, have an extraordinary ideological hostility to private care provision. Quite honestly, the way in which local authorities of that persuasion delay assessments, so that a care home has to carry two or three empty beds, when it may be only a six or seven-bed home anyway, until it gets very near to ruin, or the way in which they manipulate the lists in other ways in favour of their own care provision, is an absolute scandal. It all goes back to the core problem: we have a set of contradictory views about the value of people providing for their own care.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

Is that not particularly disgraceful when county council homes cost significantly more than the private homes that they are competing with, as is the case in Wiltshire? It is even worse when, as in Wiltshire, the county council announces that, ideologically, it is determined to continue to use its own homes unless those homes are sold. Even if they are then sold, they can be sold only to non-profit-making organisations. Is that not a disgrace?

Andrew Rowe (Conservative, Faversham and Mid Kent)

It is a disgrace and it should be made absolutely crystal clear that local authorities that behave in that way are diminishing the number of people whom they can afford to look after and so depriving needy people of care. There is a real difficulty because people who have been frugal and provident all their lives and who want to provide for their own care and well-being in old age, are terrified of the future. If we cannot do anything else, I hope that the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Brent, South (Mr. Boateng), will be able to give us some assurance—when he has stopped his private conversation—that, beyond the narrow confines of this Third Reading, the Government are seriously addressing the tangle that leaves so many old people, who have done all the things that we applaud in trying to create savings for themselves, in a state of fear, confusion and, in many cases, pretty miserable living conditions.

Eleanor Laing (Conservative, Epping Forest)

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Singh) on introducing the Bill, which I thoroughly support. The one point on which I disagree with him is that he said that people do not deal with this subject with passion. On the contrary, at the Conservative party conference a few years ago—

James Paice (Conservative, South East Cambridgeshire)

Conservative party conferences are very passionate.

Eleanor Laing (Conservative, Epping Forest)

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I made a passionate speech on this very subject. I found at the party conference that the vast majority of Conservative party representatives throughout the country entirely agreed with what I said. Therefore, I know that I must have been right. It was an excellent example of how democracy works in the Conservative party because, only a few months later, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer announced the changes in the appropriate legislation, which were outlined so well this morning by the hon. Member for Bradford, West. On that day, I urged the then Chancellor to change the limits that are applied when the financial situation of an elderly person is assessed in examining whether their long-term care should be funded by the state, or whether they should have to pay for it themselves. Although I had the full support of the many thousands of Conservative party members who were there on that day in Blackpool, and the support to a certain extent from the then Chancellor who made those changes, the great importance of this subject to the lives of almost every family has not been fully recognised. It is unfortunate that there is a need for such a Bill, but the hon. Member for Bradford, West is brave and courageous in introducing it. The need arises because of the disgraceful attitude of certain local authorities that have continued to employ a policy of envy against people who have worked hard, saved and built up their resources, which they are entitled to retain to pass on to their families. It is sad that some local authorities continue to disregard the wishes of the people in their local communities who elected them. Unlike my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray), I can commend my local council—Essex county council—on its attitude—

Eleanor Laing (Conservative, Epping Forest)

I should have liked to say something on behalf of my constituents in Epping Forest who depend so much on the underground, but I shall instead take up my speech where I left off. I was speaking on behalf of my constituents and expressing their concerns about the method by which they may or may not have to pay for long-term care. Essex—unlike Wiltshire, which my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire described earlier—has decided to sell nursing homes into the private sector in order to raise capital to improve them and to provide greater resources to look after people who need care in their later years. I warmly welcome that decision: it means that resources will be used more efficiently. Let us hope that the county councillors of Wiltshire learn something from the county councillors of Essex. I join other hon. Members in paying tribute to the various organisations that have helped to bring the Bill before the House, notably Help the Aged and Age Concern. It is an important point of principle that people who work hard and save throughout their lives should not be treated unfairly compared with people who spend their earnings as they get them. It is not surprising that many people feel that they have been disadvantaged because they have worked hard, saved, put their money into their house, wanting something to pass onto their children and grandchildren. That is a perfectly respectable and understandable human feeling. It is not surprising that many such people resent the fact that a person living next door might have, for example, not bought his council house and instead simply continued to pay rent, not put any of his own resources into looking after his house or his community, not spent money on his family, not taken any steps to save and therefore had plenty of money to spend during his earning years, only to have his bills paid for by the state. Such a situation is patently unfair and widely recognised as such. My main worry about the effect of the policy of certain councils on people approaching their later years arises from the anxiety in which those people live because of their fear of losing their homes. A home is not just an asset or a financial figure on paper; it is very much part of a person's life and of a family's life, especially as people approach their later years. About one in five—a large number—of older people find that they have to go into residential accommodation. Professor Hamnett, of King's college, London, in his paper, "Inheritance in Britain: the Disappearing Millions" has estimated that, in recent years, 40,000 homes have had to be sold in Britain in order to meet the costs of long-term care. We must go further—I hope that the Government will consider the points that I have made and go further—than the Bill suggests. I hope that they will create incentives to encourage people to save by means of pensions and other savings schemes so that they can pay for their own residential care, should that become necessary, and protect their own homes and family assets.

David Tredinnick (Conservative, Bosworth)

My hon. Friend refers to some important statistics. Has she looked at other statistics on the number of elderly people going into residential care? Can we be sure that the figures are accurate, and on what basis does she make her assertions?

Eleanor Laing (Conservative, Epping Forest)

I am relying on the figures of Professor Hamnett of King's college, London. I have read other studies. I cannot give my hon. Friend statistics here and now, but I am pretty certain, having examined various academic studies on this subject, as well as figures from Government Departments, that the figures to which I have referred are close to the reality of the situation. Vast numbers of people are concerned about paying for residential care. It is partly a good-news story: so many more people are going into residential homes because, happily, people are living longer. Many of them can have a good standard of living when they go into residential homes. I am sure that we all welcome that, but there is a problem in paying for such care. It is unfortunate that the Chancellor of the Exchequer did not take up any of those issues in his Budget statement earlier this week. It should be incumbent on the Government to take steps to encourage people to make provision to pay for themselves when they go into residential care. As I was saying before my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (Mr. Tredinnick) made his excellent intervention, Conservative Governments over 18 years created a property-owning democracy of a sort never seen before in western Europe. Conservative Governments gave everyone the chance to own property and to take part in what has become known as the cascade of wealth—[Interruption.] Labour Members mock, but, in talking about wealth, I do not mean riches. I mean the little nest egg that everyone in Britain now has the chance to build up for himself and to pass on—I cannot understand why Labour Members mock this idea—to their families. That is an integral part of family life stemming from general ownership of property.

Dominic Grieve (Conservative, Beaconsfield)

Does my hon. Friend agree that if more wealth cascaded down the generations, the balance of the need for residential care, as against the ability of families to look after their elderly relatives, might change?

Eleanor Laing (Conservative, Epping Forest)

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I shall have to consider it more deeply before I can say whether I utterly agree with him. I certainly agree with him about encouraging the cascade of wealth. I do not know why the Minister mocks the idea. I am talking about wealth, not riches. The House will understand that I am talking about the small nest egg, to which everyone is entitled if he or she has worked hard and paid tax on earnings. I thoroughly support the principle that lies behind the Bill. When people put the money that they have earned and paid tax on into their own homes, their homes should be protected as far as possible and as far as the Exchequer and the Department of Social Services can afford. The Bill goes some way to help people when they most need it. It is interesting that clause 1 applies to the National Assistance Act 1948 and clause 2 applies to the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968. Clause 3 explicitly states that clause 1 should extend to England and Wales only and that clause 2 should extend to Scotland only. The Bill proves that the House—this Parliament, the House of Lords and the Commons put together—is capable of making legislation for England and Wales, and for Scotland, taking into consideration two different legal systems and the different legislation that is in force in the two different parts of the United Kingdom.

Steve Pound (Labour, Ealing North)

On another point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am sorry to trespass on your good nature, but the hon. Lady is guilty of deviation to the extreme on this occasion.

Michael Martin (Deputy Speaker, Glasgow Springburn)

So far, I have found the hon. Lady to be in order, but I shall listen carefully to what she has to say.

Eleanor Laing (Conservative, Epping Forest)

I am speaking precisely to the very words on the Bill. I do not believe that I am deviating at all. It is an important matter. The House is perfectly capable of making legislation—such as the legislation that will result from the Bill—that applies to different parts of the United Kingdom in slightly different ways but which has the same force. Therefore, my point is that a Parliament in Scotland and an assembly in Wales are unnecessary.

Peter Brooke (Conservative, Cities of London and Westminster)

I shall be extremely brief. I shall make one point on a subject about which we are all concerned: reducing the anxieties of the elderly. The present Opposition have on the whole been more generous in letting private Members' Bills through at half-past Two on Friday afternoons. This debate constitutes a first opportunity to speak on the Bill. Bills such as this always represent a quarry to which people can return after the event. I have paid Sefton borough council the compliment of seeking to understand its logic. Its concern was partly with those who had made prior arrangements for themselves. Such arrangements can include purchasing a flat in a wardened block. My brief speech is based on the experience of a member of my family and the distress that selling one's home always occasions to those who go into residential care. If this obliges me to declare a personal but academic interest, I am happy to do so. The relevant member of my family bought, at the age of 84, a flat in such a block which, I understand, was regarded as the best block in the town. I shall not embarrass the public company that built and marketed the flats by identifying it, but I gather that that process constitutes its business. When my relative died five years later, it was clear that the resale value of the flats was less than 50 per cent. of the value at which they were originally marketed, and that was in an era when the housing market, with improvements in the economy, was in much better shape than it had been five years previously. Because of her death, my relative mercifully did not have to go into residential care, but the trauma of selling one's home is enormously exacerbated if private arrangements for not depending on residential care—a subject in which Sefton evinced an interest—lead to so dramatic a loss of capital value. Help the Aged has been congratulated on its help in preparing the Bill and in drawing attention to this subject. It should also be warmly congratulated on setting up a national marketing scheme for the resale of such flats to make up for the failure of the contingent arrangements of the public company's programme.

Dominic Grieve (Conservative, Beaconsfield)

I am happy to be able to participate briefly in the debate. I can see the look of relief that has come across the Minister's face after hearing that information.

Ian McCartney (Labour, Makerfield)

It is unusual for a barrister to be brief.

Dominic Grieve (Conservative, Beaconsfield)

Barristers can be brief. Indeed, one feature of being a barrister is that, because we are in front of a judge who can pull us up short—with perhaps even greater promptitude than you do, Mr. Deputy Speaker—which encourages brevity, we sometimes make skeleton arguments. If the Minister wants me to elaborate on that, I shall take longer. The Bill is to be commended. The hon. Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Singh), who introduced it and has steered it through the House, has undoubtedly done a considerable service. It is interesting to note a change in the approach of Labour Members towards legislation of this kind. To be fair to Sefton borough council, although I cannot think of a good word to say about its conduct in this matter, it was simply applying a strictly financial approach without regard to the emotional suffering that it might cause elderly people in cleaning them of virtually all their assets before it was prepared to step in and help. It is interesting and noteworthy that the Bill marks a change, in that Parliament is setting a benchmark in saying that it is important that elderly people in reduced circumstances, but who nevertheless have saved up capital assets, should be able to keep some measure of those assets when the local authority steps in to help them because they are in need of care. I believe that that is right. I made a point to my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing), who is no longer in the Chamber, about encouraging the cascading of wealth down the generations, by which I mean that people should be able to pass on some inheritance to those who follow them. That is important in setting up a nexus society that may ultimately reduce the need for institutional care. It encourages the younger generation to look after their parents and grandparents wherever possible. It is clear that the Bill will not get round the problem of rogue borough or district councils failing to assess whether a person is in need of care and attention. I hope that that simply will not arise. The spirit of the Bill is clear. If it were to arise, the possibility of seeking judicial review would always be present. I now come to my final remark. The Minister will have to accept that I have made probably the briefest speech in the debate. The Sefton case is an interesting example of judicial intervention in regulations. It is noteworthy that no hon. Member has criticised the way in which the Court of Appeal came to its decision either for its logic or for the fact that the decision embodied not only legal but moral considerations. We are considering the incorporation of the European convention on human rights. It is sometimes said against the convention that human rights are a political matter on which the courts should not be able to pronounce. The Sefton case illustrates that the courts are often required to pronounce on matters that have a political dimension and they generally succeed in doing so without difficulty and without causing an excessive number of ruffled feathers among parliamentarians in this Chamber. I reiterate my thanks to the hon. Member for Bradford, West for introducing the Bill. It is reasonable, it is short and it has commanded support on both sides of the House, which is what I have always been told a private Member's Bill ought to seek to do. It deserves to be given its Third Reading today.

Steve Pound (Labour, Ealing North)

I reiterate the apology made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Singh) for having to leave early. The reason he left says less about his respect for the House than about the length of post office queues in Bradford. He would not have left if he had had any alternative. My hon. Friend asked me to spend the 24 hours before this morning's debate studying all available documentation on Sefton borough council—actuarial tables and details of the Acts, byelaws and judicial decisions affecting it. I have spent all night poring over tomes and volumes in anticipation of telling, forensic points reaching me from the Opposition Benches. I am relieved, perhaps grateful and possibly disappointed that Opposition Members' comments tended by the minute to be less and less to do with the subject that we are debating. We have heard about the effect of petrol duty on rural gas guzzlers, an exegesis on the Bradford wool trade and we have even wandered off into the byways of the national lottery. If these are friends of my hon. Friend's Bill, Lord protect me from my friends. We came eventually to passion and the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing)—an association that many of us in the House would make. She referred to the passion that the Bill should engender. In conversations with my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West, I detected his passionate commitment to this vital issue and I hope that hon. Members detected it in his speech. To right a wrong is one of the noblest reasons for seeking election to the House. My hon. Friend's Bill would right a wrong; would that all of us could say at the end of our time here that we had achieved as much. I am delighted to wind up the debate on behalf of my hon. Friend. I have not had to respond to telling speeches from Opposition Members: most of them were supportive, if a little discursive. I strongly commend the Bill to the House and to the nation.

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

I apologise to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and to the hon. Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Singh), the promoter of the Bill, for not being present for the opening speeches. I came down from Shropshire this morning and, foolishly, thought that the statement by the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions would be made first. I strongly congratulate the hon. Member for Bradford, West on the Bill. I have a little experience in this area and should declare an interest. In 1907, a cottage hospital was built in Ellesmere by Louisa Jebb, sister of Eglantyne Jebb, the founder of Save the Children, to serve the needs of a small rural community. It was confiscated by the state when the national health service was created in 1947 and included in the round of 13 cottage hospital closures in Shropshire in 1987. The concept of the time was to concentrate NHS efforts in large district general hospitals such as those in Telford and Shrewsbury. There was extraordinary local reaction and I became involved in the local campaign. Ellesmere was the last hospital to close, although it had only 13 beds. The Under-Secretary looks puzzled, but I am bringing the matter up to emphasise the intense feeling in small towns in rural areas about retaining facilities and keeping people near to where they live. There was fierce hostility to elderly people going to Telford or down to Shrewsbury and blocking up high-tech beds when they would have been much better kept at home.

Paul Boateng (Labour, Brent South)

What has this to do with the Bill?

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

I strongly support—

Michael Martin (Deputy Speaker, Glasgow Springburn)

Order. We are going wide of the Third Reading debate. The hon. Gentleman should not try to turn the debate into a general discussion of the health service.

Owen Paterson (Conservative, North Shropshire)

I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was giving background information, because I must declare my interest. I became involved in the action group that formed a trust and raised £250,000 to buy the hospital and another £250,000 to refurbish and run it as a nursing home. I was deputy chairman of the trust and chairman of the management board that ran the nursing home until I was elected to the House. That involvement gave me a great deal of experience, and I strongly support the Bill. I could cite numerous cases of elderly couples being forced to separate, such as a couple in the first intake into the nursing home. The lady had to go into the home because of infirmity and the husband was left on his own. They were separated for a traumatic 18 months until she died. He had run down the family finances to pay for her stay in the nursing home and ultimately had to sell their only asset—their house. He also ended up in the nursing home. The Under-Secretary is kindly listening intently. Will he address the inflexibility of the current rules, which was picked up on by my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid-Kent (Mr. Rowe)? From 6 April 1998, the Department of Social Security will contribute £318 a week to a person's nursing care; £333 a week to the care of elderly mentally infirm people; £213 a week to low dependency people and £247 a week to high dependency people in residential care; and £262 to the care of elderly mentally ill people. We should consider the couple I mentioned. I put it to the Under-Secretary that the money would be better spent on home visits by carers. A visit by a carer to a private home costs £5 an hour. An agency might charge £6.50 an hour. Three visits might be made daily. An overnight stay might cost £5 an hour for nine hours, which is £45 a night. My arithmetic may be wrong—perhaps it should be corrected by an education Minister—but if I am right the total would be £462 a week for a couple. Surely the best reason for spending that money would be to keep couples together in their own homes. Nevertheless, I strongly support the main drift of the Bill—the aim of raising the threshold to £16,000 so that couples are not split. I should like, finally, to take up a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing): I think it important to ensure that assets are kept in a family and that they can be passed on to the next generation.

Patrick Nicholls (Conservative, Teignbridge)

I am delighted to have the opportunity to say a few words about the merits of the Bill. First, however, let me echo the remarks of those who have welcomed the initiative taken by the hon. Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Singh) in introducing it. Any of us who have ever piloted a Government Bill through the House will have found it a fairly challenging experience; to take on a private Member's Bill and steer it through all its processes is a remarkable task, and the hon. Gentleman has performed it with distinction. The hon. Gentleman is possibly one of life's pessimists. He said that he would be unable to stay because he was opening a post office. I see from his entry in Dod's that he has a majority of 3,877—considerably larger than my own majority. I should have thought that he would not feel it necessary to open a post office, but he clearly sees things differently. That is fair enough, and we all understand why he cannot be here. As a number of hon. Members have already pointed out, there seems to be a feeling abroad that it is strange that a number of my hon. Friends want to examine more closely a Bill which, so far, has gone through all its stages without any real debate. I think I am right in saying that one organisation with an interest in the subject was slightly concerned that the Bill had been objected to formally on an earlier occasion. That happened, of course, to ensure that it would be debated. [Laughter.] The Under-Secretary of State for Health obviously thinks that, if the people have spoken, there is no need to scrutinise legislation. That is an interesting idea, but it is profoundly undemocratic. My hon. Friends and I are deeply wedded to all the principles of democracy, one of which, surely, is that a proper debate should take place. I shall say more shortly about what the consequences would have been if the matter had not been debated. First, however, let me offer a cautionary tale to hon. Members, and also to people outside who have been concerned. Another measure went through the House with all-party agreement—very quickly, as I recall. That was the legislation relating to the Child Support Agency, which is directly relevant to today's Third Reading. The fact that the legislation was agreed by everyone meant that it was not scrutinised. There cannot be a Member of Parliament who has not found—from his postbag, in his constituency surgeries or perhaps in the case of his friends and relations—that a good idea that was not sufficiently scrutinised has turned out to be a nightmare in practice. I hope that the Minister will, in due course, join me in saying—after all, he is a fair-minded man on occasion—that this is an excellent Bill, but one which needed scrutiny. There is another aspect to the Bill, which makes it slightly strange that it has received such a welcome. To an extent, it is retrospective legislation. Normally, the House would not approve of that. At first sight, not many people would feel very comfortable about the idea that a court can come to a settled view and Parliament can simply overturn that view. The fact that that has been done in this instance—and, as I recall, both Front Benches pledged themselves to introduce legislation to reverse the effect of the second judgment—says something important about the underlying principles of the Bill, and about what Sefton really meant. The underlying theme that the Court of Appeal ultimately had to deal with in Sefton was the narrow point—important to the person concerned—about an elderly person's resources being run down in a fairly callous way. That opened up the debate about the state's share of paying for the welfare of the elderly and the role of the private citizen. That debate underlies the Bill and Third Reading. We cannot begin to assess the Bill's merits and deficiencies, to which I shall return, without addressing the conflict between what the state pays and what an individual should pay. That problem has been inherent and implicit in the welfare state since its conception. It is only fairly recently that the conflict has entered the public domain and has caused the problems that were encountered in Sefton. There are two reasons for the conflict. First, people are living a great deal longer. That is sometimes thought to be a problem for society but as somebody who intends to live for a long time, that concept is fine. However, it has some implications. In the period between 1951 and 1996, the number of 65-year-olds increased by about 60 per cent. while those over the age of 75 increased by 136 per cent. That is a success story and we all hope to aspire to that, but it carries implications for society. We must take into account the fact that people are living much longer. There is another important but. People nowadays have vastly more resources: there is evidence of that on the Government Benches. At one time, money to leave to one's children was the province of the fairly wealthy. As a result of 18 years of Conservative government—[Interruption.] An hon. Member mouths, "We are all Tories now", but I do not accept that. After 18 years of Conservative government an increasing number of people, who once upon a time would have died after a long and worthwhile life and left nothing to their dependants are living a great deal longer. They have assets to leave behind and they do not want the state apparently to welsh on its deal. Underlying Sefton and implicit in some of the submissions to it, was the idea that in some way the state—the local authority, call it what we will—was reneging on a deal. That deal was accepted to be, erroneously as I shall show, that when people reached old age, having paid national insurance contributions, they were entitled to be looked after for ever and a day, whether care was needed for one year or three years, or whether people lived to the age of 100 or beyond. The problem with that is that it is based on the false premise that, having paid national insurance contributions, people have paid for care in a nursing home, a retirement home or a hospital.

Paul Boateng (Labour, Brent South)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Patrick Nicholls (Conservative, Teignbridge)

I shall gladly give way to the Minister.

Paul Boateng (Labour, Brent South)

The hon. Gentleman is talking about the legacy of a Government in which he played a small, brief and not particularly distinguished part.

Patrick Nicholls (Conservative, Teignbridge)

The hon. Gentleman indulges in these petty brushes to try to assert a radical agenda. I was delighted to play an all-too-brief but extremely significant part in the previous Administration. I shall deal with it in due course in my autobiography, and I shall give the hon. Gentleman the opportunity to read it so that he may know my contribution.

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

Order. Let us now return to the Third Reading debate.

Patrick Nicholls (Conservative, Teignbridge)

I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was led astray, although I should not have been, by the Minister. I should have known better. Sefton illustrated that the concordat between the citizen and state simply breaks down and it is for this reason. There is no doubt that what gave the applicant the moral right in the Sefton case to say, "I have paid my dues over the years. Now I should be supported," was whatever national insurance contributions had been made during that person's lifetime, but it is not the moral obligation that matters in the end. It is who is going to pay for that person's care. The trouble with national insurance—and it never ceases to amaze me how little this is understood in the public at large—is that it is not a funded scheme. The level of health care that people receive depends not on the amount of contributions that they will have paid in their lifetime, but on the taxpayer's ability at the time they need it to fund that level of care. We have an increasingly growing and aging population, so more and more people are going to depend on the state's largesse and fewer taxpayers are going to be there to discharge that obligation daily.

Steve Pound (Labour, Ealing North)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Patrick Nicholls (Conservative, Teignbridge)

I will give way in just one moment. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for conceding by his intervention that I am making profound points to which he wants to refer. The problem that society will have to face is that there will simply not be enough money by conventional means to discharge the state's obligation.

Steve Pound (Labour, Ealing North)

I was waiting for the hon. Gentleman to draw breath before I intervened, but, as there seemed little likelihood of his pausing, I interrupted him. He made a remark earlier that Labour Members were mouthing the expression, "We are all Tories now." Having done a quick consultation with the massed ranks of the honest democratic socialists who sit around me, may I say that not one of us will admit to having said anything even remotely like that, so, for the sake of the record of the nation, will he either withdraw that remark or attempt to pin it on someone?

Patrick Nicholls (Conservative, Teignbridge)

The hon. Gentleman has made a contribution that has been noted by the hon. Member for Tyne Bridge (Mr. Clelland), the Government Whip, and an off-message remark. I will not get taken too far down that road. The hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Pound) has wrecked what might have been a promising parliamentary career. I compliment him for his bravery. The interesting thing that one should mention is that the Minister of State, Department of Trade and Industry, the hon. Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney), described himself as a socialist Member of Parliament on his headed notepaper before the last election.

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

I repeat what I said earlier: can we now please return to the Third Reading?

Patrick Nicholls (Conservative, Teignbridge)

I am sorry. This is the problem about taking interventions and I must apologise for it. Going back to the Sefton judgment, there was no great surprise that the matter was going to come before the courts in due course because of the underlying problem about how the state discharges its responsibility to those within its care. There is another reason why, to an extent, the Sefton judgment was not at all surprising. I wondered whether my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) was going to go on to that point. He said that, in the debate so far, we had not examined in any great detail the way in which the Court of Appeal had handled the judgment. There is something in that.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

I know that my hon. Friend was listening intently to my remarks earlier, when I intended to do precisely that: to analyse what the Court of Appeal had said. Unfortunately and perfectly correctly, Mr. Deputy Speaker advised me to return more closely to the Bill. Although I had a desire to analyse the judgment, unfortunately, the rules of the House prevented me from doing so.

Patrick Nicholls (Conservative, Teignbridge)

It is clear that my hon. and learned Friend and I are, as it were, at a crossroads in relation to that point. Whereas he was moving away from the point in hand, I am moving towards it. The interesting thing about the Court of Appeal's judgment was that this problem had not arisen before. If one considers the words of the statute, one is bound to ask why some inventive council had not looked at section 22 of the National Assistance Act 1948 and said to itself, "This is the sort of thing that we might be able to exploit," if I can put it like that, "to be able to avoid our responsibilities." When preparing for the debate, I was interested in the fact that there had been no attempt to use that provision. It is obvious from the judgment—and I refer to the report of it by Lawtel—that the Court of Appeal was dealing with the age-old problem of deciding where it wanted to be and then plotting the course to get there. The judgment concluded: It was clear from the evidence that Sefton accepted that the applicant, Mrs Blanchard met its own threshold requirements as a person in need of care and attention. Notwithstanding this, what it was seeking to do was to say that because of its lack of resources it was not prepared to meet the duty which was placed upon it by the section. This it was not entitled to do. When one sets that ruling in the context of the facts and the judgment as a whole, it is clear that the Court of Appeal was saying that it would not put up with the implications of the Sefton case and would do its level best to deal with the problem.

Sir Nicholas Lyell (Conservative, North East Bedfordshire)

My hon. Friend makes a point that is highly pertinent to the Third Reading of the Bill, in which we are approving of the Bill's effect, as far as it goes, but are seeking to clarify where that leads us. In the Court of Appeal judgment, Lord Woolf says that the local authority was not entitled to do that. Once the authority was satisfied that Mrs Blanchard was 'in need of care and attention' unless it could rely on the words 'which is not otherwise available to them' it was under an obligation to fulfil its duty and a lack of resources was no excuse. The point that is so relevant to Third Reading is that the local authority—

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

Order. This intervention is far too long.

Sir Nicholas Lyell (Conservative, North East Bedfordshire)

May I conclude my point?

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

Very, very briefly.

Sir Nicholas Lyell (Conservative, North East Bedfordshire)

The question is whether the Bill will cover the point exposed by Lord Woolf.

Patrick Nicholls (Conservative, Teignbridge)

No, it will not, and my right hon. and learned Friend is correct. The Bill will also not cover another point. Sefton sought to exploit the provision on resources in section 22. My reading of the Bill is that it contains nothing that would stop an unscrupulous council, under the earlier part of section 22, refusing to make an assessment until the person's resources had been wound down to such an extent that the exercise would become otiose.

Paul Boateng (Labour, Brent South)

No.

Patrick Nicholls (Conservative, Teignbridge)

I hope that the Minister is prepared, when he winds up, to do more than say no and to address the points that have been made by solicitors, barristers and Queen's counsel sitting on the Opposition Benches. If those points are not addressed, we will have produced a Bill that we all welcome—we will pat ourselves on the back for having done the job that we are sent here to do—but we will have failed. Scrutiny is necessary, and we had to have a Third Reading not to hold matters up, but to ensure that when the Bill is enacted—as I truly hope it will—it is in a fit and proper state. In my short remarks, I hope that I have played my part in flagging up for another place the fact that the Bill is good up to a point, but that much more would could be done on it. We look to the Minister not to indulge the petty brutalisms that he so much enjoys, but to answer the debate. If he did so, it would be the first time that I have heard him do so, but it would be a refreshing experience.

Paul Boateng (Labour, Brent South)

Prevarication and delay are part of the armoury of Opposition. Having listened to Opposition Members today, I see that they have not yet learnt how to use that armoury as effectively as they might. They have certainly chosen an inappropriate target. Right hon. and hon. Members who attend the House on a Friday will have noticed, on previous occasions when the Bill has come before the House for consideration, that objection has been made time and again by Opposition Members. It is no wonder that the innocent onlookers who have written to the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Teignbridge (Mr. Nicholls) have suggested that some Opposition Members perhaps wish the Bill other than well.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

rose—

David Maclean (Conservative, Penrith and The Border)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Paul Boateng (Labour, Brent South)

No, I will not give way to the right hon. Gentleman. He has objected in the past to the Bill without giving reasons for doing so, and there is no need for him to give reasons now.

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

rose—

Patrick Nicholls (Conservative, Teignbridge)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Paul Boateng (Labour, Brent South)

No, I shall finish my point. Conservative Members know very well what has been going on in the Bill's passage. The correspondents of the hon. Member for Teignbridge smelt a rat, but they—the innocent onlookers—smelt the wrong animal: they should have smelt a fox, because that is what has been behind the delay and prevarication characterising—

James Gray (Conservative, North Wiltshire)

rose—

Patrick Nicholls (Conservative, Teignbridge)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way now?

Paul Boateng (Labour, Brent South)

No; we have to move on.

Patrick Nicholls (Conservative, Teignbridge)

Will he give way?

Paul Boateng (Labour, Brent South)

No. The hon. Gentleman will have plenty of time, but not quite now. The delay and prevarication—I will be the first to say it—has taken some amusing and entertaining forms. If one has nothing better to do with one's time, it might even have been quite pleasant to watch on the cable channel that devotes itself to such matters.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Paul Boateng (Labour, Brent South)

But it would be a sad person who had nothing better to do.

Edward Garnier (Conservative, Harborough)

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman heard you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, allowing me to make a point of order, which is this. The hon. Gentleman has had the Floor for three or four minutes and has yet to address himself to the Bill's content. I wonder whether I could ask you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to persuade him to do so, not least because he has made some abusive—

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

Order. Those are entirely matters for the Chair to decide.

Paul Boateng (Labour, Brent South)

I am much obliged, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was doing Opposition Members the courtesy of responding to them. Perhaps I was misguided, and should have ignored them completely by ploughing on? No, I wanted to show them—especially the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier)—the courtesy of giving them a response. In this debate, the hon. and learned Gentleman has been his usual, elegant self—I refer more to his figure of speech than to any other aspect of his presentation—treating us to a useful tour de force on the case. In its way, that was quite helpful. I am not sure that it progressed the debate very far, but it was elegantly done. Other speeches were less elegant, but raised points that were undoubtedly of interest to those making them. If they were mined with a certain zeal, they might even provide something for local newspapers, as they frequently seemed to have some sort of constituency content. However, one or two points made in the debate deserve a serious response. I should like, very briefly, to tackle those. There is a real issue, which is of the utmost importance and seriousness, which is why all hon. Members owe my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Singh) a debt of gratitude in raising the issue in the House. We particularly commend the role of Help the Aged and others in bringing some relief to those who suffered from the actions—or apprehension of possible action—of Sefton borough council and from the uncertainty surrounding the subsequent case. Safeguarding a set amount of capital is of considerable importance to anyone entering residential or nursing home care and their families. Most people entering such care are very elderly and vulnerable and have saved all their lives to prepare for their old age. The Government certainly believe that we owe it to those senior citizens to protect a modest amount of their life savings and/or proceeds from the sale of the family home from being swallowed up entirely in care home fees. That can matter so much to older people, for whom being able to pass something on to their families or having a small nest egg for a rainy day is a source of pride. We do not refer to that as a cascade of wealth; it is the modest outcome of a life of prudence which ought to be recognised and rewarded, and certainly ought not to be penalised in the way it was by Sefton's actions, which, by taking away the last small amount of savings, threatened self-respect, independence and a sense of self-worth on the part of vulnerable individuals. We are determined that that should be protected. Indeed, that is why we welcome the Bill, and I am glad that my Department has been able to be of some assistance to my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West, as he graciously recognised. That is why I can give an assurance to Opposition Members who raised some concerns as to whether the Bill would achieve the purpose for which it was intended. I feel sure—and there is no reason to believe otherwise—that this modest and uncontroversial measure will achieve the purpose for which it was intended.

Sir Nicholas Lyell (Conservative, North East Bedfordshire)

I am grateful to the Minister, and I am encouraged that he feels sure that the Bill will succeed. Do I take it from him that he believes that this short Bill deals not merely with the narrow point in the Sefton case, but overcomes the rather broader case that I highlighted earlier so that, in future, a local authority will not be able to get out of its responsibilities by telling elderly people that they must spend any savings between £16,000 and £1,500 on home helps, for example, before they can be taken into residential care? Will the Minister clarify his view on that?

Paul Boateng (Labour, Brent South)

I am happy to do just that. As Opposition Members will understand as many of them were in government at the time, although we maintain that it has always been clear that the intention of the policy was to do just that, if we left the Court of Appeal's judgment to stand on its own, there would always be the danger that some local authority would seek to use the law—either by leapfrogging the Court of Appeal and asking the House of Lords to revisit the matter or by some other ingenious attempt to get round what was a fine and useful judgment on the part of a distinguished court, as the hon. and learned Member for Harborough said—to thwart what we maintain is the intention of Parliament and what we understand to have been the policy underpinned by the decision of the Court of Appeal. We already apprehend—which is why we welcome the Bill—from anecdotal evidence provided by Help the Aged and Age Concern that some local authorities are seeking to ignore the capital limits by using waiting lists, as the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Sir N. Lyell) suggested they might. That could result in elderly and disabled people being forced to enter residential care to spend any capital savings below the limit of £16,000 to pay for their care. That is why we felt it necessary to ensure that that should not happen by writing it into the law, as the Bill does. The Bill makes clear the policy intention that anyone entering residential accommodation should be able to retain a nationally set amount of their capital, as determined by Parliament. Clause 1 amends section 21 of the National Assistance Act 1948 so that local authorities will have to disregard a person's capital up to the limit set out in the regulations when considering whether care and attention are "otherwise available" to them. That meets the point raised by Conservative Members, while retaining Parliament's right to review the £16,000 limit, which should not and will not be fixed in stone. That is important. We are satisfied that the Bill serves a modest but useful purpose. My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West is to be congratulated on bringing it before the House. We all understand why he is unable to be with us as the Bill reaches its final stages. The House has given the Bill a thorough investigation and runaround.

Patrick Nicholls (Conservative, Teignbridge)

Examination.

Paul Boateng (Labour, Brent South)

It certainly cannot be said that the Bill has passed without examination. All reasonable points have been satisfied. We wish the Bill well and a speedy entry into law.