Events | 2010.02.14
Tories leave cross-party talks on care for elderly in doubt
• Tories unlikely to attend conference held by health secretary
• Party lambasted by Lib Dems and Labour over \'death tax\' ad
The prospect of reviving cross-party talks on the future of care for the elderly looked poor today as the Tories signalled they were unlikely to attend a conference being held by the health secretary this week.
In the first public debate between the three parties\' health spokesmen since secret talks to find a solution broke down last week, the Liberal Democrats\' Norman Lamb came close to accusing the shadow health secretary, Andrew Lansley, of lying in explaining his rationale for abandoning their initial discussions. Lamb said: "He\'s not being straight with us."
The two entered into secret talks with Andy Burnham towards the end of last year, meeting either side of the Christmas break to attempt to establish cross-party consensus on how to fund a new scheme offering free healthcare for the elderly. Labour and the Lib Dems accuse Lansley of wrecking the talks by overreacting to a media report last week suggesting the government planned a £20,000 levy on estates to help with the cost of care for the elderly. By that afternoon, the Tories had billboard adverts up around the country dubbing the plans a "death tax".
Today on BBC1\'s Politics Show, Lansley clashed with Labour and Lib Dem counterparts over the sequence of events leading up to the ad. Burnham and Lamb also questioned why so much was made by the Conservatives over reports on the levy when it had been known for some months that that option was among a number being considered by the government.
On the programme, Lamb said Lansley had acknowledged a levy was possible when the three men convened their talks and suggested the Tory MP was not being "straight" after his party released his declared statement of principles which it said proved he had always been opposed to talk of any compulsory tax. The Tories also said that the only initial statement of principle they had received from the health secretary had been a text message, proving Burnham\'s lack of seriousness.
Burnham is now pushing for all parties to attend this week\'s conference. But the Tories have stepped up their opposition after it emerged over weekend that pollsters had been employed to test the idea of a 10% levy to fund elderly care.
Lansley has said he will only rule out a compulsory levy. The Tories have proposed a voluntary levy instead, which would guarantee free personal care.
Meanwhile, Joan Bakewell, the government\'s "voice of older people", spoke out in favour of the principle of some kind of charge and questioning why the assets of the old should always be passed to their children. The suggestion of a charge, she said, was the "alternative to having to sell your home".
The breaking of the secret cross-party truce has come to signal much more with onlookers suggesting Lansley was forced to tear up the agreement unusually early into the negotiations when his party high command came to hear of it and disliked his attempts to move in to an unusually mature plane of negotiations. The shadow health secretary insists there was no bad faith on his part and emphasises they had been his idea in the first place.
The shadow education secretary, Michael Gove, weighed in to defend his colleague today, producing Labour election leaflets on the BBC1\'s Andrew Marr programme which showed the party to be campaigning against Tory plans for free social care.
Gove said: "People in glass houses should not throw stones." He said Burnham was a "young politician, idealistic, but he has a lot to learn".
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/f[...]ries-accused-over-elderly-care
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