§ Mr. HarveyTo ask the Secretary of State for Health which elements of the Government's proposals for elderly care, announced in the National Health Service National Plan, were included by the Royal Commission on Long Term Care in its estimate for free personal care. [136041]
§ Mr. HuttonThe Royal Commission on Long Term Care proposed that personal care should be free, with recipients of long-term care making a co-payment for living and housing costs. It did not sum a series of proposals to reach its estimate of the cost of free personal care. It used information on the costs of care and the numbers of privately funded residents. Our proposals for free nursing care fall within the Royal Commission's estimate of the cost of free personal care, as do the proposed changes to the residential charging rules—the three month property disregard, uprating the capital limits and resources to enable councils to place charges on homes.