Pensioners with care needs must stop regarding their homes as “an asset to give to their offspring”, the social care minister has said, as she revived the row over the Conservatives’ so-called “dementia tax”.

Jackie Doyle-Price said it was “unfair” for younger taxpayers to “prop up people to keep their property” when it could be sold to help pay for their own care needs.

The stark language contrasts with the Tories’ promises last year to make sure that homes people have “worked for and saved for” could be passed on to their children. David Cameron described it at the time as a “natural human instinct”.

The Conservatives shelved a controversial manifesto plan to make middle-class pensioners pay towards care they receive in their own homes after it proved hugely unpopular with voters, but critics said the minister’s comments suggested the policy had been “resurrected”.

A Government source responded by saying there was a need to address the “imbalance” in the current system between people who need residential care and domiciliary care, because people needing residential care face much higher personal contributions.

It came as the economist who carried out a landmark review of social care urged the Government to impose a cap on care home costs to remove the “catastrophic risk facing us all”.