The introduction of free care at home for elderly people with “high needs” will be postponed by at least six months in an attempt to appease its many critics, the Government confirmed last night.

Hours after setting out the proposal as the first key reform in the social care White Paper, Andy Burnham, the Health Secretary, and Phil Hope, the Care Services Minister, supported an amendment which effectively pushes back the introduction of the controversial policy to 2011.

The move followed a resounding rejection this month of the Personal Care at Home Bill by the House of Lords, with peers voicing concerns over its rapid introduction, the lack of costing and its impact on local and national budgets. They voted for a raft of amendmemts, including a postponement of the Bill until April 2011 and a comprehensive review of its cost.

After setting out the Bill as the first stage in the introduction of a national care service (NCS) in the White Paper, Mr Burnham said it would start in 2011 rather than this October. He addressed the Commons hours before the Bill returned to the House for debate on the Lords proposed amendments.

The reforms set out in the White Paper are in three stages: the introduction of the Personal Care at Home Bill; a commitment to making residential care free after the second year by 2014; and a decision on how people should provide personal contributions.

Mr Burnham admitted that the national care service would not be created for at least five years but added: “Rome wasn’t built in a day. I am saying that we will propose a system for social care similar to the rest of the welfare state, organised on a population basis where everyone makes a contribution and where everyone has a choice over how they make that contribution.”

Mr Burnham said that a cross-party national care commission would decide how individuals would pay — and whether this would be through an inheritance levy caricatured as a “death tax” by the Tories. Whatever its decision, he said this would not come in during the next parliament.

He rejected suggestions that the White Paper lacked a clear outline of where the billions needed to support the system would be found. He also suggested that critics were not “respecting” the scale of the changes. “This is a big reform that is complicated,” he said, adding that the cost of the NCS is expected to be £3 billion in its first year.

Andrew Lansley, the Shadow Health Secretary, described the White Paper as a “train crash” that had hidden away “death tax” in the small print.

“The simple fact remains that if Labour win the election, they would introduce plans for a death tax to pay for care,” he said. “Once again, when Gordon Brown sees a problem, his reaction is to place a new tax on working people.”