Delay of home care bill fails in Lords
Delay of home care bill fails in Lords
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By Adam Leveridge
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Tuesday, 02, Feb 2010 12:46
An attempt to delay the government's proposals for free social care by a former health minister failed in the House of Lords last night.
The plan for free personal care for 250,000 people in England was deemed "unaffordable" by Lord Warner, who served in Tony Blair's government, adding it would cost in excess of £1 billion to implement.
But the Lords voted against a motion to delay the home care changes, which would affect around half of the elderly people currently receiving care in their own home.
"Many of us have considerable doubts about our ability to implement this and not let people down after the promises that have been made," Lord Warner told the Lords in yesterday's debate.
"We owe it to a younger, taxpaying, working population not to impose an unaffordable financial burden on them as our population ages."
The proposal was put forward by the prime minister at the Labour conference. A green paper over the summer put forward a series of proposals affecting social services collectively.