Clarke rejects ‘dementia tax’ as he defends social care plan
TORY PROPOSALS to overhaul social care funding are not a “dementia tax”, a former Chancellor has insisted.
Ken Clarke said including the value of an elderly person’s property in the means test for care in their own home was a sensible proposal to tackle the crisis in social care. He told BBC Radio 4’s
that the alternative of upping taxes for younger people was “grossly unfair”.
Mr Clarke said: “What you can do is actually make sure people don’t sell their houses in their lifetime – if they’re one of the unlucky ones and they’re having to spend a lot on social care, that there’s £100,000 if all else fails that will remain for their children.”
He dismissed suggestions that the proposal was a “dementia tax”, claiming that it was a “sensible way of organising it”.
The plans, unveiled in the Tory manifesto, mean that thousands more people will have to contribute to the cost of their care, although they will not have to pay during their lifetime. A planned £72,000 cap on care costs will be scrapped, but the Government will offer protection from the cost of social care for people with assets of £100,000 or less, a sharp increase on the current £23,250 threshold.
But more people will be liable to contribute to the cost of being looked after as the value of an elderly person’s property will now be included in the means test for care in their own home.
Mr Clarke said: “The idea that instead of somebody living in a half a million, million pound house, contributing to their own care, younger people of working age who can’t afford to buy a house should actually pay more tax – because that’s what will happen to actually provide the quantity of social care that we need – is grossly unfair.
This is free market economics with a social conscience, and as a one-nation Tory it’s what I’ve always believed in, but it’s got to be practical, competent, got to have some common sense.”
Meanwhile, Labour will effectively end the freeze on welfare benefits with a package of reforms, John McDonnell has said. The Shadow Chancellor claimed the party’s proposals would make the freeze irrelevant, but refused to say whether he would unfreeze benefits. AS MANY as 900,000 children from low-income families will lose their right to free school meals under proposals unveiled in the Conservative manifesto, an educational think-tank has warned.
The Education Policy Institute found that those losing hot lunches would include 100,000 from families living in relative poverty and 667,000 which it defined as coming from “ordinary working families” of the kind which Theresa May has said she wants to help.
Mrs May announced on Thursday that universal free lunches for infants will be halted if Tories win the June 8 General Election, with free breakfasts on offer instead. Those from the poorest backgrounds will still be entitled to a free mid-afternoon meal. The move will cost families £440 a year for each child affected and is thought likely to save about £650m a year, according to the research.