Tory MPs vote through care cap ‘catastrophe’ for poor Brits despite revolt

Labour said Boris Johnson’s care home funding plan was ‘asking people with less to pay more to protect the assets of the wealthiest’

MPs have rejected calls from peers to rethink a Tory care cap which could hit poorer elderly people with “catastrophic costs”.

Boris Johnson’s long-delayed social care plans set an £86,000 limit on how much people will have to pay over their lifetimes for care fees from October 2023.

But a controversial late shake-up excluded means-tested council contributions from the cap.

Peers inflicted a defeat on the Government over the plan earlier this month, sending it back to the Commons for a fresh clash.

But MPs voted 247 to 150, majority 97, on Wednesday night to reject calls to ditch the plan, which critics say will hit poorer people harder.

Eight Conservative MPs voted against the Government, including former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt.

A report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies and Health Foundation previously warned that older people with modest resources will be hit hardest, facing “catastrophic costs”.

Those with assets including their home of £75,000 to £150,000 face the biggest hit, the study found.

Someone with around £110,000 in assets could lose 78% of their total wealth even after the cap is in place, while someone with £500,000 could use up only 17%.

People in Red Wall seats in North East, Yorkshire and the Midlands, where wealth tends to be lower, would “see the biggest erosion of their protection against large care costs, as a result of the proposed amendment”, the report warned.

Shadow health minister Karin Smyth told MPs: “The department has sneaked out the view that restricting contributions to the cap to those means-tested to their care charges would save an estimated £900 million by 2027/28 in cash terms.”

She added: “Let’s be clear, if that’s the true estimate then that’s what the Treasury is talking about saving from the poorest – those working-age adults with a disability and older people with fewer assets, that’s where that money comes from.

“That’s not fixing social care, that’s asking people with less to pay more to protect the assets of the wealthiest. The less you have, the more they will take.”

Conservative MP Kevin Hollinrake also warned that the cap would have a disproportionate impact on regions in the North with “lower assets and lower wealth”.

The Thirsk and Malton MP described the move as a “classic policy of levelling down, not levelling up”.

Phillip Anderson, Head of Policy at the MS Society, said the move would have “serious implications for the social care support that working age disabled adults will receive”.

He said: “Rather than embracing an opportunity to fix our broken social care system, the government’s callous decision will leave many people unprotected from catastrophic care costs.