Thank you for today’s statement, Minister. I’m sure there’s consensus in the Chamber that social care is one of the biggest issues and the growing challenges of our time and we need to better link up and have collaboration between health and social care to meet these challenges, and the question is, really, how we best do that in practice. Minister, you mentioned in your statement the responsibility of regions to establish these pooled budgets for the provision of care home accommodation for adults by April 2018, and I’m grateful for your previous responses on this. I just wonder whether you could add how this will work in practice and where we are in terms of making sure it does work effectively in practice.

You also highlight the importance of collaboration; are you able to expand on this and do you agree that collaboration in terms of pooled budgets and the integration agenda should include effective cross-party working? And the final point I want to make is: what consideration has been, or could be, given to how existing community assets could be better used or given a new purpose and use in an innovative and collaborative way to meet both the social care and health needs of the community—in particular in terms of looking at that kind of medical respite care gap for the elderly, the most vulnerable and frail, working hand in hand alongside social care? Is there also consideration of the role that, perhaps, the third sector could play in terms of maintaining and sustaining facilities to make sure that is better able to happen?