I agree. I was just explaining, because some people will think that this is a brand new thing, although it is not. It does exist, but needs to be more widely available.

It is important to ensure that everybody sets up a deferred payment scheme that is simple, easy to understand and easy to use. Our amendment 104 would require the Secretary of State to have a model deferred payment scheme that local authorities should follow, unless they show good reason not to. Each local authority, as the Minister just said, has designed and implemented different  schemes and they will have to set up different care accounts to keep an eye on how much money people are spending and how much they have taken out in a loan. This is a big undertaking. Allowing councils to do this in different ways is potentially wasteful and could lead, as the Minister said, to variations in the schemes; some could be good and others could be poor quality. A simple single model that could be opted out of would aid councils. That could be a good way to have simple, clear, universal access, cutting back on bureaucracy and waste and saving the taxpayer money. This is a value for money and efficiency proposal, which I hope that the Minister will accept.

Amendment 105 relates to the interest on the loans. Let me clarify. I am sure that the Minister will correct me if I am wrong. Currently, councils are not allowed to charge interest on the loans while the person is alive. Interest can be charged once they have passed away. Our freedom of information survey shows that the rate councils charge varies between nothing and 8%. Once people die, their home has to be sold to pay back the loan. Some may sell a home quickly, but others may not. The interest really matters.

We do not disagree with the Government’s saying that interest should be charged on the loans. Councils are not going to be able to balance their books if lots of people take out the loans and they do not have that money in the bank. We are not disagreeing about interest. However, we have never heard that said by anyone, even the Care Minister, until we raised this issue in the media. It was in the fine print of the consultation document, but there has never been a big public statement saying, “You’re going to get these loans and interest will be charged.”

As I told the Committee, if interest is charged at 4%, as the Government’s consultation document suggests, for an average stay in a care home of two and a half years that would cost some £3,500. For the one in eight elderly people who stay in residential care for five years that could rack up almost £14,000 in interest charges. As I said, the interest will continue to grow until the family home has been sold, even after the person has died. It would be even bigger for elderly people who live in areas where residential care is more expensive. We have calculated this according to the average price of a care home and some people face paying much higher bills. Our amendment would ensure that the interest on the bills counts towards the cap. That is what many elderly people and families would expect. They would expect that that was part of their care costs.

I turn now to amendment 106 and the new means tests on the loans. When Dilnot recommended that the scheme be made universal he said he wanted it to be available, obviously, for everybody who might want to use it. However, in the consultation document the Government issued this summer they unexpectedly proposed a £23,250 limit on people’s savings. In other words, those who have more than that in savings would not qualify for the deferred payments scheme. The concern about this relates back to these claims that no one will have to pay for their care. As Lord Lipsey pointed out in the other place, someone who spends all of their savings down to £23,250, which would be a lot of money for many people, would get £700 a year at current interest rates, or just £14 a week.

For many elderly people in residential care, that means they would not be able to afford the little things that make life in a care home tolerable and give them pleasure in later life: buying a newspaper; getting presents for the grandchildren; buying them sweets. It is this human aspect, this personal cost to people’s quality of life that the Minister seems to have forgotten in suddenly saying that people will not be able to get a loan unless they have less than £23,250 in the bank. Our amendment does away with the means test for eligibility for these loans and restores the Dilnot principle of universality.

Amendment 107 relates to the point we have frequently raised about financial advice. Opposition Members and Government Members, particularly the hon. Member for South Derbyshire, have been engaging in the discussion about financial advice. There is concern about the deferred payment scheme and the loans and providing proper financial to people is really important. For some people it might make more financial sense to rent out their homes rather than to take out these loans because of the cost implications later on. People must get that good quality advice because they may not understand how the loan will affect them.

We have had this debate before but we still have not nailed this down. I would certainly want my constituents or my parents to get proper financial advice on whether the loan would benefit them because of the cost implications. I hope that the Minister takes this issue away. It has come up many times before. This is yet another reason why people need proper financial advice from properly trained and qualified advisers to ensure that all these issues are covered when they are thinking about the cap on care costs and this deferred payment loan.

Finally, hon. Members will be pleased to hear, amendment 96 calls for the regulations about the deferred payment loans to be subject to the affirmative resolution of both Houses of Parliament. This is yet another complex area. There is complex interplay with the cap and complex interplay with the means test. We need to see more details of all of this: the interest rates on these loans and whether they will be means-tested and at what level. It is essential to understand the combined package of who will benefit, and how, across the different income levels. The Minister is moving in an unsure way—[Laughter.]—with his eyebrows.