Posts Tagged ‘Elderly’
Labour will tax the dead
Gordon Brown’s death tax
Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley says that ministers are secretly planning a “death tax” of up to £20,000 per head to pay for their plans for a National Care Service.
“Gordon Brown needs to come clean with the public and say how he will fund his new National Care Service”, Lansley said.
“Behind closed doors Ministers are secretly planning a death tax of up to £20,000 per head which would be levied on the estates of grieving families.”
Lansley added that even this death tax would not raise enough to pay for this new National Care Service, meaning that Labour are also planning to take away cash disability benefits from the elderly and cut money from the NHS. “It is another top-down, bureaucratic, costly plan from Labour for which every one of us would end up paying the price”, he said.
Philip Hammond, the Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, described the problem this death tax would cause: “When you die, a Labour Government would take £20,000 from what you leave to your children and family. For those with the most modest savings Labour’s plans could leave them with nothing.”
In contrast, he said the Conservatives want to help people in old age so that they can “leave as much of their lifetime’s savings as possible to the next generation”.
“We will offer people the chance to pay a one off premium of £8,000 into a voluntary scheme to cover the cost of residential care in old age. So under our plans no-one would be forced to sell their home to pay for care.”
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Better care for the elderly
Protecting Britain’s Pensioners
Labour want to cut Disability Living Allowance and Attendance Allowance for over 65s, wrecking their chances of living independently.
2.4 million elderly people need support to cope with a physical or mental disability.
These people rely on disability benefits – a third of them through the Disability Living Allowance for over 65s, and two thirds of them through the Attendance Allowance.
Labour want to cut these benefits, wrecking their chances of living independently and having the freedom to tailor their care to their needs.
Those over 65 who claim Disability Living Allowance currently get an average of £75 every week, and those who receive Attendance Allowance get an average of £60. This compares to an average pensioner’s income of around £250 a week.
This means that some of the most vulnerable pensioners in our country could lose around a quarter of their income – amounting to a loss of around £8 billion a year.
These cuts are unwise, unfair, and unkind. Our pensioners deserve better.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
- Sign our petition against the care cuts
- Email/Write to your MP to ask them to oppose these cuts
- Add your name to this petition to the Prime Minister
CAMPAIGN UPDATE:
The Government’s social care policy was plunged into disarray during the Conservative Opposition Day debate on Tuesday 8th December in the House of Commons on ‘disability benefits for the elderly’.
The Health Secretary has now tried to assert that there will now be “no cash losers” amongst current recipients of disability benefits in a future care and support system. This is at odds with the proposed changes to Attendance Allowance and Disability Living Allowance for the over 65s contained in the Government’s own Green Paper.
All of the preferred funding models in the Government’s Green Paper are underpinned by integrating Attendance Allowance and Disability Living Allowance for people over 65 into a future care and support system, with no guarantees that benefit recipients would receive the same level of ‘cash’ support.
The change of policy, announced unexpectedly on the floor of the House, has effectively holed the Government’s own Green Paper below the waterline as none of its funding models currently reflect this new policy.
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