Tory MPs’ backlash over small print in social care plan
DOZENS of Tories are poised to rebel today against Boris Johnson’s plan to make elderly care reforms less generous.
A former Cabinet minister revealed yesterday he would vote against an amendment that will make poorer pensioners pay more, while a Red Wall MP warned the Prime Minister not to take his support for granted.
Many more MPs were last night considering whether to break the party whip for the first time and waiting to see if ministers offered last-minute concessions to the proposals, which have been dubbed an ‘inheritance tax on the North’.
They not only fear a backlash from their constituents if they support the Government, but also that they may end up regretting it again if No10 is forced into another U-turn as it was over the Owen Paterson sleaze scandal. The row centres on the long-promised lifetime cap, which was announced in September and 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 limit, but small print published last week revealed it would not.
The change means that elderly people will have to keep paying their own way for much longer before they hit this ceiling, and it will disproportionately affect voters in the North and Midlands that were vital to the Tories’ 2019 election victory, whose houses are worth less than those in the South.
Anyone with a home worth less than £186,000 will be hit with higher care costs under the proposals, analysis carried out by Labour suggests.
less The than average that in house 107 constituencies is worth across the North of England, according to Labour, but in none in London or the South East.
By contrast, pensioners with homes worth more than £186,000 will be unaffected.
Former justice secretary Robert Buckland became the first Tory MP to announce he would vote against the Government today. He told LBC radio: ‘The Government must look again at this. I think it’s far better to actually publish the social care White Paper first so that we can see what the new proposals are – what is the system that we’re going to be funding?’
Asked if other Tory MPs shared his view, he replied: ‘I think there’s a lot of concern out there about this issue and I know that the Government is listening to those concerns.’
Christian Wakeford, who took Bury South for the Conservatives at the last election, told Times Radio: ‘What I wanted to see was a plan, and it feels like we didn’t have one then and I’m not fully sure we’ve got one now.
‘But then to move the goalposts after we’ve already introduced this, it’s not something I’m particularly comfortable with, especially when one of the main messages for introducing this levy was you won’t need to sell your house for care.’
Asked if he would vote against it, he replied: ‘It shouldn’t be taken for granted that we’re just going to walk through the same lobby.’
Another Red Wall MP said he was still deciding how to vote and that Mr Buckland’s intervention had caused many of his colleagues to think twice about supporting the Government.
Mel Stride, Tory chairman of the Treasury Committee, has demanded that before the vote the Chancellor provides a breakdown of how many pensioners will have to sell their homes under the new plans.
Former health secretary Jeremy Hunt told The Observer it was ‘deeply disappointing’ that the plans were not as progressive as those originally set out by economist Andrew Dilnot.
Former Cabinet minister Damian Green said: ‘I would urge them to adopt a different approach.’
But Health Secretary Sajid Javid insisted it was still a massive improvement on the current system, which has no cap on costs and a much less generous means test.
He told the BBC: ‘No one will have to pay more than £86,000, doesn’t matter who they are, where they live in the country.’
Labour’s health spokesman Jonathan Ashworth urged Red Wall MPs to vote down the proposed amendment to the Care Act today.
He said: ‘Government ministers have not only whacked up tax on working people but are now asking MPs to vote for pensioners across the North and Midlands with modest assets to be hit hardest under Boris Johnson’s care con. We’re calling on Red Wall MPs to put their constituents first and join us in voting down this deeply unfair proposal. Ministers must retreat to the drawing board and come up with a fairer package.’
‘A lot of concern about this issue’
WHO said this? ‘We have had five decades where the free market has palpably failed… this is a critique of Thatcherism.’
An embittered old trade union leader? Left-wing Labour MP? no, incredibly, it’s Tony Danker, director-general of the Confederation of British Industry.
As a representative of big business, he really should show some respect – and gratitude. It’s only because of Margaret Thatcher’s immense courage that his members are able to thrive today.
She broke the union stranglehold that stopped industry modernising, slashed red tape so it could breathe and made profit a virtue again, rather than a sin.
equally, the free market has delivered unprecedented prosperity. Yes, there is a case for some state intervention, as the partnership between the Government, AstraZeneca and Oxford University that delivered the vaccine miracle proves.
But those who lived through the 1970s know the perils of the kind of comprehensive ‘industrial strategy’ advocated by Mr Danker (incidentally a former strategist for the owners of The Guardian newspaper).
Grotesque amounts of public money can end up being poured down the drain to prop up failing companies.
CBI members recently shared in a colossal £100billion taxpayer bung from furlough and other Covid support mechanisms. They should be offering grateful thanks – not holding out their hands for more.