PM’s cap on care fees? It’s stingy... but a step in the right direction

As vote squeaks through Commons, Hunt says:

BORIS Johnson faced a bruising Commons revolt last night as MPs criticised a move to make social care reforms less generous.

Tory rebels accused ministers of failing to make the case for changes that will mean far more people than expected will have to pay up to the full £86,000 cap on costs.

Despite the backbench rebellion, the amendment to Mr Johnson’s social care plans was passed by 272 votes to 246, a majority of 26.

MPs were debating changes to the long-promised lifetime cap, announced in September, which will mean pensioners never have to pay more than £86,000 in care costs.

It had been thought that care costs paid by councils to poorer people would count towards the £86,000 limit, but under the government amendment put forward yesterday they would not.

The change means elderly people will have to keep paying their own way for much longer before they hit this ceiling. It will also disproportionately affect voters in the North and Midlands who were vital to the Tories’ 2019 election victory, whose houses are worth less than those in the South.

Former health secretary Jerers. emy Hunt argued that while the reforms were ‘slightly more stingy’ than originally planned they were still a ‘step in the right direction’.

The Prime Minister insisted his plans for social care funding were ‘incredibly generous’, but Mark Harper, the Tory former chief whip, accused Health Secretary Sajid Javid and his department of failing to do enough to ease concerns about the impact on poorer pensioners

He said: ‘[The plan] potentially disadvantages the less well-off and those of working age with life-long conditions. I will be voting against it.’

Mr Hunt, who is chairman of the Commons health committee, said it was a ‘disappointment’ that ministers had changed how the cap will operate, but argued the proposals are still preferable to the current situation where there is no limit to how much people could pay for their care.

He told the County Council Network annual conference yesterday: ‘To people who are thinking of voting against the Government, all I would say is that once this cap has been introduced at this current level, it will be entirely open to governments in the future to change the way the cap is calculated to make it more progressive going forward.’

In the Commons yesterday, Tory MP Kevin Hollinrake said: ‘There is no doubt that the way the cap works for those with more modest assets, it is less generous.’

A spokesman said: ‘We continue to believe that this is a system that is necessary, fair and responsible.’

The Conservative Party manifesto in 2019 said social care reforms must ‘guarantee that no one needing care has to sell their home to pay for it’.