Boris Johnson was tonight dealt a damning Lords defeat over his care cap that will hit Red Wall residents with “catastrophic costs”.
Peers voted 198-158 to remove a last minute shake-up in his plan for care home funding that will mean poorer people pay more.
The Prime Minister will now be forced either to abandon the plan or force it through the Commons for a second time - despite a Tory backlash. When the shake-up last went through the Commons in November, 19 Tory MPs rebelled.
Anita Charlesworth of the Health Foundation said MPs must now reject the Tory shake-up, because they voted "in the dark" before - but multiple reports now show it will devastate poorer care residents.
She said: "The government’s amendment is a step in the wrong direction. It has substantial real-world consequences for those with lower assets.”
Under Boris Johnson ’s care funding plan, people will not have to pay more than £86,000 over their lifetimes for care fees from October 2023.
But in a late change, ministers said anything councils pay towards people’s care will not count towards the cap.
A joint Institute for Fiscal Studies and Health Foundation report said older people with modest levels of wealth will be hit hardest, facing “catastrophic costs”.
Those with assets including their home of £75,000 to £150,000 face the biggest loss of protection.
Someone with around £110,000 in assets could lose 78% of their total wealth even after the cap is in place, while someone with £500,000 could use up only 17%, according to the study.
Labour peer Baroness Wheeler said the shake-up was a “last-minute, hastily scraped together, ill-thought-through mishmash” that was “bombarded” through the Commons without enough scrutiny.
She added: “The bombshell of abandoning the key safeguarding… means poorer people will be exposed to the same care costs as the very wealthiest in society.
“Someone with assets of £100,000 loses almost everything, whereas someone with assets worth £1m and over will keep almost everything.”
A DHSC chart suggests someone with just over £100,000 of wealth will lose around 70% of it in a decade, compared to just under 60% in previously proposed reforms.
The government insists other people will be better off - and everyone will be better off than the current system.
It was one of a string of defeats peers inflicted on the Tory government over the Health and Care Bill.
Peers voted 187-143 for a move led by Tory former health secretary Lord Lansley, forcing ministers to implement the original plans for a social care cap by April next year.
Peers also backed a move to prevent coroners being able to access confidential "safe space'' information collected by healthcare investigators.
The House of Lords backed measures to retain the current "safe haven" for NHS data by 207 votes to 169, majority 38.
And peers passed an amendment demanding safeguards over the discharge of patients from hospital, including ensuring the consultation of carers.
Liberal Democrat Lords Spokesperson for Health, Baroness Sal Brinton, said: “This Conservative Government’s plans come nowhere near fulfilling Boris Johnson’s election promise on the steps of Downing Street to ‘fix’ the ongoing crisis in social care. These unfair and divisive plans will not stop people needing to sell their homes to pay for care and is yet another broken promise.
"The vote tonight shows that the Liberal Democrats and others are fighting hard for a fair and long-term solution to the social care crisis and are holding this Government to account.”
