“One of [Labour’s options to pay for social care] is a £20,000 levy on every single elderly person in this country except the very poorest.”
David Cameron, Conservative leader, prime minister’s questions, 10 February 2010

Cathy Newman checks it out:
The Conservative poster campaign – a tombstone emblazoned with the words “RIP off” – is certainly striking. Its aim is to attack Gordon Brown’s supposed proposals for a £20,000 “death tax” to fund social care – everything from help washing and dressing to living in a residential home.

It’s a point driven home by the Tory leader in prime minister’s questions today. But is David Cameron guilty of scoring cheap political points by scaring the elderly witless?

Or is he doing us all a favour by exposing behind-the-scenes plans for a new and unpopular tax?

Over to the team for the analysis:
The average 65-year-old in England will need care and support that costs on average £30,000 during retirement. But if you move out of your house into a residential home, and have assets or property worth £23,000 or more, you don’t get any help from the state.

Politicians from all parties think this is unfair, and want to change the system.

So last summer, the government published a green paper setting out plans for a national care service plus five possible ways to pay for it (see box starting page 16).

Two of these were ruled out from the word go, leaving three for consideration:

1. Partnership: the state would pay for a set proportion of care costs, around a quarter or a third. For example, if the individual paid £20,000 – by using their savings or selling their home – the state might pay £10,000. This is most similar to the current option, where all but the poorest have to fund their own care.

2. Voluntary insurance: people would be expected to pay around £20,000-£25,000, in instalments or as a lump sum, before or after retirement, or it could be taken from someone’s estate after death; in return, those who paid in would get their basic care free at the point of use.

3. Compulsory insurance: this is the so-called death tax the Conservatives oppose. Everyone who could afford it would be made to pay around £20,000 into a compulsory insurance scheme, either during their working life, or after they died. In return, everyone would get their basic care needs covered, regardless of how much (or how little) care they needed.

So the green paper does outline several funding options, rather than just the death tax. How have the Tories been able to get away with a billboard campaign saying a Labour death tax is a dead cert?

Channel 4 News Factcheck understands that ministers aren’t keen on the first option because it’s much like the status quo. And there are problems with the second option – voluntary insurance – too. Because only the neediest tend to take up such insurance, there may not be enough money in the pot to pay out.

Government figures are understood to show that when other countries adopted optional cover of this sort, there was less than a 4 per cent take-up – leaving a funding black hole.

So all the evidence suggests ministers are edging towards some sort of compulsory insurance – that so-called death tax which everyone would pay into.

The health secretary Andy Burnham denies they plan to impose a £20,000 levy on every estate. But the Tories suspect Labour’s playing semantics.

The green paper makes it perfectly possible that people with assets worth more than £20,000 have to pay into an insurance scheme, while those with assets of, say, £10,000, would pay less. It’s also highly possible the final figure ends up being less than £20,000.

So in an interview with ITN, Mr Burnham admits he is seriously considering “a scheme that could require a compulsory contribution”. He says it’s “only one of the options” but makes clear his scepticism about the voluntary scheme, which could “end up costing more”.

You can watch the clip below:

Cathy Newman’s verdict:
We’ll have to wait for the government white paper to know for certain. But for now, compulsory insurance of some sort remains firmly on the table.

The Conservatives may be wrong to put a precise figure on the death tax, and wrong to say it’ll happen for certain.

And it may be regrettable they’ve broken the cross-party consensus on something as tricky as how we care for an ageing population.

But David Cameron was right to say today that compulsory insurance is an option under consideration.