Dozens of Tories are poised to rebel today against Boris Johnson’s plan to make elderly care reforms less generous.
Yesterday, a former cabinet minister said he will vote against an amendment which would make less-eligible pensioners pay more. A Red Wall MP cautioned the Prime Minister to not take his support as a given.
Many more MPs were last night considering whether to break the party whip for the first time and waiting to see if ministers offered last-minute concessions to the proposals, which have been dubbed an ‘inheritance tax on the North’.
Dozens of Tories are set to rebel against Boris Johnson’s plan to make elderly care reforms less generous today
They are not only afraid of backlash from constituents if the Government is supported, but they also fear that the Government may force them to make a U-turn again like it did over the Owen Paterson scandal.
The row centres on the long-promised lifetime cap, which was announced in September and which will mean pensioners never have to pay more than £86,000 in care costs.
It was thought that council care costs for poorer residents would count toward the limit. However, small print from last week proved otherwise.
The change means that elderly people will have to keep paying their own way for much longer before they hit this ceiling, and it will disproportionately affect voters in the North and Midlands that were vital to the Tories’ 2019 election victory, whose houses are worth less than those in the South.
Anyone with a home worth less than £186,000 will be hit with higher care costs under the proposals, analysis carried out by Labour suggests.
Labour estimates that the North of England has an average value of about £75,000, with 107 constituencies in the North, and no in London or South East.
By contrast, pensioners with homes worth more than £186,000 will be unaffected.
Robert Buckland was an ex-justice secretary and became the Tory first MP to say he would vote against today’s Government.
He told LBC radio: ‘The Government must look again at this. I think it’s far better to actually publish the social care White Paper first so that we can see what the new proposals are – what is the system that we’re going to be funding?’
Asked if other Tory MPs shared his view, he replied: ‘I think there’s a lot of concern out there about this issue and I know that the Government is listening to those concerns.’
Christian Wakeford, who took Bury South for the Conservatives at the last election, told Times Radio: ‘What I wanted to see was a plan, and it feels like we didn’t have one then and I’m not fully sure we’ve got one now.
‘But then to move the goalposts after we’ve already introduced this, it’s not something I’m particularly comfortable with, especially when one of the main messages for introducing this levy was you won’t need to sell your house for care.’
Asked if he would vote against it, he replied: ‘It shouldn’t be taken for granted that we’re just going to walk through the same lobby.’
Another Red Wall MP said he was still deciding how to vote and that Mr Buckland’s intervention had caused many of his colleagues to think twice about supporting the Government.
Anyone with a home worth less than £186,000 will be hit with higher care costs under the proposals, analysis carried out by Labour suggests
Mel Stride (Tory Chairman of the Treasury Committee) has asked that the Chancellor provide a breakdown on how many pensioners would have to sell their houses under the new plans before they vote.
Former health secretary Jeremy Hunt told The Observer it was ‘deeply disappointing’ that the plans were not as progressive as those originally set out by economist Andrew Dilnot.
Former Cabinet minister Damian Green said: ‘I would urge them to adopt a different approach.’
Sajid Javid, Health Secretary, said it is still an improvement over the existing system that has no cost cap and uses a less generous means test.
He told the BBC: ‘No one will have to pay more than £86,000, doesn’t matter who they are, where they live in the country.’
Labour’s health spokesman Jonathan Ashworth urged Red Wall MPs to vote down the proposed amendment to the Care Act today.
He said: ‘Government ministers have not only whacked up tax on working people but are now asking MPs to vote for pensioners across the North and Midlands with modest assets to be hit hardest under Boris Johnson’s care con.
‘We’re calling on Red Wall MPs to put their constituents first and join us in voting down this deeply unfair proposal. Ministers must retreat to the drawing board and come up with a fairer package.’