Chamber and committees

That was feeding into the housing budget, so the cut is continuing to put pressure on that.

As I understand it, because changes were made to the £148 million allocated for the winter fuel payment by Westminster in the current year, technically, we could spend it, but we would be borrowing the money and would have to pay it back again. How does that fit into the budget? Will the money be spent this year, or will it be set aside?

Has the new Government at Westminster eased off on financial transactions? In the past, that budget was quite important for house building.

The minister said that the capital funding went down and has come back to roughly where we were, but the financial transactions allocation has gone down but not come back up. Is that correct?

I am fascinated by the use of the word “lucky” in this meeting.

No, but some of my colleagues have. I think that we are lucky to get rid of the Conservatives, anyway.

I will move on to some more detail. The figure on the council tax freeze has been revised. I think that it was going to be £144 million, and an extra £3 million is going into that. Can you comment on that? Was it uncertain?

As you mentioned the age issue, will you tell us whether you are convinced about the P6 to S4 focus? Would you want flexibility on that, too?

Professor Loynes, is the bill too specific or are you happy with it?

I am sure that they would need reassurance about the cardboard boxes. Dr Scrutton, do you want to comment?

I did not really pursue that point, as Professor Mannion gave me an answer on it. Dr Scrutton, do you agree that we should be more flexible on the ages?