Chamber and committees

I will stick with Tony Wilson. Have we now reached a settled state, or are we—

Mr Freeman, you mentioned ethnic minorities towards the end of your submission. Can you say anything about the impact on ethnic minorities and how they are coping?

I am referring to the second-last page of your submission.

That has been included in the financial memorandum.

Thank you very much.

Another point raised by COSLA and others is that the present care service is funded partly by Government grants and partly by council tax and so forth. If, for example, a council spends £100 million on care services—I am just using round figures—£80 million of that will come from grants and £20 million will be raised locally through council tax. When the transfer happens, will the Government take the £80 million or the £100 million away from the council?

The convener mentioned VAT. You said that the UK Government or HM Revenue and Customs would take a decision on that and that you were aware of what was going on. I want to press you on that. Regardless of what HMRC decides to do, is it possible to design a set-up that will mean that we do not end up having to pay VAT? With the police and fire services, we got into a situation in which Westminster, or HMRC, was being inflexible and we ended up paying VAT, which we would not otherwise have had to pay. Is it possible for you to design a system whereby we will not have to pay VAT, regardless of what Westminster decides?

Could you not rule out VAT being paid because we will design a system that fits in with what HMRC wants?

I will leave it at that, convener.

I will let you all come in in due course.

One argument for the new system has been that it would bring more consistency. It has also been suggested that the system would become more like the NHS, which is a national organisation. However, it strikes me that the NHS can be quite inconsistent. All the health boards do things differently, every general practitioner practice seems to do things differently, and so does every dentist and optician, as they are all private. There is quite a mixture in the NHS. If we move to a national care service, will it be more consistent than what we have now, or will there simply be a different kind of inconsistency?

Do we know how many care homes there are in Scotland? I assume that there must be hundreds.