Options for social care

The current system has been uneasily defended by the main parties in recent years,with growing criticisms. This system seeks to define a distinction between normal living costs, and care costs. An elderly person,whether living in their own home or in a care home, gets some state financial support with care costs but is expected to make their own provision for accommodation and daily living and to pay for other social care provision. All healthcare is free for all.

This means when someone moves from their own home into a care home for the rest of their lives a decision has to be made about the use of the home they are vacating which will have implications for any means tested benefits and support Clearly the elderly person no longer needs the home they leave, and that home should be used. The most likely outcome is sale to a new owner occupier, releasing capital. This capital is then used to pay for the day to day living costs at the care home. Alternatively, if the property has a high rental value, the elderly person could rent it out and use the rental income along with any other income to pay the care home fees.

There have been many critics who say this is unfair on grown up children hoping to inherit. If their parents live in their own home until death they will inherit a valuable property. If the last surviving parent moves into a care home they may inherit very little. To address this different outcome the Conservative Manifesto says why not increase the amount of capital someone in a care home can keep to 100,0000 pounds from the current 23000 pounds, but also have the same rule for people continuing in their own home.

Judging this needs detail over how the distinction between healthcare, free to all, and other care which you will be billed for, would work out. The proposal allows an elderly person living in their own home to defer any payment, making it a charge on the estate.

The different outcomes that will still arise come from the high costs of care home provision. The basic accommodation and meal costs will tend to be much higher than living alone in your own home. Many more staff are involved and we want them to be decently paid.The owner also needs to cover the cost of capital to provide the property.

A lot of the grown up children, many of them pensioners themselves, have their own homes and savings by the time their last parent dies. The debate is whether they should pay more tax to help pay more of the costs of living of their parent’s generation through the state, or whether they should accept as possible heirs that their own parent has to spend more of the money they have accumulated during their lives to pay the bills of their old age. One way or another the children have to help finance the very elderly. The truth is the state has no money, only the money it takes off us one way or another.

Published and promoted by Fraser Mc Farland on behalf of John Redwood, both at 30 Rose Street Wokingham RG40 1XU

196 Comments

  1. Lifelogic
    May 21, 2017

    “The truth is the state has no money, only the money it takes off us one way or another”. So why do the Tories waste so much of it on total insanities and officials doing little of any good and much harm? Why does T May’s Manifesto make it clear this waste will continue.

    Corbyn’s team do not seem to realise that the only way govenment can ever “invest” is by extracing money off people. People who would, almost always, have invested it far better than government. Government’s record if investment is appalling. Jeremy Corbyn’s bountiful Father Christmas with a magic money tree act is just pathetic.

    Surely only a few envious & bitter fools and some children under about five will be taken it by it?

    1. Mark B
      May 21, 2017

      LL

      People are hooked on the fantasy of, “free money. ” They do not understand that at some point a price, not always to them, has to be paid.

      1. acorn
        May 21, 2017

        “The truth is the state has no money, only the money it takes off us one way or another”. Is a complete “Noble Lie”, it’s what the politicians want you to believe.

        The State does have a magic money tree, it lives in the Treasury and the “money” is plucked fresh from the tree every day, via computer keyboards at the Treasury. Every day the Treasury feeds the tree all the taxes it collected the previous day. Everyday, the magic money tree asks the Treasury bods, why it has given more than it has received back in taxes. “People keep saving it because they are frightened of the future”. “We call it the Public Sector Net Debt” the Treasury bods tell the tree. The Tree says “shouldn’t you properly call it the Private Sector Net Savings then.”

        1. NickC
          May 21, 2017

          Acorn, No, it is the complete truth: the state has no money of its own. All money (bar the BoE printing press) comes from the private sector in the form of taxes and loans (eg Gilts). If the state takes more, the private sector has less.

          In the end the state has it all and the people (directly) have nothing – becoming serfs in an absolute monarchy/oligarchy/communistheaven. The Laffer curve shows graphically the most the state can take without damaging the golden goose.

          1. Lifelogic
            May 22, 2017

            BoE printing press come from the public too in the end by devaluing their savings.

          2. acorn
            May 22, 2017

            NickC. So where does the private sector get the money from to pay the taxes and buy the Gilts?

    2. Sir Joe Soap
      May 21, 2017

      So if the state has no money, what has happened to all those supposed insurance premiums we paid over the years? If you say this is a pay-as-you-go (effectively a Ponzi) scheme, then current tax and NI contributions should be used to support those in need. My car insurance pays out whether or not I own a house.
      Otherwise, what’s the point of paying tax and NI?

      1. acorn
        May 21, 2017

        Sir Joe. Taxes are used to slow down the parts of the economy that society does not want, like tobacco tax; or, more importantly, divert private sector production activity to producing goods for the public good where required.

        Unfortunately, we have a herd of western neo-liberal politicians, who’s brains were manufactured in the Breton Woods era of Gold money and fixed exchange rates. They have never understood – or refuse to recognise – FIAT currency economics. Hence we have a taxation system that is totally disconnected from the real economy.

        For instance, the economy is driven by people spending money, be it government (central bank) money or high street bank credit, which we also call money. The UK needs a lot more money spending by households and firms to get the economy to lift off the runway. So why have VAT at 20%???

        As MMT Prof Randy Wray says, “tax bads not goods”.

    3. bigneil
      May 21, 2017

      Our govt takes our taxes, gives us cuts to our services which our taxes are supposed to pay for, while at the same time throwing billions in Foreign Aid to other countries, where nothing will change, except the population will increase and they’ll be calling for yet more money.

    4. Hope
      May 21, 2017

      JR, you deliberately mislead us with your view or you do not have a clue to reality. First. Are paying twice in community charge for adult social care. One in direct charge and now an add on cost for care. Having paid twice in our community charge it is reasonable to assume we will get something for our money/ taxes that we paid. But no, we are in addition expected to sale our home as well! The additional amount of people is speciously being sold as we live longer when the reality is you are artificially importing through your mass immigration policy which is not sustainable on all our public services including adult social care. Your party needs to Stop being dishonest with the public. Either we pay through community charge, once, or we have to sale our home ad every body for themselves. Equally NI contributions throughout our lives a sham well.

      Reply Social care charges are sent to the users,or reimbursed from national taxes, not mainly paid for by Council Tax

      1. a-tracy
        May 22, 2017

        John, we were told: “Council tax will be allowed to rise faster than expected by about £46 a year for an average home to bail out struggling social care services for the elderly and vulnerable in England, Sajid Javid, the communities secretary, has said. Under the plans, councils will be able to raise an extra 3% from their local population this year and 3% next year to fund social care, bringing forward planned increases of 2% a year. ”

        https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/dec/15/council-tax-bills-can-rise-by-3-for-two-years-to-help-fund-social-care-says-javid

        Reply Yes, quite right, but the Council tax does not meet all the bills! Councils also get large central grants.

        1. Hope
          May 24, 2017

          The grants were cut and NHB and CIL introduced by govt. to force them to build more houses. Instead of using these new funding streams for infrastructure the councils use it for all other budgets. JR, Please get your facts right. Read community charge bills you will see it specifically states adult social care. The point is: How many times do we need to be taxed for the same thing? And then in addition, expected to sell our homes to pay for our own care!

    5. Bob
      May 21, 2017

      I bought my home for my family, not just myself.

      We have a National Insurance system which is the means by which health and social care should be funded.

      Problem is that the Tories prefer to use taxpayers money to provide overly generous sinecures for their buddies in the House of Lords, and quangos like the Arts Council.

      Their also like to spend it of foreign aid in order to virtue signal and prove that they are a caring sharing party (but only with other peoples money).

      Tell me Mr Redwood how you envisage the social care will be funded after you’ve finished plundering the assets of the current elderly home owners who did what you encouraged them to do and the recent waves of immigrants need social care and their houses are owned by their “cousins” somewhere overseas?

      This Tory policy is unsustainable in the longer term because people will choose not to put their money where governments such as yours can get their grubby hands on it.

      I was going to vote for the Tories, as UKIP stood aside here to give a Tory Brexiter a clear run. I certainly won’t be voting Tory now.

      I just hope that UKIP can make a breakthrough this time in order to get some common sense back into politics.

      Your party has been infiltrated by the Lib Dems.

      1. Longinus
        May 21, 2017

        +1. Will now vote UKIP in safe Tory seat.

      2. Jerry
        May 21, 2017

        @Bob; No the Tory party has either been infiltrated by UKIP, or they are trying to win (back) UKIP voters, the LibDems are not this stupid…

      3. Lifelogic
        May 21, 2017

        Indeed at least half the Tory MPs are Libdims in the Ken and Greg Clark mode. Why else did nearly all of them vote for Miliband’s climate change act and most including May to stay in the dire EU and increase tax and government waste so much.

      4. getahead
        May 21, 2017

        I was interested to know how many Quangos are in existence and I found these figures.

        Total Quangos 1162
        714,430 Staff
        63,518.8 Funding, £m
        101,756.4 Expenditure, £m

        Not sure what is the difference between expenditure and funding but whatever, it’s a lot of bodies and a lot of money. This was for 2016 I think.

        1. Lifelogic
          May 23, 2017

          All for almost zero output of any value.

    6. Richard1
      May 21, 2017

      Pathetic performance by Damian Green interviewed by Marr, quite incapable of explaining this simple and fair policy in clear language. The Conservatives need to field articulate back benchers like Michael Gove, Dominic Raab and JR rather than these very weak ministers. Clearly Marr as a leftist interrupted Green constantly and gave a much softer ride to Marx brother John McDonnell.

      Meanwhile it emerged during Mr McDonnells interview that the (labour leadership ed)don’t understand what borrowing is as he says Labours nationalisations “won’t be financed by borrowing they will be financed by issuing bonds…”. It would be laughable if there wasn’t a theoretical chance of this (man ed)becoming chancellor.

  2. Lifelogic
    May 21, 2017

    I see that Labour has unveiled a poster – Vote May get Farage – with the Farage head on a picture of May. If only, it seems we will actually get a misguided socialist like Ed Miliband in drag as leader. Is this poster actually designed to help May with her landslide?

    John Mac Donnell, on Any Questions, was going on about the 30,000 excess winter deaths in the UK due to pensioners having to choose heat or eat. In fact only a very tiny proportion of these deaths can have anything to do with lack of a warm home at all (but why let the truth damage the message). For those tine few that might be related he should blame Labour, Ed Miliband and his absurd climate change act. Them plus the vast majority of idiotic, scientifically illiterate, MPs who nearly all voted for it like pathetic sheep.

    1. Mick
      May 21, 2017

      Should check before I post😲 , not McDonald but McDonnell 😟

    2. Hope
      May 21, 2017

      LL, but May is very left wing. It is being commented that this is the most left wing Tory manifesto ever. She is to the left of New Labour. Look at social care policy and in addition the new probate tax! Remember Osborne ratting on IHT that you tell us about so regularly.

      1. zorro
        May 21, 2017

        Indeed, this manifesto would make Blair bush! I have said this for years. All the talk of if we get a majority Tory government we will be free of the Lib Dems and their opposition to sound government yada yada…. We will get sound money, conservative principles, etc etc….. and what do we get? This May manifesto…… not good, not good at all 😡

        zorro

    3. cornishstu
      May 21, 2017

      Looking at the Tories manifesto, the Religion of man made climate change is to continue unabated. As for the rest of it we are left with hob son’s choice, the Tories are socialist light. Oh for a real alternative party, May’s calling for an early election is proving my fears that a lot would be pushed through on the back of Brexit with them standing up once elected saying we have been given a mandate by the British people. Railroading I call it time we the people had a real say in how our taxes are spent.

      1. Lifelogic
        May 21, 2017

        the Religion of man made climate change is to continue unabated – indeed it seems it does.

        Not a sensible physicist or engineer to be seen in government (or on the BBC) it seems. You have to be a high priest of green crap to get on in the state sector.

        1. Atlas
          May 22, 2017

          Lifelogic,

          Agreed. Any historian of science will tell you how one generation’s ‘consensus’ is the next generation’s example of ‘erroneous thinking’.

    4. Denis Cooper
      May 21, 2017

      There is no need to give extra money to 12 million state pensioners to make sure that the poorest 30,000 of them are kept warm enough in the winter. This started out as a a bribe invented by Gordon Brown to try to win votes from pensioners, and moreover a patronising bribe which presumes that pensioners are incapable of managing any kind of budget even though they have been doing that throughout their lives.

      1. Bob
        May 21, 2017

        @Denis Cooper
        Agree on the winter fuel allowance, it’s was a Gordon Brown bribe.

        Can’t understand though why the Tories are going for confiscation of assets belonging to dementia patients. I suppose they want to ensure that the kids are condemned to a lifetime of mortgage interest to keep the Tory’s banker friends on side to top up Tory coffers.

        1. Denis Cooper
          May 21, 2017

          Well, I don’t think they’re doing that; I think what they are doing is taking a first charge on the estate of the patient, or alternatively the estate of the patient’s surviving spouse.

          I suppose in theory the same kind of arrangement could be made privately, without government mediation, provided that the care providers were prepared to enter into an arrangement to defer their charges until after the death of the patient (or surviving spouse). Maybe that’s the answer: the government could offer to act as intermediary, but the relatives of the patient could choose to make their own deferred payment arrangement with care providers.

          1. Bob
            May 22, 2017

            @Denis Cooper

            Everyone should get the same deal, whether you own assets or not, otherwise where does it end?

            Chances are that those with the assets have paid in far more than those without.

            Taxpayers are paying income tax, NI, VAT, fuel duty and adult social care precepts in their council tax.

            They’ve already paid for social services and now they’re being asked to pay again.

            In a desperate attempt to meet the target of spending 0.7% of the UK’s annual national income on aid, Britain has been dumping billions of pounds into obscure World Bank trust funds. This has to stop,

    5. Richard1
      May 21, 2017

      Yes David Gauke – who is a capable advocate of sensible policies, stays calm etc – should have made this point. Anyone worried about fuel prices / fuel poverty needs first to look at the cost of green crap. I’ve circulated to a few people Matt Ridley’s article in the Spectator pointing out that after years of subsidies of $10bns, the total amount of global energy produced from wind+solar+tidal is < 1%! No-one has disputed it. Even in Germany if you reverse out 'biomass' (i.e chopping down hardwood forests in the south of the US and shipping them as pellets), the figure is only c. 5%, and that's with c. €20bn+ p.a of subsidies. Its desperate stuff, but not part of the public debate.

      1. fedupsoutherner
        May 21, 2017

        @Richard1

        ” Its desperate stuff, but not part of the public debate”

        No, but it damn well should be!! And it should be debated in government properly with all the figures on the table. Just think how much social care this crap could have provided!!!

    6. NickC
      May 21, 2017

      Trust in politicians is REALLY low. The escape from the EU is far more important than “minor” policy details. People want continual reassurance that we will get out of the EU completely. No single market, no ECJ, no payments, no fudge. So stop rocking the boat with things that can easily be shot down like a “dementia tax”.

      Why frighten those who may vote for you, whilst buttering up to those who never will? That’s why UKIP blossomed. It seems we still need UKIP to keep the Conservatives on the road to sense: scrap the CCA 2008, scrap Ruinables subsidies, scrap DfID, scrap HS2. Most of those appeal to the patriotic element of the Labour supporters as well.

  3. Anon
    May 21, 2017

    Social care, social don’t care No more Tory vote from me!!!

    1. Lifelogic
      May 21, 2017

      Why on earth is socialist May attacking her core voters even during the election period? She really is very daft.

      1. Jerry
        May 21, 2017

        @LL; Because she has been reading to many of your rants Mr Lifelogic most likely! These vote losing policies are the sort of clap-trap that you (and others) have been spouting on our hosts site for years – people should pay for their own care you cry (into your champaign), yes they should and that is what they have done all their working lives, it’s called NI and income tax.

        1. Lifelogic
          May 21, 2017

          Thatcher (who was still far too big government, interventionist and too pro EU) won three elections in a row (four really with Major as her man until the public worked out what a complete Libdim dope he really was).

          Cameron threw one sitting duck election with his pro EU big government agenda and cast iron ratting and would have thrown the second (also a sitting duck election) but for the massive help given to him by Miliband and Sturgeon.

          The country is crying out for lower taxes, less government, far less red tape and freedom of choice as to how we spend our own money and time.

        2. NickC
          May 21, 2017

          Jerry, Under Conservative, Coalition or Labour governments people meet their own care and care home bills. There never was general universal state provision.

          Those without capital are helped (by applying to the local authority). But those with capital have to use it all up, down to the last £23k to fund their care before the state steps in. Just in the same way that other state benefits are means tested.

          1. Jerry
            May 22, 2017

            @NickC; Oh yes there was once general universal state provision! It started to unravel in the wake of the Korean war when Attlee’s government chose to divert funds from the National Insurance fund Aneurin Bevan resigned as Minister for Health.

        3. Lifelogic
          May 22, 2017

          I agree people should be encourage to save for their own long term care. But why on earth did May put this subject to the fore in her manifesto during an election campaign. Is she trying to reduce her majority somewhat in this sitting duck election?

          Is she another FRANCIS PYM type? He in 1983, said ‘LANDSLIDES, ON THE WHOLE, DO NOT PRODUCE SUCCESSFUL GOVERNMENTS’.

          It is actually socialists like May who do not produce successsful governments. This as their policies patently do not work – they just run out of other people’s money.

        4. acorn
          May 22, 2017

          Don’t get conned into thinking that NI contributions are hypothecated for a particular purpose, they are not. They go into the consolidated fund like all other taxes.

          NI and income tax are two parts of the same tax. Income tax will raise circa £175 billion this year and NI £130 billion. Income tax is the headline tax for budget goodies.

      2. ian wragg
        May 21, 2017

        Because she doesn’t want a big majority otherwise she will have to do a proper Brexit.
        She wants just a small majority so the remainiacs can veto anything sensible.

    2. John Finn
      May 21, 2017

      John

      I broadly agree with most of what you’ve written but this is a snap election and the issues are complex. There is no time for the policies to be fully explained and understood by the electorate. Already one voter above has opted not to vote Tory – though he or she probably doesn’t know why.

      May should not have got involved in providing such a detailed policy on social care. It could have been left open and given a proper airing later. Anyone who’s been involved with s Social Care appreciates what she’s trying to do but she’s left herself wide open to attacks on pensioner issues.

      She will pay a heavy price for this I feel. And with Brexit looming I’m not optimistic about the future.

      1. Jerry
        May 21, 2017

        @John Finn; What you mean is that there is no time to spin these polices, but as I have been trying to tell our host for the last couple of years, people can not be spun any more, the internet has put an end to spin, someone will always explain away the spin.

        Considering that the Brexit referendum was won because the europhiles could not spin the true intent of the eurocrats how could anyone at CCHQ make such an error, it’s almost as if they want to loose….

  4. Lifelogic
    May 21, 2017

    Tory lead halved due to May’s tax increasing, interventionist lets hit the elderly manifesto it seems. Well what did she expect? What fool goes into an election promising tax increases and large benefit cuts to its core voters?

    People in the UK are paying far too much tax already and for generally rather appalling public services. The tax system is also absurdly complex and red tape is everywhere. These are in effect yet further damaging taxes on the productive.

    1. eeyore
      May 21, 2017

      Yes, looks like social engineering isn’t flavour of the month after all. Especially among Conservatives. Mrs May has misread the electorate.

      I wish politicians would stop trying to do good and just get on with governing responsibly.

      1. Lifelogic
        May 21, 2017

        Misread them again just as she did on Brexit. When she wins it will be thanks to the daft agendas of Miliband, the Libdims and Sturgeon not thanks to May yet she seems determined to copy them. The country is crying out for far less government dear not more!

        1. Lifelogic
          May 22, 2017

          Corbyn not Miliband it is May who largely has red Ed’s policies.

    2. MickN
      May 21, 2017

      Indeed it does seem that Mrs May is determined to snatch defeat from the jaws of what should have been the easiest victory in modern times. It is time she understood that to the people of Great Britain charity begins at home and cancelled this absurd borrowing and giving away of over £13,000,000,000 every year. Cancelling food for children in our schools and hitting our pensioners whilst gifting millions to countries so that they can develop a space program or buy their leaders a new fleet of cars is plainly mad. I know her lead is still in double figures JUST… but there are two weeks to go yet .

      1. Iain Gill
        May 21, 2017

        Yes if I cannot vote conservative, even though it’s changed its tune on brexit, you have to ask what on earth is going on.

    3. Hope
      May 21, 2017

      May is continuing and building on the Eau nanny state and making us pay for it. Her position in adult social care is worse than communism. At least with their system everyone has to work ad everyone treated the same unlike here where anyone who is a striver really or pensioner is getting fleeced for the govt.’s mass immigration policy. She even wants to continue this scam a sell when she has the most appalling record in history.

  5. agricola
    May 21, 2017

    Not much vision among these options, you are just shifting the deckchairs on the Titanic.

    1. Richard1
      May 21, 2017

      wrong there is a fundamental shift here towards individual responsibility. if you have the assets/money, you take care of yourself you don’t impose the cost on taxpayers.

      1. ian wragg
        May 21, 2017

        That means about 80% of the feckless and reckless will be subsidised by the 20% who did the right thing.

      2. SecretPeople
        May 21, 2017

        >> you take care of yourself you don’t impose the cost on taxpayers

        except you most likely will have been a taxpayer all your working life and paying for the cost of others’ care.

  6. Mark B
    May 21, 2017

    Good morning

    The truth is the state has no money, only the money it takes off us one way or another

    A very honest admission if there ever was one. Which leads onto the question; “How is it that we can afford to give money away to the ever growing and useless Overseas Aid Budget.”

    Our parliament is happy to ring fence this spending we give to others who have not earned it, but are happy to drive thise that they have responsibility for into poverty.

    1. roger parkin
      May 21, 2017

      The stupidity of it is of course that it is not government money or indeed our money it is BORROWED money.

      1. JoolsB
        May 21, 2017

        UKIP, the real Conservative party, have pledged to cut foreign aid. They are also the only party willing to address the English Question and the Barnett Formula. Why they are not much more ahead in the polls is a mystery.

        1. rose
          May 22, 2017

          They are not ahead in the polls because people have decided to vote tactically. They do not wish to split the Brexit vote and nor should they; but it is nonsense for the media to make out UKIP have collapsed. They are still there, albeit without their successful leader.

  7. Iain Gill
    May 21, 2017

    One way or another you have to incentivise decent behaviour, otherwise more and more people become feckless, or find devious work arounds, or just give up trying to do the decent thing.
    Sure the young will have to support the old, but those families who have done the decent thing should not be penalised versus those families abusing the system.
    And hard work and enterprise, including building or rebuilding from a shell your own home, should not be penalised in extreme ways, including what will be here almost a 100 % tax rate in practise.
    What is the point, we may as well all give up and live off the state, that’s the message you are giving!

    1. Iain Gill
      May 21, 2017

      And you have to remember for lots of us the state completely lets us down at our time of need.
      The state wont fund the dental care I need, it failed to remove the cancerous mole I had, it failed to provide access to a cardiologist when I needed one, its next to impossible to see the gatekeeper to care aka the GP who has anyways been dumbed down and replaced with a nurse in many cases. It failed to provide decent schools for the kids, cos we had the nerve to move house for work. It would not keep my family in a decent house, school and food if I took ill and couldn’t work. You see my taxes to me are a complete and utter waste of money. Worse you are going to take off the family a house my dad spent his lifetime building, seven days a week. Oh and you let me dad die from easily preventable death, that the hospice docs openly criticised saying in any other developed country he would have lived at least another 20 years.
      What a joke of a system the political class have created.

      1. Longinus
        May 21, 2017

        Wait until you need the armed forces and police.

        1. Iain Gill
          May 21, 2017

          Been let down by the police many a time. Worked for the mod and know how accidental success is, and how much gets wasted.

          So no I don’t think my view will change.

  8. Jerry
    May 21, 2017

    Give up John, you can not defend the indefensible, what you parties manifesto has proposed is simply double taxation, a death tax on those who became the ill and/or frail. What do you not understand. these people and their children have paid their taxes in the expectation that those taxes would be a down payment on their own and their parents care and essential needs of retirement into the future. What the your party has suggested would sit more happily in manifesto of the Communist Party of Great Britain, and at least they would be honest – all wealth reverts to the state upon death!

    By all means change the rules for new entrants, people entering the tax system and getting their NI number [1], but you can’t rescind the contract made since 1945 for people who have been paying their tax and NI since, even more so when that post war contract (settlement) had cross party support – until last Thursday…

    [1] but either admit to a tax hike or adjust the tax and NI system so that the state stops taking money that will have to be invested in pension and end of life care insurance

    1. Jerry
      May 21, 2017

      I warn you not to be ordinary [you’ll pay the bulk of the (stealth) taxes], I warn you not to be young [you’ll likely go hungry at school], I warn you not to fall ill, and I warn you not to grow old [the state will steal your home] and your children’s/grand-children’s inheritance]

      Kinnock’s words are even more approbate [to Mrs May’s manifesto ideas] today then they were to Mrs Thatcher’s manifesto back in 1983!…

      1. Edward2
        May 21, 2017

        Yet increasing the amount you retain from 23k to 100k

        1. Edward2
          May 21, 2017

          Remembering that Kinnock was rejected by the electors.
          Moving as many failed national politicians scurry to a very lucrative position in the EU.

  9. Bobness
    May 21, 2017

    Not everyone will use the fire service in their lives but everyone might. So we share the cost between us, why is that not a good idea for care?

    I was going to vote Conservative but the attacks on pensioners in May’s manifesto:
    No triple lock
    Care cost
    Winter fuel

    Lastly there is the hideous fox hunting return.

    Much as I want Brexit and TM to negotiate it, I can’t vote for all of that.

  10. alan jutson
    May 21, 2017

    John

    You have not admitted that the problem is, we do not have a National Health care system or a fully functioning National Social care system, because its different rules in different parts of the Country, with differing Health Authorities and Local Authorities policies and qualifications..

    Thus you have to tackle this before anything else.
    Same rules for everyone Nationwide, because the tax take has the same rules for everyone Nationwide.

    Why should the Local Authority have to fund care from Council tax, indeed why the Local Authority at all ?
    Why not the NHS.

    Most people recognise that whilst the NHS and the Councils are struggling for more money, the systems appear in chaos.

    From my experience Clinical treatment appears to be somewhere near to satisfactory, but administration, communication and inefficiency in these areas appears dire with little or no joined up thinking at all.

    Thus there is a reluctance to spend more on a broken system.

    As I said yesterday a proper grown up cross party debate and agreement needs to be had across the political spectrum to agree how best to move forward and to agree a tax rate for proper funding.

    I would suggest you increase and Ring fence National Insurance for that situation which would take the burden from tax rates.

    As a short term fix take all of the foreign aid budget and allocate that to the NHS and Care programme.

    Spread the cost across all of the population, then you may have people on your side.

    Taking away houses from people who have often gone without other pleasures to afford them in the first place, is not the answer.

    I have yet to meet anyone in our large circle of friends who agree with Mrs May on that one.

    Where do you stop if you go down the May line, if you have a big private Pension then the State one is withdrawn ?

    Sorry but everyone needs to pay, not just the few who have made prudent choices.

    Reply All taxpayers do pay. This government like previous governments is increasing tax financed spending by the NHS and social care authorities. Councils receive large Central grants as well as raising Council tax. Total spend on pensions, care and NHS greatly exceeds NI revenue.

    1. Hope
      May 21, 2017

      Come on JR, stop being deliberately daft about it. I read my community charge bill, it clearly states and add for adult social care. I also read the borough council add on for flood defense and the the county add on charge for flood defense. This is on top of the £1.5 billion for the useless EA and Osborne insurance premium tax for flood defense. Four taxes for the same flood defense! Three times for adult social care before Now and income tax! Get real and stop being deliberately obtuse. Alternatively, you need to be better informed.
      I usually do not agree with Jerry, but his above post is spot on.

    2. alan jutson
      May 21, 2017

      Reply to reply

      Yes all do pay, but you have just said its not enough, so then do the honest thing and increase the take from everyone so that we still have a proper National Insurance against unforeseen health, physical and metal problems.

      I do not see why you want to dump the shared cost insurance principle.

      I really am very worried at the latest lot of so called Conservative thinking:
      We first we had Inheritance tax Complications with Property Values partly included for those who owned them, but nothing extra for those who did not.
      Then the Death tax/Probate farce.
      Now we have the Health and Social care farce.
      What on earth are you going to dream up next ?

  11. John
    May 21, 2017

    If the children want to keep their parents home as inheritance then they can simply care for their parents themselves, afterall, many will be retired themselves. Care hoer costs can be £100,000 plus a year so it may pay for the children to care for their parents.

    I do see this as inevitable. Whilst we are used to the ‘Nuclear’ family that moved away from their extended family, this is not the case for many other groups from around the world. They tend to stay close together for critical mass purposes, helps build a community relevant to their culture. They also tend to look after their elderly as a result as they are close by.

    The idea that the costs of caring for your parents should be all paid for by the state these days is long gone. Those arguing for it are still living in the last century.

    1. alan jutson
      May 21, 2017

      John

      “The children should look after their parents”

      Do you really have any experience of looking after someone who needs care 24 hours a day ?”

      Afraid it is not possible, as you have to give up work and some sleep, then you end up so desperate you have a breakdown yourself.

      You can always share the duties of course, but then 2 people have to give up work.

      My family know the score, that is why this new policy thought up in a couple of days is so hated, it is simply wrong on so many levels.

      Read my extended posts over the last few days for more detail (Although John has tended to hold theses back in moderation for a bit)

      1. John
        May 21, 2017

        My quote was

        ‘If the children want to keep their parents home as inheritance then they can simply care for their parents themselves’

        If not then perhaps they should put their parents care ahead of inheritance or perhaps not. Its a choice.

      2. Hope
        May 21, 2017

        No we should not have to look after relatives of we paid tax on the expectation care would be provided. Stop the tax or provide the care. Not both.

    2. Iain Gill
      May 21, 2017

      May as well take a sledgehammer to the house, or spend all the money, what’s the point of giving the state the house only to use it to fund aid programmes in countries that don’t need it.

      A confused mess of policies.

    3. Narrow Shoulders
      May 21, 2017

      Much of what you write is correct but you do not address the moral hazard of those that save nothing or work little getting it all provided.

      One for all and all for one with regard to provision.

      1. John
        May 21, 2017

        Your point NS is a good one.

        Massive immigration, massive price increase on homes, young ones can’t afford to buy now.

        who pays for the old ones social care?

        If not taken from the house and assets then I recon its the young ones who will pay. Like they pay the £1.7 trn debt, like they pay for high rents or a ridiculous mortgage.

    4. Jerry
      May 21, 2017

      @John; You are obviously totally clueless as to the needs of non hospital medical care such as dementia nursing.

    5. John
      May 21, 2017

      Like I said care costs can be over £100,000 a year, I am not unaware.

      We are talking about people who don’t want their assets to be used to pay for this very expensive care.

      Well there are options to ensure your house goes to the children:

      Insurance
      A separate fund
      Your children look after you, they may well be retired and may need professional help. Remember the cost for full professional residential care can be over £100k a year
      An early death due to insufficient care

      Alternatively, a social care tax bill that is similar in size to that of the current NHS tax bill.

      Its a choice guys, what is your preference? And the Labour magic money tree is not a real choice here.

      1. Jerry
        May 22, 2017

        @John; You mean insurance like the National Insurance policy, run by the state, that these people have been paying into all their working lives you mean?

        “Alternatively, a social care tax bill that is similar in size to that of the current NHS tax bill.”

        If asked I suspect that a majority would prefer to pay more in income tax than risk not having care cover should for some reason they feel unable to gift their homes to the state upon their deaths. Indeed, that might well be what people vote for on June 8th….

        1. John
          May 22, 2017

          Old age social care is a new State funded benefit, an ageing population.

          It’s not something we had before its a new issue to deal with and so, how do we. You say raise National Insurance. As NI stops at £45000 you are saying those workers earning under £45000 should pay for the whole cost.

          Interesting isn’t it.

          1. Jerry
            May 22, 2017

            @John; Yes, there is a spike in the ageing population, and it has been know this would happen for the last 70 years, it is not the plebs fault that politicians in the last 40 years have failed to set taxation high enough and ring fence it and thus properly fund the NI scheme. Or perhaps they could have informed us back in the early 1980s that those people (then) 40 years old and younger would need fund our own non medical care in retirement. Dementia, for example, has been known about for years, it is not a ‘new’ illness.

            I bet if Corbyn was proposing a 70’s style 90% super tax rate, with currency controls to boot (that stops people legally moving their wealth off shore), you would be calling that state sponsored theft. Why do you think that first making the JAM pay into what is now seemingly just a state Ponzi NI scheme and then stealing from the “JAM” after their deaths is acceptable? You also need to find a clue as to how the insurance (market) works.

      2. stred
        May 22, 2017

        Given that only 1.3% of the population has dementia, the NHS pays £4.3bn and LAs £4.3bn, with the rest of social care already paid by families, how is the bill going to be ‘similar in size to the NHS’? The total current cost given is £14bn and it is true that this will increase. However, we are budgeting 5bn for things like the Stonehenge tunnel, so that Druids don’t have to watch cars going past and 60bn for a train that goes too fast to the wrong stations.

        Do some of the ‘team’ need to be assessed, or were they born daft? Did anyone consult MPs before putting this in the manifesto? Or is it a plot to stop Brexit? Cock-up or conspiracy?

        https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/info/20025/policy_and_influencing/251/dementia_uk

  12. Graham
    May 21, 2017

    I’m still trying to work out why TM called this election.

    After this badly thought out manifesto is it in fact to make things so uncertain that Brexit could be postponed or given away and to get back the missing voters to destroy UKIP.

    I further can’t believe that Labour have closed the gap with them having the most appalling bunch of ‘politicians’ in my life time.

    Anybody know?

    1. Longinus
      May 21, 2017

      She is a poor decision maker or is badly advised ?

  13. alan jutson
    May 21, 2017

    Simple question John.

    Do you agree with the Conservative Manifesto element, that the State should be able to take away all but £100,000 (including their home) from a persons estate to pay for Care.

    Yes or No.

    1. alan jutson
      May 21, 2017

      What no comment John ?

      I guess either too embarrassed, or you want to do something about this farce if you get in again, and do not want to upset the Party with criticism in the meantime.

      Unfortunately your silence is worrying !.

    2. Bob
      May 21, 2017

      Deafening silence.

    3. John Finn
      May 21, 2017

      Do you agree with the Conservative Manifesto element, that the State should be able to take away all but £100,000 (including their home) from a persons estate to pay for Care.

      They currently take away all but £23,500.

      1. zorro
        May 21, 2017

        not for those cared for in their own homes!

        zorro

      2. alan jutson
        May 22, 2017

        John Flynn

        You are wrong I am afraid, if you have home care the value of your house is excluded.

        Present system
        House worth £500,000 savings £50,000 it costs you £27,000 before help

        New system
        House worth £500,00 savings £50,000 it costs you £450,000 before help.

        By way of info £500,000 is the cost of a new three bed semi without a garage in Wokingham.

        1. John Finn
          May 22, 2017

          You are wrong I am afraid, if you have home care the value of your house is excluded.

          I’m not wrong. I know how it works. My mother received care at home for 12 months or so before being transferred to a nursing home.

          It’s true care in the home does not take the value of property into account. However the individual does receive Attendance allowance to offset some of the cost and anyone with Dementia who needs care for a long period of time will inevitably end up in a residential/nursing home anyway.

          You can also get exemption from Council Tax, btw.

        2. NickC
          May 22, 2017

          Alan Jutson, You are wrong I’m afraid. Currently care in your own home does have to be self funded, and there is no limit to your liability, not even £23k. I see no evidence that you won’t eventually have to sell your house, assuming the (limited) AA is insufficient, you survive, your savings run out, and you continue to need care. If the AA is enough, of course, your capital is not depleted and the issue doesn’t arise.

          1. alan jutson
            May 22, 2017

            NickC

            Then perhaps the situation has changed in the last 6 years because when my Mother was at home she had an interview with the Local Benefits and Social Care Department, they visited her in her home (I was present) they told her that because her savings were below the £12,500 imposed limit, she was entitled to some help, additionally that she could get help with a carers allowance (at the time £35 per week) and give it to whoever she liked, because that was not means tested.
            My Mother declined because she did not want to be labeled as being in need of care.

            After a series of strokes she ended up in Hospital, needed care in a Nursing Home, and I was asked did she own her own home, because that would have to be part of the calculation.

            I can out outline from personal first hand experience.

            If I was given incorrect information, then it came from Social Services direct who had done a complete assessment of my mothers situation.

  14. Kenneth
    May 21, 2017

    I think children have got off lightly in recent years while the State has financed a large proportion of the care for their parents.

    I think this creates selfishness and leaves some parents abandoned to a care home open prison. I am sure that one day we will look back on this practice as barbaric.

    I think the Conservative proposal to use property to fund this care is a step in the right direction and may encourage some families to get together and look after their parents properly rather than lose part of their inheritance.

    1. Jerry
      May 21, 2017

      @Kenneth; What about those without family, why should they have their wealth stolen by the state, when they might have intended to leave their estate to charity for example. These people have been paying into a state insurance scheme for all their working lives, if the state is now saying that NI is a Ponzi scheme then some senior politicos and civil servants need to be prosecuted, as the apparent state of the National Insurance scheme is no better than any other pension or insurance cover fraud.

      I’m seriously of the opinion that Mrs May and/or CCHQ want to loose this snap GE, they wish is our command…

      1. Anonymous
        May 21, 2017

        They’re terrified of the clear Brexit majority they could win.

        The Lib Dem idiots (and their supporters) have provided an unexpected clear-blue-water choice between Brexit and Remain.

        Now May’s only choice is to sabotage the election.

    2. Anonymous
      May 21, 2017

      Fine, Kenneth

      But do you realise that Mum has to pay an inflated carehome fee to fund Johnny Layabout on the same floor ?

      Mum has been paying far more than her share already. Now the Tories want to grab more.

      1. Narrow Shoulders
        May 22, 2017

        The way around this conundrum is for the council to secure and pay for each patient and to claim the costs back off those like mum who are forced to contribute.

        That way the provider does not have a target to fleece. Councils will not like it as they will have to pay more for Jonny Layabout but it goes some way to make the system fairer.

  15. Oggy
    May 21, 2017

    JR – ‘ the State doesn’t have any money’ ??? then why is it continuing to squander 14Bn on foreign aid ?
    If I gave away all my income to charity and then told MY family I didn’t have any money left to pay for OUR upkeep they would think I had taken leave of my senses !
    This form of economics is non-sensical.
    However social care is to be funded penalising the prudent over the feckless isn’t the way to go. Mrs May has well and truly shot herself in the foot with this manifesto, as can be seen from todays polls which has halved her lead. The ONLY reason anyone would vote Conservative now is because of Brexit.

  16. mickc
    May 21, 2017

    Indeed, the State has no money….and is intent on impoverishing the people, especially those who seek not to burden the state by looking after themselves and their families.
    Obviously there will be no change under May; largesse on foreign aid, austerity and high taxes at home.
    At least Corbyn, a Socialist, is honest enough to produce a Socialist manifesto.

  17. Timmy
    May 21, 2017

    We have 2 care systems for historical re. An NHS that is grotesquely inefficient and a social care one that is pretty good value for money. Because the NHS is so difficult to sort out, the state and politicians want to take more money from the people.

    The consequence of this will be that the costs of social care will go up rapidly because there will no longer be the downward pressure. It will become less efficient and the state will want even more money…

    Why not introduce competing commissioners of joint health and social care and allow people to register with which of these bodies they choose and have their slice of their taxes follow them? A sort of voucher system that they can top up their package if they want?

    What is most striking about the proposal is the lack of vision and lack of courage. It is lazy

    1. Longinus
      May 21, 2017

      The NHS sold off its long stay facilities, nursing homes and cottage hospitals in the 1990s.

  18. JJE
    May 21, 2017

    I wish to insure myself against the risk that I will be one of the minority that will need to spend a long time in a care home. How can I do this?
    The State refuses to pool the risk, so what can be done to allow the private sector to offer me a solution?
    I am currently holding onto all of my savings to protect myself. Some of it could be better spent by my offspring instead of me hanging on to all of it in case it’s needed. If I could pool the risk by way of an insurance premium I would.

    1. alan jutson
      May 21, 2017

      JJE

      You should already have insurance, its called National Insurance, the pooled risk where the many pay for the few was the original idea.

      After 49 years of both myself and my wife paying the premium, we have now been told the policy is useless for us.

      Simply disgraceful.

    2. a-tracy
      May 22, 2017

      JJE, my Dad suggested a Dignitas solution!!! Is that really where we headed towards. What a horrible future. People that pay all their national insurance, in many circumstances for what will be 50 years, left to the mercy of the State in expensive but poor quality care homes. How do these costs compare to other Countries? These immigrants who commit vile crimes, how much does their prison care cost in their own countries can’t be export their incarceration and pay the lower bill if necessary, then withdraw their right to live in the UK?

      How much does it cost to keep prisoners in the style they’ve become accustomed to? What is the cost of looking after someone in a care home?
      This is all becoming a national embarrassment and worrying for my generation that have been paying all the bills in our national ponzi scheme that when it comes to our turn we will have to pay twice.

  19. fedupsoutherner
    May 21, 2017

    Why, oh why wasn’t Mrs May sensible? She should have cut the foreign aid budget as many of us feel it is way too high anyway and given this to the social care budget in the UK. I cannot believe that what she has done has signed her death warrant and for the rest of us too. Brexit will now not happen. One has to ask is this what the Tory party wanted? Did they not want to take the blame for the UK coming out of the EU? Let’s face it, the majority of the cabinet don’t want Brexit. An anti Brexit team was picked so what did we expect? One thing that cannot be forgiven though is that they may be handing over the reigns to Labour/SNP and if that happens the country is done for in a big way. What a black bloody Sunday!

    1. Anonymous
      May 21, 2017

      All I can think is that she’s terrified of a Brexit affirming majority.

      I can see a Corbyn win from this. I’m not voting Tory despite having been so keen to get a postal vote arranged for my trip to visit an elderly in-law abroad.

      1. Narrow Shoulders
        May 22, 2017

        @ anonymous

        Spoil your ballot.

        Rule 47 (1) (d)

        Your protest is then registered but Corbyn does not directly benefit.

        1. a-tracy
          May 22, 2017

          There should be a situation that if a % of the population all spoil their ballots the political parties have to come back to us with another set of proposals.

  20. NHSGP
    May 21, 2017

    Misses the point.

    By and large the public have paid, in advance for the state’s care if they are infirm etc.

    They have lost hundreds of thousands of pounds of capital because you spent their pension contributions leaving a massive debt hidden off the books.

    Now you demand that they again. They pay twice.

    That’s why people object. You’re just trying to screw money out of them.

    There’s a pattern with you and other Tories.

    NI – There the Conservatives wanted to whack up the NI on the entreprenuer. However you were still going to deny them access to the payouts from their payments.

    The reason, you are desperate for cash. The big companies don’t like the competition, so what better than to get the state to screw them over.

    There’s a pattern. Completely clear.

    The state is screwing the public. The state is the problem. You are the problem.

    Pension debts? Mr Average retiring today has lost 1.1 million because you spent his contributions.

    Miss New Born has been born into debt servitude. She has £420,000 of state debts to pay. The Con/LibDem/Lab version of slavery, debt bondage.

    But what is it? Hide the debts off the books, so you can carry on getting the money flowing in.

  21. fedupsoutherner
    May 21, 2017

    It’s all very well for ministers to go on about the country needing more money to run things like the NHS, social care etc but we have the money. We are according to what I hear a very rich country. What is going wrong is that the money is being spent on vanity projects like HS2, Hinkley etc. When so many people are struggling to pay energy bills it is surely stupidity itself to stop payments to many pensioners. What would be more sensible would be to scrap the Climate Change Act and get back to providing this country with cheaper and more efficient means of supplying energy. Instead, government is quite happy to pay land owners, developers etc massive amounts of money by way of subsidies and constraint payments to erect useless wind turbines, solar, biomass etc. Another case of not listening to those in the know! Vanity yet again and another example of how to become a basket case.

  22. William Long
    May 21, 2017

    There is a huge amount of muddled and contradictory thinking and emotion surrounding the issues of taxation of homes and inheritance, the purpose of saving and the funding of care for the elderly. In among that is the difference between people who have owned a home and those who for whatever reason have chosen (quite possibly from necessity) to rent.
    The big thing to my mind though, is that any profit made on someone’s main residence accrues totally free of tax: the State takes nothing. It therefor seems right and just to me, that if the State is expected to fund the care for a person in their final years, the person’s house, or at least any profit accrued on it, should be a source of repayment of that funding. Clearly the current proposal from the Conservatives that the house need not be sold until after the person’s death is reasonable. One thing that is scandalous and should be stopped, is the practice of care homes charging self payers extra to subsidise the low rates offered by Local Authorities.
    Basically I think that if someone can afford to pay for something, they should, whether this is health care. old age care, or education, as the Beveridge report envisage at the outset of the Welfare State, and they should not be penalised for doing so.

    1. Jerry
      May 21, 2017

      @William Long; NI (National Insurance) and income tax fund our health and care services, or should have, and NI is what tax payers thought they were paying into. Would you accept having to pay back the cost of fire damage repairs to your house insurer should you be unfortunate to suffer fire damage, if not why not?…

    2. Bob
      May 21, 2017

      @William Long
      Do you think that peoples homes should be confiscated to cover other free at the point of use public services such as NHS treatment or state education for your children?

      Or should this tax be reserved for just for dementia victims?

  23. fedupsoutherner
    May 21, 2017

    John, I noticed on your last post about who should cover the cost of social care that many were commenting on the fact that Scotland is going to keep the fuel allowance.

    I totally agree with their grievances on this subject. I am English but live in Scotland and I can tell you that when I go back to England to visit my sick mother in hospital I can see what an advantage the Scots have. My sister has to pay for the car park at the hospital when visiting my mother and it costs her over £20 a week out of her minimal wage salary whilst in Scotland we get all hospital parking (bar 3 hospitals) for free. We also get free prescriptions, free eye tests, free dental checks, free uni, and bus passes which also get you money off rail travel. No wonder the English feel so let down. I am ashamed when I talk to friends and family about it. The Scots are always moaning about their lot. If England wasn’t subsiding them so much perhaps they could spend a bit more south of the border?

  24. A.Sedgwick
    May 21, 2017

    I have known scores of people who have ended their days in what are apparently solely private care homes, paying £1000 p.w. from the proceeds of their homes. Usually these companies require guarantees of funding before acceptance. In some cases family have contributed to the continuing cost rather than be subject to state involvement. If there was no IHT, the option of family keeping assets until the relative’s death might make economic sense for many with rental and appreciation accruing, the wider economy ultimately benefiting.

    The state should be a last resort and raising the “free” money to £100,000 is a nonsense, another example of Mrs. May raising an unnecessary hornet’s nest. She is following the well trodden path of Brown, Cameron, Osborne – we have a problem let’s complicate it.

  25. Denis Cooper
    May 21, 2017

    Nothing here about protecting the surviving spouse from eviction after the first death, a threat which Tim Farron has been waving around. It’s fine to say that payment of an individual’s social care costs will be deferred until after their death but that provides no reassurance that the surviving spouse will not be expected to sell the marital home to pay the bill. Common sense says that this should not happen, but unfortunately bureaucratic systems do not always operate with common sense and in this case sjb writes below:

    “About two years ago, an elderly gentlemen (70+) informed me that when his wife could no longer be cared for at home the council insisted he had to sell their house to fund her care home fees.”

    1. sjb
      May 21, 2017

      That’s true. What is missing is an effective mechanism for informal carers (often the person cannot do so because of their illness) to challenge decisions. Few can afford to obtain legal advice and even if they could community care law practitioners are thin on the ground.

      JR points out that “healthcare is free for all”. But who decides whether the person’s needs are health needs, social needs, or social needs with a bit of nursing? Well, despite the conflict of interest, it is the NHS that conducts the assessment.

      Please Google “Care to be Different” and click on the website to see what happens in practice.

      Readers with similar experiences may wish to contact the NAO who are conducting an investigation into NHS continuing healthcare.

  26. Bright Side
    May 21, 2017

    As homeowners know,
    you have, while still compos mentis, to have 2 Power of Attorney in place.
    1 for money (even if you have none) and 1 for care.
    Also some kind of living will.
    The % of elderly who end up in residential is small. The % of self funders even smaller.
    Stays in nursing care are relatively short in the main.
    Most croak it in hospital which is currently free.

  27. Roy Grainger
    May 21, 2017

    How will it work with an elderly married couple in their own home when one of them has to go into care for several years and then dies ? When are the care bills paid ? What if the surviving person then has to go into care after a few years – how is that split of assets handled ? You don’t know do you. Why put such a half-baked policy in the manifesto at all rather than spend some time getting input from the experts over some months first (as has been done for some of the smaller pensions changes) ?

    I also see that the Winter Fuel payment is being removed for people living in Berwick on Tweed but is being maintain for people living further South in West Scotland. Why is that fair ?

    I believe everyone should vote in their own self-interest – why wouldn’t a pensioner therefore vote Labour ?

  28. Beecee
    May 21, 2017

    The elderly’s spouse or partner still needs the house to live in!

    England could afford free care if it not only reduced the huge spend on International Aid (the 0.7% is the sum spent by DFID and excludes the money spent on ‘aid’ by other departments), and vanity projects like HS2 etc.

    Also if Ms Sturgeon is to be believed in that an independent Scotland would be financially viable the Barnett formula could be withdrawn now.

    Tough decisions? but Mrs May says she can take them.

  29. old salt
    May 21, 2017

    “Adult Social Care” specifically already sorted here with a 3% precept increase on our 2017/2018 Council Tax Bill. So all council taxpayers are paying an amount relative to their house value.

  30. Oliver
    May 21, 2017

    If I’m in a Nursing home, how is it fair that my taxes pay for someone else to receive exactly the same care I do, but that I have to sell my house to pay for my own care?

    Dilnott would have gone some significant way towards corrrecting that grotesque unfairness.

    Instead, you’ve made it apply to home care as well. Talking about the £100k as “quadrupling” the present £23k [as Hunt and Green have done on BBC] is simply insulting.

    These proposals are catastrophically ill-conceived.

    They’re also moronic: didn’t anyone, May, Timothy or Hill, notice how popular the IHT reforms were, amongst anyone who imagined they might one day be a beneficiary [ie 100% of potential Tory voters] before deciding to assault exactly the same group of people?

    If they can make such an extraordinary error on this, what are we to expect in the Brexit negotiations from these clowns?

    I have always voted Tory. Not any more.

    1. Anonymous
      May 21, 2017

      If we are going to get Labour/EU we may as well let (or vote) Corbyn in.

      This is a catastrophic electioneering error – failing to tackle the feckless-subsidised-in-care issue whilst spanking Mum to pay for him.

      One wonders if it is a ploy to reduce and divert the opportunity for a clear Brexit majority.

      We all agree that care must be paid for but to let the feckless off is disgusting.

    2. Anonymous
      May 21, 2017

      Oliver – It’s worse than that. MUCH worse. It’s not just your taxes that pay for the other to receive exactly the same care, but your own bill for the home is increased by 40% to make up the shortfall of the council resident.

      In effect usurious, estate plundering levels of punitive taxation from a supposedly Tory administration !

  31. agricola
    May 21, 2017

    Damien Green did not do your election prospects any great service this morning on Marr. It’s in the manifesto so that is what you will get, will you reconsider it, No. I just hope there are some clear thinking real conservatives arising from this election who are not automatic lobby fodder. You have really shot yourself in the foot on this one.

  32. Jack snell
    May 21, 2017

    I agree that it is a complicated and complex area. We are all getting older and living much longer than earlier generations so somethings gotta give. But as some of your commentators have already pointed out that the terrible waste of money in the government, health and services sectors should be cleared up first before governments go off half cocked with a massive upending of priorities for the caring of people in old age. People in old age have already paid into the system massively during their lifetime and so deserve to be cared for without this kind of worry and upset hanging over them. If i worked hard all of my life paid my taxes, NI, vat at every turn, etc etc while the successive governments have allowed waste on such a huge scale then why should it be right that my home should be forfeit even after my death.

    I believe that what is proposed is not a ‘fair deal’, what we see here is the start of something much more sinister, it is the first attempt at social engineering to rid the country of excess numbers of old people – for in a few years time old people will realise that they can have an alternative to living on and so then preserve their wealth to pass on to family. This what is proposed by the tory manifesto is only the start of something that has yet to come- something – that yet dare not speak its name.

    1. SecretPeople
      May 21, 2017

      I don’t necessarily agree that we are all living longer. In Kensington and Chelsea, maybe; in Glasgow, no. In my own family we’ve been losing a decade per generation (I hope I get to retire before I die). Look at the celebs who died in 2016 all circa 60 years of age.

  33. stred
    May 21, 2017

    For the second time a conservative politician chosen by the team has been reminding us that those of us who bought our own houses have been “lucky” to have benefited from the ludicrous house prices. This time it was remainer Hurst on Marr, while explaining that taking £400k from an estate of £500k was a good deal.

    The research department should realize that very high house prices only benefits the government and not the owners or their children. If older owners wish to sell and move to a smaller property, they will pay high sales and stamp duty costs and the price of smaller properties is also too high to make moving worthwhile. While their children will most likely be paying high rents or have to take on a crippling mortgage. Most people therefore are not grateful to the government for increasing the population by three times the annual number of houses built or pumping money to the banks for high mortgages by QE. Those of us with second homes, or divorced, will have to pay 28% CGT on unreal ‘gains’.

    The explanations are as stupid as Mrs May’s claim , before her conversion, that the UK already had control of borders. They must take the electorate for fools.

  34. Anonymous
    May 21, 2017

    What is patently unfair is that Mum subsidises unfunded residents in the same carehome.

    By all means. We should pay the cost of our own care – but do NOT expect us to pay a surcharge for the person who never worked and who got the bed next to us.

    Bear in mind that the carehome stage can come after years of looking after mum in her own home – trips to doctors, hospitals, garden work, housework…

  35. Anonymous
    May 21, 2017

    “The different outcomes that will still arise come from the high costs of care home provision. ”

    Pensioned/propertied residents of care homes pay way above the true costs – to subsidise the council residents in those care homes. It is not fair.

    The true costs should be paid by all means. But not to be taxed at usurious, estate destroying levels to fund the feckless – the final socialist insult.

    1. Anonymous
      May 21, 2017

      F*** Boris Johnson “Brave, resolute – take on the problem”

      Lies from an extremely privileged twit.

      The Tories will not take on the problem of Mum subsidising a layabout in the carehome.

      Fine. Make Mum pay for her care but get the layabout out of the carehome first. Don’t expect her to subsidise him.

      Seriously. I can now see a Corbyn win.

      We’ve never trusted May on Brexit anyway.

  36. Narrow Shoulders
    May 21, 2017

    I have no issue with those who can pay being asked to stump up for their social care costs. However if this is indeed the way forward there must be insurance in place to guard against potential costs.

    Such insurance could possibly be offset against National Insurance contributions seeing as these evidently do not buy any future protection (the workplace pension will be used to cancel the state pension at some point in the future).

    Personally I would happily pay an extra 1% on my NI if this was hypothecated to social care and guaranteed those who had paid it for say 10 years a certain level of care. In the intervening 10 years it seems right that those who qualify for the full state pension should e afforded the same cover.

    I am afraid that except for the disabled, anyone who has not contributed should not get anything for free. This goes to the heart of your problem as government, there are contributors and non-contributors and the client state encourages too many non-contributors (and is importing several hundred thousand each year).

  37. Denis Cooper
    May 21, 2017

    Suddenly Labour supporter Andrew Marr is strongly in favour of “wealth cascading down the generations” a la Major without any form of inheritance tax to impede that flow. Not even to help pay for care of the deceased in their later years, which cost should instead be entirely borne by other taxpayers. And he is concerned that a measly £100,000 which might be all that is left from the sale proceeds of a £500,000 house in Twickenham might have to be divided between five children, presumably because of the notoriously high fecundity of the denizens of that place. The hypocrisy of these people beggars belief; if the Tory manifesto had said they would abolish inheritance tax then it would have been a very different story, then it would have been complaints about selfishness of the wealthy and undeserved legacies which should really be handed over to the state.

    1. zorro
      May 21, 2017

      Denis, who gives a damn what Marr thinks? People would have supported abolishing inheritance tax, who is going to vote for this pile of tosh?!

      zorro

  38. Bert Young
    May 21, 2017

    That variances exist in the way elderly care is paid for is one thing , another is the way the Scots get away with so many health and care support schemes . The latest feature is the fuel cost for the elderly in Scotland (where an 80 year old millionaire will still be able to receive £300 per year and someone below the border – who is much less well off , will get nothing ). Theresa was foolish to allow this to occur and now , like many others , it has put me off voting for her . Damien Green has this morning said ” The Conservatives will not look again at the Social Care issue “.

    If Theresa had produced a proper Conservative manifesto and not one that moved seriously to the left , my present view probably would be to support her . She did not need to to make an appeal of this kind to win a much increased majority ; the Corbyn “blunders” were enough . She is being very badly advised and her going along with the sort of manifesto adopted indicates she is not the ” Strong and stable ” leader . Appealing to the Scots with her give aways and the continued existence of the Barnett formula , are steps too far for me . She may now be surprised that her wished for majority may not materialise .

    1. Neverwas
      May 30, 2017

      Much is explained once you realise that (a) Nick Timothy is clever, but not as clever as he thinks he is, and (b) Mrs May is yet another PM who relies on a very few acolytes and does not believe in Cabinet Government.

  39. NickW
    May 21, 2017

    It is time the Conservative party understood that we do not have to vote for it; we have a choice.

    I am not voting for this manifesto; if losing this election is what it takes to convince May that the electorate has had enough of noxious and offensive policies being rammed down their throats whether they like it or not; then so be it. There is, for example, a complete refusal to listen to public opinion on foreign aid; what is the point of leaving the EU if we continue to have policies forced on us which are arrogant, interfering and destructive of the common good? It makes no difference whether the stupidity comes from Brussels or Westminster, it is still stupidity.

    How the rest of Europe will laugh when May’s majority is reduced, due not to anxieties about Brexit, but because the conservative manifesto is arrogant and unpalatable.

    This Country is not a train set to be played with by leaders who want their turn at the controls so that they can impose all their pet ideas.

    What does it take to get politicians to listen to the electorate?

    And No, I am not a Labour troll, I am a Conservative who recognises a socialist nanny state manifesto when he sees it.

  40. Richard1
    May 21, 2017

    The Tories have it right. There is no reason the state should accept unlimited liability for peoples’ care irrespective of their ability pay. Thos who can pay should do so. There is no right to an inheritance such that taxpayers should subsidise it and there is nothing special about handing on a house rather than a bank balance or a portfolio of stocks and bonds.

    1. Iain Gill
      May 21, 2017

      People will simply spend the money, crazy incentives will lead to crazy behaviour.

    2. Bob
      May 21, 2017

      @Richard1
      Well why stop at social care then, why not charge for your NHS usage, your kids education, your child benefits and other free at the point of use public services and charge that to your estate too?

      There is plenty of room to cut back of public expenditure that would cover social care, such as foreign aid and useless quangos, but the fat cats must be protected even if it means confiscating the life savings of dementia victims.

      This policy will encourage fecklessness, because people won’t want to build a legacy for their children if there’s a risk it will be confiscated. They’ll just sit back and take it easy and let the state provide. More aspirational folk will emmigrate.

      1. Sir Joe Soap
        May 21, 2017

        Indeed. There is a case for also putting unpaid student loans into the same category too, I guess. At the moment they become written off after 25 years, I believe.
        The list is endless.

      2. Iain Gill
        May 21, 2017

        People wont bother with long term repairs to their house, other people in the family relying on the inheritance to pay off their mortgage will be in trouble, and in some families relatives will end up on benefits who would otherwise have been able to survive on a modest inheritance. Complete mess of a policy. Indeed whats the point doing all that work on your parents house when its just going to be confiscated by the state anyways.

    3. Bob
      May 21, 2017

      @Richard1
      Should this principle be applied to all public services, or just dementia sufferers?
      In which case why do we pay so much in tax, duty and NI?

      There seems to be plenty of money sloshing around to pay for quangocrats:
      http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/quangos_the_unseen_government_of_the_uk

      I don’t get any say in how govt spends my money, but I do get a vote, and it will not be going to the Tories.

      Emigration is looking like an increasingly attractive option (to a country with better weather, better & cheaper food and better & cheaper social care).

  41. Turboterrier.
    May 21, 2017

    The truth is the state has no money, only the money it takes off us one way or another.

    Very true, so why do we give it away and waste so much, especially on vanity projects?
    When will politicians begin to understand that it is not the money you throw at these areas it is how it is controlled and spent. Waste is the elephant in the room and totally ignored.
    How can the party let alone the country allow so much to be spent on foreign aid and justify the way our care programme works?
    When the ship is holed and sinking the skill of applying focused damage control is paramount to survival. With what we are hearing and reading there seems to have been very little training in this essential art of survival.
    No mention of the 3rd/4th generations who have never had a job in their lives and have no intention of working now or in the future, and they will eventually be as well off as those who have paid in all their working life and in probability will get their care easier than those who have paid in.

    1. SecretPeople
      May 21, 2017

      I know, I thought the manifesto was supposed to be about restoring justice. What you describe is not just.

  42. Antisthenes
    May 21, 2017

    Labour are offering many somethings for nothing and solutions based on fantastical ideas on where the source of the funds to pay for them will come from. The Conservatives are offering as much that surplus wealth and borrowing is capable of funding. As the bulk of the electorate believe that the funding will not come from them many are finding Labours promises attractive. Corbyn entering No 10 is becoming less unlikely by the day.

    Both parties are wrong as a completely different approach is needed to deliver welfare that works and is sustainable. That aside considering the current circumstances that our culture and the welfare system works under the Conservatives have at least an approach that will keep care limping along for perhaps another decade whilst Labours approach will see the country bankrupt and unable to fund very much welfare all in a very short period of time.

  43. Prigger
    May 21, 2017

    Conservatives are confused about the ownership of property.
    If we had a socialist state, a private home would not be the property of government, exept in a tyannical Corbynista “socialist” state.Even in the USSR, a private home, yes it was certainly permitted, was not the property of the State nor had the State any say whatsoever in the price of the property, its sale or otherwise and, any money arising from it.FULL STOP

    # Importantly, it was none of the State’s business. Any decisions about social care or any cost associated with the well-being of the person in their interaction with Pensions and health and or whatever could not possibly figure in the State assessments to eligibilty of any State benefit..

    Conservatives seem to believe the Conservative Capitalist State should have more power one way or another than the most brutal, tortuous anti-individualistic anti-human Socialist State known to Man.
    Conservatives appear to believe a person’s personal ( not commercial, but personal ) belongings have something to do with them. Mind your own businesses! GET OUT of people’ bathrooms, toilets, kitchens, sitting rooms, lounges and gardens! What they give or do not give to their own children, none of whom the State sired nor laboured with in pregnancy is nothing to do with the Conservative Party meeting down the pub when you plan going round knocking on doors. Also, it is NOT you door! You should also make an appointment before causing noise by knocking ! What cheek!
    Conservatives should start to think!

  44. norman
    May 21, 2017

    Sounds like a lot of people want their cake and eat it. How fickle people are – even Brexiteers. Disappointing.

    1. Jerry
      May 21, 2017

      @norman; If you mean those who (thought) they were paying into a National Insurance scheme then yes we are, just like you would expect your fire or car insurance to pay out…

      If the state can not afford to care for the needy, who have by on large paid all their taxes, then it can not afford to fund tax cuts either, be they personal or corporation etc, indeed tax rates most likely need to rise, perhaps significantly.

  45. Nig l
    May 21, 2017

    Cleverly you have moved the debate isolating Care as a single issue and then justifying dumping the costs on an already over taxed electorate. As you say the State has no money It is a fact that it is your choice to spend umpteen billions of our money on Foreign Aid instead of the people who have contributed all their lives on the understanding they would be looked after, add 13 billion to the EC, 46 billion on Cold War fighting Trident, plus HS2 Green Energy, Out of date nuclear technology etc and it is clear that the real question is about spending priorities. The problem is that you won’t like our choices, so much for democracy, so like all socialist parties you spend it for us.

    If I had a private pension plan and after some years the provider suddenly ripped up the contract rightly there would be outrage. Successive governments have disgracefully broken the Covenant with the armed forces and now Theresa May is tearing up the Covenant with taxpayers who have contributed all their life.

  46. Chris
    May 21, 2017

    Worth reading the comments section to Paul Goodman’s Conservative Home article on the social care proposals in the manifesto. I would say the majority are very concerned by Theresa May’s proposals, and several mention, as I have done in earlier comments, about the role of May’s advisors, including Nick Timothy.

    May needs a large majority and she has just recklessly thrown that away, I believe.

  47. E.S Tablishment
    May 21, 2017

    I’m moving more and more to a conservative-like libertarian position. I do not like what I see in the statist, nanny knows best Conservative Manifesto positions.Example ….Page 55 “The enjoyment and pride we take in our diversity….” Well, if any one of us had been given a vote on diversity: if any one of us would at any time indicated in the Manifesto be offered a vote on diversity, we might indeed proclaim “…. enjoyment and pride…”But having suffered a major crime in not being given a vote and not beiing offered a vote on fundamental change to our living, working, education, national and cultural changes then no.
    One must admit British people by and large are far less worthy and culturally progressed than most immigrants. But as Roger Moore said in one of his Bond movies to his superior “Just keeping the British end up Sir”

  48. graham1946
    May 21, 2017

    I agree that the taxpayer should not fund the inheritance of children of people in need of care and it is obvious that people in this position should pay their board and lodgings. However, having said that, why are care home fees so high? Staff you say, but mostly seem to be understaffed and paid minimum wage. It would be cheaper to stay in a four star hotel than some of these places. Perhaps that’s why Maggie Thatcher ended her days like that.

    The answer, partially, is many more home care assistants, properly paid in wages, time and travel and respect. They would need to be paid for properly by government or local authorities, not done on the cheap as at present.

    I would also like to see convalescent homes owned and run by the hospitals which would release acute care beds in the hospitals as an interim before being returned home after medical needs have been fulfilled. The government should release the hospitals from the dastardly PFI contracts negotiated by politicians and dumped on the Trusts, then they would have much more money for their core purpose of treating the sick rather than filling the bank accounts of City spivs.

    1. Chris
      May 21, 2017

      They used to have things known as cottage hospitals where people went for convalescence, paid for by the state. Previous governments in their wisdom developed a new model of healthcare and in their utter stupidity closed these hospitals. Now they are reaping the consequences, or rather the patients and their families are. Those in government are often better off and can afford private nursing home fees so they do not suffer the way ordinary people do.

  49. Odds on favourite
    May 21, 2017

    If I paid into an insurance company all my life and at the end of the day it debated whether it was going to pay out on my policy by saying “Well, you have your own money, it’s only fair we don’t pay you…”
    The Government should either honour its commitments and pay up,
    or get out of the insurance business altogeher.

    But there is a third way.
    #The Conservatives could declare themselves bankrupt.
    #The Labour Party could declare themselves bankrupt
    #The LibDems could declare themselves bankrupt

    Roughly two thirds of the population would agree that any one of those parties being “bankrupt” is a runner.

  50. John Finn
    May 21, 2017

    Here’s a proposal for a compromise on the Winter Fuel Allowance (admittedly not the issue of most concern).

    Is it feasible to include the WFA in the state pension? For example

    State Pension = £X
    WFA = £200

    Total Pension = X + 200

    The extra £200 could still be paid as it is now in November so that November payment = £(X/12 + 200). The advantages of this are:

    1. No extra admin costs for means testing.
    2. The payment becomes taxable so that tax can be recouped from pensioners on higher incomes.

    1. bad at sums
      May 21, 2017

      Love this John Finn, but dont understand it (grade 9- fail Maths)

      1. John Finn
        May 22, 2017

        I’m basically saying just include the WFA in the state pension. Pensioners who have other income (e.g. pensions, investment, employment) will pay a bit more tax. So some money is recouped but there is no means testing admin costs. Also no “cliff edge”.

    2. alan jutson
      May 22, 2017

      John Flynn

      The simple solution is to simply raise the State pension by £200 per year

      The cost is spread the cost over 12 months and it is taxable if you have any other income as it will exceed your annual personal tax allowance.

      No extra work involved at all.

  51. HaHa
    May 21, 2017

    See the Don’s speechwriter’s been nicking my lines.
    Ah ha thought of the word I was searching for the other day
    Truthful
    ( or barking )

  52. David L
    May 21, 2017

    The £34billion of uncollected tax would ease the social care conundrum somewhat were it to be collected.

  53. Ian Wragg
    May 21, 2017

    We own our house and have enough to manage comfortably on.
    I have no objections to financing any care using the equity in the house.
    I do object to the fact that the feckless and reckless will get the taxpayers to stump up after a lifetime of foreign exotic holidays and new cars.
    I also object to the 20% premium charged to self funders versus council inmates.
    There will be a rush for equity release to pass money on to children. How will the councils solve that.

  54. NickC
    May 21, 2017

    Oh dear, oh dear. You propose something better – £100k final allowance, rather than the current £23k – and then get kicked for it. When will the Conservatives learn that PRESENTATION and PERCEPTION rule in the current BBC led MSM?

    1. ian wragg
      May 21, 2017

      But the ones getting care at home did not have their house value taken into consideration so they got the house plus £23,000. No home care will be charged against ALL assets.

      1. NickC
        May 21, 2017

        Ian Wragg, But the ones going into a care home only get £23,250 (in England) currently. The proposal is to increase that to £100k.

        Currently care in your own home is more complex. Maybe I’m wrong but I see no evidence that you won’t eventually have to sell your house, assuming the (limited) AA is insufficient, you survive, and you continue to need care. If the AA is enough, of course, your capital is not depleted and the issue doesn’t arise.

    2. Anonymous
      May 21, 2017

      Nick C. Do you not read the news ???

      Houses are now included in the calculation. (They were not before.)

      1. NickC
        May 21, 2017

        Anon, Currently, your house is included (as is all your capital) in the means tested assessment for residential care home costs, and the residual allowance for England is only £23,250.

      2. John Finn
        May 21, 2017

        Houses are now included in the calculation. (They were not before.)

        Not for care in the home – no. But if the cared for person lives long enough they will invariable end up in a Care Home anyway.

        Labour are proposing the £72k Dilnot cap. For those with modestly priced homes (up to £172k) the Tory policy is the better one

  55. Paul w
    May 21, 2017

    Wow’- what a blunder?

    I worked hard all of my life paid for everything taxes NI etc including my own home. My neighbour worked all of his life too but squandered all on foreign holidays fancy cars etc..he never bought a house.. and so now has little or nothing to live on. So then if ujnfirtunatelt we both become unwell and have to be cared for the forfeit of my home will pay for the cost of us both. Doesnt seem very fair to me

  56. Anonymous
    May 21, 2017

    I am not voting to supplant the socialist EU with another form of socialism under the May Conservatives as an opportunist attempt to abuse the desire for Brexit.

    The Tories need to quickly establish that the feckless will pay and suffer too. Mum should not subsidise their place in the same carehome. Most kids (by that time) will already have spent years supporting Mum in her own home, doing the gardens, cooking, housework, doctors visits…

    1. Anonymous
      May 21, 2017

      If the feckless (for once) heard that they were not to be provided for then they would no longer be feckless.

      When will the Tories stop being anti effort ?

  57. Denis Cooper
    May 21, 2017

    I stand to be corrected, but it seems to me that basically:

    The government is offering to act as an intermediary in setting up a favourable deferred payment arrangement with the care providers, under which the cost of the care will not be met by the patient during their life but instead becomes a first charge on the estate of the patient or that of the patient’s surviving spouse, and with a limit to ensure that payment of the debt does not reduce the residue of the estate below £100,000.

    Surely if you don’t like the scheme the government is offering then the alternative would be to find care providers prepared to offer a similar interest free and unsecured arrangement privately, directly, more cheaply, without government involvement?

    I can only say “Good luck with that”.

    1. alan jutson
      May 22, 2017

      Denis

      Some reports are suggesting that you will need to agree a loan against the house (once your savings have run out) with the local Authority, before they will pay for care, that loan will then attract interest.

      Not been made clear if it is on first death of a couple or second death, first death would mean surviving spouse turned out of their home !!!.

      Also who values the home and what happens if it drops in value, do the family get a refund ?

      What a bloody silly and complicated theft tax.

      1. Denis Cooper
        May 22, 2017

        Which reports?

        On the same page in the manifesto as these proposals there is a reference to a forthcoming green paper, so there will be opportunities to identify and iron out difficulties.

  58. M. W. Browne
    May 21, 2017

    I’ve read that the WFA costs £2 bn per year, and foreign aid costs £14 bn per year. What sort of corrupt government gives money to foreigners, and takes noney from it’s own people ?
    Why are the Scotch, once again, getting a free ride ?

  59. JoolsB
    May 21, 2017

    What really infuriates me is this is yet another attack on the English by a party that would not exist without England’s support. This death tax only applies to England, not that you’ll hear the word England come out of the mouths of May and our self serving politicians. They’d rather we think we are all in it together and this policy will affect us all but it won’t. Only England’s elderly will have their homes taken by the state on death just as only England’s young pay £9,000 tuition fees and only England’s sick pay for their prescriptions.

    The biggest mystery is why England carries on voting for a party that treats it with so much contempt. They’ve certainly lost my vote.

  60. Spratt
    May 21, 2017

    If she wants to retrieve some support Mrs May needs to commit very fast to:

    1. a detailed examination of the boundaries between what qualifies as health care and what qualifies as social care so that people who need 24 hour care because of diminished capacity, behavioural problems and inability to function safely are not conflated with people who can manage with just help with shopping and cleaning i.e. the sort of support that a family would reasonably provide or we should all be prepared to pay for if we can

    2. Passing legislation to stop differential rates being charged to self-funders and council-funded people for care and support at home or in residential care

  61. Thames Trader
    May 21, 2017

    There needs to be a grown up debate in the country about social care. However I feel the topic has been introduced in this election in an extremely clumsy way. It just looks “nasty party”. (this particularly also applies to the reduction in free school meals). There’s been no explanation of the current system and how the proposal improves on it.

    I think the subject should have been introduced as “to be reformed following consultation” without arbitrary limits like £100k and preferably to be worked through on a cross-party basis. The whole subject will be worrying a lot of older people and will lose votes for the Tory party. It looks so amateurish despite the best intentions.

  62. bad at sums
    May 21, 2017

    There’s a post on Housepricecrash Forum under Middle Class Pensioners lose benefits which says that the government approached Insurance industry some months ago to devise an insurance plan for re house equity/ care costs . The gist of it is there’s no cap to premiums so you could end up losing all the 100k. Can’t say I understand it at all though.

  63. Iain Gill
    May 21, 2017

    So even as the least worst option feedback here demonstrates how messed the conservative party has become.

    Where are the people with a clue?

  64. Juliet
    May 21, 2017

    Government has to take money from somebody before it can spend it. In the case of adult social care which is now facing crisis there is no money in the pot that should be there for those who have paid taxes and lifelong NI contributions.

    From 2002 until now UK low wage low skilled unskilled job market has grown and include a high % of EU workers who pay little or no taxes and not enough towards NI contributions, and now where facing the consequences of an growing low wage economy. There are too many people on low wages that will not be affected by the change but will still benefit. The system is unfair and unsustainable

    Reality check
    – nothing has changed apart from raising the threshold when payment starts (before £23,000, now £100,000)
    – domicile property will be treated as assets and will now undergo means testing
    – nursing care will be paid for after death
    – expectations of inheriting the entire value of ones family home after the death of a parent is some what limited

    So people who own (property) have to pay for people who don’t have a property ?

    1. Juliet
      May 21, 2017

      Time to reform the healthcare system and make it free only for UK citizens, everyone else should pay for NHS treament and those on low wages and recently immigrated should have mandatory healthcare insurance otherwise return home. NHS is broken and no longer sustainable under its current service model.

  65. John
    May 21, 2017

    This is a recent idea that residential professional care should be paid for by the state.

    I think it is the Baby Boomer generation that is calling for it, I am just in that generation.

    The position up until recently was that you funded it privately or you cashed in your home for a retirement home package or took your chances.

    It seems the baby boomers, having made vast money on property that has out priced the young ones, are not satisfied! They want the young ones to pay for their residential care.

    Having seen huge wealth accumulation from collective mass immigration policy they don’t want to share it now but want the costs of care shared and they to keep their assets.

  66. Anonymous
    May 21, 2017

    How much care cost will the Scots pay ?

  67. Ken Moore
    May 21, 2017

    JR – This means when someone moves from their own home into a care home for the rest of their lives a decision has to be made about the use of the home they are vacating which will have implications for any means tested benefits and support.

    What has this ‘decision’ got to do with the State , me or even John Redwood ? Why does he want to penalise people for saving and doing what used to be described as ‘the right thing’. ?. Why is it fair that those that spend everything as they go along or don’t work long hours get everything for nothing?.
    What kind of perverse incentives does this provide..

    If an individual has worked hard and paid of a mortgage it has nothing to do with the state. If I go into a supermarket I am not asked to pay more for the goods because I have driven there in a nice car.
    Hope you have got your tin hat ready Mr Redwood I fear your reckless out of touch ‘leaderership’ has dumped on you again.

    Reply This decision only matters to the state if the individual wants state help with the care home costs. It matters to the family who do not usually want to have to pay taxes and maintenance on an empty home.

    1. Ken Moore
      May 22, 2017

      Thanks for your reply Dr Redwood .

      I don’t see this as a question of state ‘help’ – it is an entitlement as part of the contact that should the worst happen the state will step in.
      It is not individuals fault that successive governments have engaged in pointless expensive wars, run grossly inefficient public services, made welfare a lifestyle choice and permitted mass immigration that has stretched public services to breaking point leaving them starved of cash.
      Home owners have already paid for a their house on taxed income – to be further taxes on this asset then pay inheritance tax on top is grossly unfair.

  68. Ken Moore
    May 22, 2017

    It is a total disgrace ,  you work all your life pay your way , do your best for your family and hope to leave them cared for and have to pay for your care alive or dead.
    Another person never works, lives off the state, has more kids than they can afford, live in rented accommodation that gets paid for, draw benefits and get their care for free.
    Would a real Conservative please stand up!

  69. Lindsay McDougall
    May 22, 2017

    As usual, the interesting thing is the dog that didn’t bark. Suicide is never mentioned as a legitimate, let alone a respectable option. Yet old age is a time of decline and can be costly and unpleasant, not only for the old person but for those around him/her. Why is it so wrong to influence the timing and manner of one’s death?

    I am 70 and already have had two artificial hip operations, have got psoriasis and kidney problems, and my mobility is slightly reduced. Nothing serious, and I’m still enjoying life, but I sometimes look ahead. Some diseases and ailments can be genetically inherited, and conditions from which my aging relatives have died include bowel cancer, angina, pneumonia, heart failure, a pulmonary embolism resulting from being bed ridden, and heart failure. No dementia so far, touch wood, but it’s not a nice list.

    If one has children, then there is an optimum time to depart this mortal coil. If one dies when one’s children are in their thirties, then they inherit when they are looking to have families of their own. If you read Professor Richard Dawkins’ book ‘The Selfish Gene’, you will see why this matters.

    So who would want to stop me taking this decision when I judge the moment to be right? Why, the medical profession, the nursing and caring professions, politicians, lawyers and the God squad would. All of these groups gain income and/or power by increasing the number of years of decrepitude in the population. The House of Commons voted down by 3:1 a bill by the Labour MP Rob Maries to allow assisted suicide in the UK. The Swiss can be trusted to do it, but apparently we can’t.

    1. Prigger
      May 22, 2017

      I really do understand what you say.
      Unfortuantely there are younger people than yourself or even of your own age that if assisted suicide were made readily available would create trouble for people who were ill and very ill who did not take up the option of suicide because “it is a drain to the health system” and “young people are suffering because of selfish old people”. We have already heard the SNP and LibDems go on about how young people’s opinions are not taken into consideration and they deserve a vote from 14 years of age. Well what do the youth say, some of them? They say OLD people are selfish in wanting out of the EU. You can see where the SNP and LibDems are taking us all…to the grave!!!

  70. see it through
    May 22, 2017

    Suicide is wrong and open to depressed people being coerced into it.
    The hospice movement needs expanding.

  71. Know-dice
    May 22, 2017

    There are a couple of extra issues that don’t seem to have been discussed.

    It seems that under the new proposal that householders in common would have a “joint and several” liability in respect of the first person that calls on Governmental support with their social care. Would this mean that a “partner” house owner could be disadvantaged at some stage in the future if their partner has already depleted their share of a joint owned property?.

    Would this stop or make it difficult for the remaining partner to downsize?

    There is also a North/South aspect, as a typical small property in Wokingham is probably worth £400,000+ whereas the same property in the north could be under £100,000

    Should there be the equivalent of a “London Weighting” on this proposal?

    I still think although Mrs May is trying to be honest about her “left leaning” future, she is playing a very very risky game as shown by the 9% drop in the polls over the weekend.

    Cake and eat it – yes I will always eat the cake that I have paid for, although I certainly would share with my friends…

  72. John Finn
    May 22, 2017

    May has played a risky game by introducing detailed proposals on such a complex issue at this time .There’s no doubt about that. However, that aside, there’s a lot of nonsense being written about the Social Care policy which appears to be focused on the fact that payment assessments for Domiciliary Care will now take account of the value of the home.

    Is this fair?

    Consider two 70 year olds who now need care, i.e. A & B. Both have worked and paid taxes all their lives They’ve both “done the right thing”. A had a better paid job than B and bought a house when he was 25.

    A has a house worth £500,000 and has £10,000 in savings.
    B rents a small flat but has a retirement nest egg of £50,000

    B pays – A doesn’t – Is that fair?

  73. Peter
    May 22, 2017

    It is just as stated in the George Carlin routine

    “And now they’re coming for your Social Security money. They want your retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their ………….. friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it all from you sooner or later ’cause they own this place. It’s a big club and you ain’t in it. You and I are not in the big club. …The table is tilted, folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice. …And nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. ”

    I bet this does not get published.

    People will hide assets in future.

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