The House of Lords has voted in favour of the current version of the Health and Social Care Bill, effectively voting against amendments that would have ensured that nobody in England under the age of 40 would have to pay for their care and support.
The reforms will introduce a lifetime cap of £86,000 on how much anyone needs to pay for social care. The government’s own impact assessment admits that only 10% of working-age Disabled adults who need social care will benefit from the changes; that a fifth of older people will not see any benefits from the cap, and that poorer care users are much more likely to die before they reach the cap.
Baroness Campbell told Disability News Service (DNS) that the proposals in the bill were “criminal” and “will continue to push disabled people of all ages into greater poverty and dependency”.
DR UK’s Head of Policy Fazilet Hadi said: “Younger Disabled people will stand virtually no chance of building up savings for things like mortgages, or being able to pay off student loans, as they will now have to foot the bill for care charges for decades of their lives before they retire, leaving them without assets and at the risk of poverty in older age. This creates a huge disparity in equity of opportunity between Disabled younger people and non-disabled younger people across their lifetimes.”