My Lords, I have listened with care to noble Lords as they have introduced their respective amendments and I am confident that we can all agree
that the issues that they raise are vital to the successful implementation of government policy and are essential parts of good policy-making. Let me first address the questions about the cost and funding of these reforms. We have taken and will continue to take a robust, evidence-based approach to assessing the cost of the reforms. We are working closely with local authorities to help them to understand the costs at a local level, and we will use this knowledge to refine our national modelling further. Funding of care and support, including the reforms in Part 1, will be reviewed regularly as part of the spending review process, and the core elements of the capped-costs system will be reviewed within each five-year period.
Turning to the specific issue of the short and long-term costs of the national eligibility threshold, I can assure noble Lords that we have published an impact assessment fully setting up the costs and benefits of the policy. We have comprehensively assessed and funded those provisions. We have published impact assessments for all elements of the Bill and, in line with the Government’s approach to all new burdens on local authorities, those costs were fully funded in this year’s spending round. Those estimates are based on the best available evidence in the area. They have been produced in co-operation with academic experts and officials from across government.
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Similarly, I can assure the noble Lords and the noble Baroness that we have fully considered the wider impact of the reforms, including the impact on the NHS. It really would not be productive to ask the OBR to repeat that analysis in 2014. That would simply repeat what has already been done, and it would have no further evidence on which to base its work, even if it were to do it. Nor would that be an appropriate role for the OBR, which is independent and has complete discretion to determine the content of its publications and its programme of research and analysis.
The noble Lords and the noble Baroness are of course absolutely right that it is essential that sufficient funding is made available for the successful implementation of these reforms. In addition, when allocating funding for its policies, the Government need to take a broad overview of activity across all public services so that we can make the best possible decisions. That is the purpose of the spending review process and why a spending review is the best place to make funding decisions. I struggle to see how a separate official process considering funding for care and support in isolation is either appropriate or desirable.
The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, also suggests that we review the adequacy of public funding for social care services, a point reiterated by the noble Lord, Lord Warner. I can assure them that we have done precisely that in the recent spending round. As a response to the increasing demand for care and support, we have taken steps to ensure that adequate funding will be available. We have increased the NHS contribution to care and support with the health benefit by £200 million in 2013-14, taking the total amount to £1.1 billion and have gone further in 2015-16 by creating a £3.8 billion pooled budget for health and social care, which will
provide the resources to protect care and support services and break new ground in driving closer integration.
However, of course, spending decisions for care and support will ultimately be taken by local authorities. Perhaps I could deal with the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, when he suggested that the £335 million to which he referred had been topsliced from the local government settlement. That funding will be allocated by DCLG in 2015-16 as part of the local government settlement. That was agreed as part of the spending round, which reviewed all government spending, as I mentioned. There was no pre-existing settlement for 2015-16 before the spending round, so it is not true that this money has been topsliced.
I turn to the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Warner, that the Government should publish a review of the working of the reforms ahead of the first five-yearly review. Reviewing and evaluating those reforms is indeed essential; I agree with him on that. That is why we will conduct post-legislative scrutiny, as the Government have committed to do across the board for all new Acts. The agreement we have with the House Liaison Committee in another place is that that should be done between three and five years after Royal Assent. The joint programme and implementation board, which we have set up in collaboration with the Local Government Association and the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, will also assure implementation, and we will work with local government on continuing assurance and improvement
I truly do not believe that it would be necessary or desirable to supplement those arrangements with further reviews, either by government or by other bodies. Such additional oversight would cut across the scrutiny conducted by the Health Select Committee and cross-government planning on spending through the spending round. I am sure the noble Lords will agree that it is only right that decisions on care and support are taken at the same time as spending plans are set for all areas of government.
I hope that noble Lords will be somewhat reassured and convinced by what I have said. I have a sinking feeling, looking at noble Lords opposite, that they may be intent on dividing the House. I ask them not to, and ask the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, to withdraw the amendment. Their underlying concerns are perfectly reasonable, but I believe that their prescription is misplaced and quite unnecessary.