My Lords, I will speak very briefly in support of the amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, spoke with his usual clarity in moving the amendment and I shall not repeat his arguments, which seem to me to be compelling. However, I will point out that the amendment now before us is in effect the last remaining part of a discussion that started at Second Reading, continued in Committee and on Report and in private meetings with the Minister and his officials. At the start there were, broadly speaking, two concerns about information and advice. The first was about the Dilnot recommendation that there should be an extensive public awareness campaign about the facts and the implications of the cap. Our concern was essentially about the leadership, the scale and the monitoring of this campaign. I am very grateful to the Minister and his officials for all the discussions that they have had with us over this issue.
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I am pleased that we appear to have arrived at a satisfactory understanding. The Minister has confirmed in writing that the department has a vital role to play at national level. He has also confirmed that the department will co-ordinate the message to ensure a simple, coherent campaign. He has made it clear that the campaign will require concentrated effort and resource over a period of time. As to monitoring the effectiveness of the campaign, the Minister has again made it clear that the adult social care outcomes framework and the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing will contain the appropriate measures and questions.
I was enormously encouraged that the department has begun work on new questions for the annual health survey for England to enable us to track public awareness of these measures over time. The fieldwork for this, I understand, will be carried out in 2014 and the results will be available to us at the end of 2015, in time to establish a baseline for the information campaigns which are due to start in 2015 and 2016. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, has said, we are still left with a concern over the provision of financial advice, and in particular over the provision, where appropriate, of independent financial advice. That is the issue addressed by the amendment. As the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, has said, our discussions seem to indicate that there is not much, if any, real difference between the proposers of the amendment and the Government. I hope that that is the case and that the Government may be prepared to accept our amendment today or to give us reassurance that its objective will be fulfilled by other means.