Gordon Brown's flagship free personal care bill became law today after it was passed by the House of Lords. The Personal Care at Home Bill, which was only saved after the government offered key concessions to opponents, received Royal Assent on Parliament's last sitting day before the election. The legislation, announced by Brown at last year's Labour conference, is designed to provide free care at home for about 280,000 people with the highest needs and reablement support for 130,000 people a year. However, in a concession made to its critics in the Lords, the government agreed that both Houses of Parliament will have to approve implementation of the measure in a vote after the next election. Its future therefore depends on who wins the election, and though the Conservatives have not opposed the legislation, they have criticised it on grounds of cost. Ministers also agreed to put back the start date for the plan to April 2011. This followed concerns that councils would not be able to implement the policy by the government's preferred date of October 2010. The reform is the first stage of Labour's proposed three-stage transformation of the care funding system, as outlined in last week's White Paper on care reform. Peers and local authorities have raised concerns about the costs of the legislation, which have been estimated by the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services to be as high as £1bn a year, compared with the government's estimate of £670m. View the story at it's source here: http://bit.ly/aLXvm3