Age UK: Government has 'ripped the heart out of social and economic reform' and open attacks on pensioners and families by Conservatives. Local Councillors agree.

 

The recent changes to the care cap within the Social Care Bill, shows how influenced the Conservatives in power at Westminster are by the 20% of wealthy families who can afford to bear the costs of the £86,000 care cap set by the Government whilst ignoring the remaining 80% who can't.

In a move that observers believe has been made to support the estate growth of property rental magnates and contributors to the Conservative party, waiting in the wings to scoop up properties cheaply being forced onto the open market to cover the cap charges, destroying the plans of families for decades.

Recent research carried out by charity Age UK has found that fewer than one in five  pensioners will see any benefit from the Government's £86,000 cap on social care bills, with those with the most assets set to benefit the most. 

Charity director Caroline Abrahams said a proposed change to the cap "will take it beyond the reach of older people with low or modes amounts of income and wealth", while leaving "the situation of the better off more or less intact". 

The Government has proposed a change to the cap that will exclude local authority payments from the cap calculation, which Age UK says will disproportionately impact poorer pensioners. "l'm struggling to remember the last time a government of any complexion trumpeted a social and economic reform and then ripped the heart out of it less than two months later", Ms Abrahams added.

Local Councillors from two of Northumberland County Council's most deprived wards suffering from absentee private landlords high rent regimes in Croft and Cowpen, Blyth, Northumberland, Kath Nisbet and Margaret Richardson completely agree with the sentiments reported from Age UK.

Councillor Nisbet said "I represent Croft ward which has some of the lowest property values in the UK which has seen a huge expansion in  the growth of homes remotely managed by absentee landlords and this opportunity from the Conservatives to grow their estates whilst local families lose their inheritance opportunities is a disgraceful act from a Government only interested in their own class"

Councillor Richardson who represents Cowpen ward, the most deprived ward in the huge County of Northumberland told us "this announcement of a care cap set at £86,000 and care support from Council's being discounted from the count will suck the lifeblood from families who have struggled since the late 1980's."

 "It takes two wages coming in to pay the bills for families in Cowpen but if the care cap is set so high it places families in an unenviable position in having to choose, either to drop to one worker and struggle to pay the families way in life whilst the other becomes a carer or for many families, have to sell the roof over their heads as the wider sharing of a family home is quite common it just shows how heartless Conservatives have become".