Chamber and committees

Professor Breedon, in your answer to Daniel Johnson, you mentioned the change in the retirement age, which I assume would be a factor in this. How big a factor is it?

It is a bit uncertain.

The session has been very interesting so far. Everyone has mentioned the issue of funding, but I have to say that we have not heard a lot of numbers. I do not know whether it is your area, Mr Gray, but would you like to put a figure on how much money we need?

So, if there is less rain, the concentration will be greater, and it is effectively diluted if there is more rain.

Right, okay.

Thanks.

Dr Helliwell, do you want to add anything? We have said that polio can be detected and we have talked about alcohol and drugs. All those things can be analysed or sampled. Is it just a question of having the resources and political will to do those things?

That is very helpful.

That is fair enough. I was just wondering about the financial side of things, because that is my background. Every part of this seems to work differently, but your response has been helpful and clarifies things a bit.

Professor Peacock, your report in particular was very glowing about how things went, and COG-UK seems to have been a total success. There is, in fact, nothing negative in the report at all. I think that RAND Europe did an overview, too, and everything that it said was also positive. Surely something went wrong. Could some things have been done better? For example, did people not join up as quickly as they should have done? Is there anything that did not go right?

And is that for Scotland?

Is that per year?