My Lords, the Opposition strongly support the intention behind deferred payments. I hope therefore that the Minister will be able to give a serious response to my noble friend Lord Lipsey, because the issues before us are how the scheme is going to operate, the complexity that is necessarily involved and the ability of local authorities to do the right thing. Around all those matters, there remain some question marks.
While I would not necessarily support my noble friend on the specification of the interest rate, there are questions to be answered about how the Minister thinks the scheme will operate among the many local authorities which will be charged with discharging the scheme. For instance, on the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, we could see large differences emerge between different local authorities. That would be unfortunate, and I would be interested to hear from the Minister what work his department has done in trying to model how it thinks local authorities will operate the deferred payment scheme.
The argument for a model deferred payment scheme is pretty persuasive. Even if local authorities are to have discretion—I do not disagree with that—in operating their own scheme, surely the production by the Minister’s department of a model scheme would ensure greater consistency and save local authorities a great deal of work in having to work out the details of their own scheme. Given all their other responsibilities, as much support as possible should be given to local authorities. A model payment scheme would be very useful.
I have two points to make on my noble friend’s Amendment 92ZZY. First, it is very specific on the loans being made available for the purchase of point-of-need insurance policies secured against an adult’s
legal or beneficial interest in their home. That raises the whole issue of the insurance market. I again ask the Minister to reassure the House that he is confident that the insurance industry is prepared to come to market with suitable products. I know that he commented on this last week, but there remains some doubt about whether insurance companies really wish to operate in this market. Given that the whole thesis of Dilnot is that capping cost would lead to the development of an insurance market, this is something that we need to debate fully and be reassured on.
On Amendment 92ZZZ and the commencement date, I agree with my noble friends Lord Lipsey and Lord Warner about the complexity of what local authorities are being asked to do. We of course need to consider delay, but I do not understand why a different date has been chosen for the deferred payment scheme in contrast to other parts of the Dilnot implementation. It does not seem to make sense and, I would have thought, would be very confusing for people involved.
That brings me back to the second part of Amendment 92ZZY, which is the issue of regulated independent financial advice being made available to a person considering taking out a deferred payment. Surely the Minister will have been convinced by now that the financial consequences of decisions made by people in relation to the provisions in this Bill will be momentous. I would have hoped that by now he would recognise that the assurance that can be given through independent financial advice would be an important safeguard. Unless we have that, I fear that many people will have to make very difficult decisions, involving potentially large sums of money, without the necessary advice. That would detract from the generally consensual way in which we need to go forward. I hope that the Minister will perhaps have some good news for us on that front.