To pay for care for the elderly we should have a scheme whereby everyone is obliged to pay into a sort of professionally managed insurance structure, like life insurance but more like an endowment in that it would not have to wait for you to die before paying out, to be administered in the commercial financial sector. We have the best financial managers in the world in the City of London. All government would have to do be approve each person's scheme and pay tax relief on premiums. That must be the only control the government has in this, the duty to monitor. Then when people need long term care the scheme pays out. Whether or not it would cover the whole of the care costs remains open to debate and always will.
I do not want people's money going into the hands of HM Treasury in this instance, it would perform and grow better in the care of independent specialist fund managers.