I'm going to continue along these consensual lines, because I do think, as the Minister said, we need to have maturity in this debate. It shouldn't be a political football. There may be disagreements, of course, about which is the best way forward, but I don't think that we should treat this as a kind of a party political dogfight issue just to score points for the sake of them, because it's a problem that has its own in-built intractability which we've got to cope with, whoever is in Government, and all of us in all parties. And as I approach my seventieth birthday myself, I'm of course keenly aware of what may lie ahead. I'm in the fortunate position where I could afford to pay for social care, but of course there are millions and millions of people in our country that can't, and it's desperately important for us to put in place now—and as quickly as we can—a sustainable system for the future that would give people dignity and respect in old age, in vulnerable years, when it's impossible for them to look after themselves.

I commend the Government for bringing this debate forward today and, indeed, for commissioning the Holtham report, which I think, broadly speaking, does show the way forward. It's a mature appraisal of the situation, and the facts are really quite stark. In the executive summary of the Holtham report, it's worth pointing a couple of these things out. The ratio of over-70s to those aged 20 to 69 is going to rise by the early 2040s from 23 per cent to 37 per cent, so that's a 50 per cent increase within the population. The demand for spending on social care is projected to rise by over 85 per cent by 2035 at 2016-17 prices, so that's a 20 per cent increase in spending per head and an increase in numbers requiring care of over 55 per cent.

And so, even if the UK economy and the Welsh budget grows at 1.5 per cent a year faster than care costs, spending a constant proportion of the budget on care will lead to a real increase in funding of only about 30 per cent of what we need. So, there is going to be a growing gap between what is needed to be spent and what is projected to be spent if we just keep things as they are.

In 2007-08—compare the figures today with those years—those who are over 65 has increased by 16 per cent in the population, but of those who are over 65 and in social care, the numbers have actually gone down from 14.9 per cent to 12.9 per cent. Now, part of that may be attributable to improvements in healthcare or greater effectiveness and efficiency in the way the care system works, but it's much more likely to be that health needs that are currently needed are not being met, and that is something else that we have to try to cope with in the years ahead.

So, I do believe that there is a great deal of goodwill across parties to find an acceptable solution. Whether it's the way forward that Dai Lloyd suggested of having an NHS model for social care, I'm not so sure, because I think the real problem we've got here is that despite all the arguments about austerity, that isn't really the problem. The problem is we're going to have to give higher priority to spending in this area, which means, because resources are finite, that we're going to have to downgrade some other areas of spending in the years to come, or else we won't be able to pay the bills. After all, we've doubled the national debt in the last eight years, and we're in a much worse situation today for meeting the problems of recession in the future than we were at the last financial crisis in 2008.

So, these problems are not going to go away. We're going to have to be brave and disappoint some people in order to benefit others, but I do think that the growing problems of paying for social care do deserve to have a greater priority within the Government budget, both within the UK and, indeed, in Wales.