A centre left think tank, regarded as close in political thinking to the Labour government, has called for all personal care as well as nursing care of elderly people to be free.

In a report published last week, the Institute for Public Policy Research reviews the debates on funding long term care and raising state pensions.

It recommends that the government adopt a policy about to be introduced in Scotland in which the state funds not just nursing care, as now, but also personal care of people in residential homes.

The last Conservative government introduced means testing of elderly people going into residential care in 1993. This has meant that …