I welcome the Green Paper, and I hope that we can build cross-party
consensus for the long term. However, any change will be years away from that Green Paper. The problems are here and now for local councils, and the Minister simply did not deal with them in her statement. The Local Government Association estimates for next year a funding gap of £2.6 billion on a cross-party basis. The Competition and Markets Authority states that care homes are failing because local authorities do not have the necessary resources to pay the fees. What will the Minister do about that? Where is the money to ensure that an inadequate social care system does not get even worse next year?