Labour will today refuse to join other Holyrood parties in approaching Westminster to demand the reinstatement of £30m annually in attendance allowance (AA) withheld when Scotland introduced free personal care.

A fortnight ago, Labour said it accepted all the recommendations in Lord Sutherland's follow-up report looking at how free personal care for the elderly was working six years after its inception. One of these recommendations was to urge Westminster to return the money, which would have covered 75% of the current annual shortfall in the system.

Earlier this week the Prime Minister announced a consultation on reviewing the English system, but made clear that any replacement was likely to be insurance-based.

The Scottish Government agreed that it would find the £40m Lord Sutherland identified as necessary to make the system work fairly across the country and a motion up for debate today "notes Lord Sutherland's clear conclusion that the UK Government should not have withdrawn the attendance allowance funding in respect of self-funding clients in care homes, currently valued at over £30m a year".

The motion also "urges the Scottish Government to pursue vigorously with UK ministers the reinstatement of this funding while longer-term work to reassess all funding streams relevant to the care of older people in Scotland takes place", but Labour will seek to strike out this part of the motion.

Labour's shadow health secretary, Margaret Curran said: "Scotland's interests are best served through constructive engagement with the Westminster government rather than narrow-minded disputes."

Nicola Sturgeon, the Health Secretary, said: "Two weeks ago Labour promised to support the Sutherland report in full. They have now reneged on that promise. It's just one more Labour U-turn. They briefly toyed with the idea of standing up for Scotland, but now they have decided not to bother."