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We cannot do this in five minutes, but it is interesting that, in the past hour and a half, every person has asked for more money for their particular area, and rightly so. The question that we have to grasp, as politicians, is how we pay for all that. At some point, it would be interesting to put the challenge back to those who are asking for the money. Where do we find it? Do we prioritise it over other areas? I appreciate that that topic is not for today, but it is worth noting that, quite rightly, everyone has asked for more money for their area. Where we politicians would find that money is a bigger debate that we need to have, although maybe we will get the answer from Richard Gass.

Some of this has been covered already, so I would be interested in hearing any new remarks that people might have.

As Adam Stachura and Debbie Horne have pointed out, a substantial number of older people rent—they do not own their accommodation. That comes with its challenges. You have touched on this already, but is there more that we could be doing about that? How do we target help particularly at those who are in rented accommodation?

With all due respect, minister, I think that you are slightly underplaying this. The convener of the Finance and Public Administration Committee—Mr Gibson, who has been at the Parliament for 26 years—appeared before us last week and said that his committee finds it very difficult when that type of financial memorandum is issued and it cannot undertake detailed scrutiny. I think that his words were that none of that legislation should come to the Parliament. How do you respond to his comments?

Good morning, minister. One of the comments that your colleagues make when a framework bill comes to the Parliament—particularly those that we have had recently—is that they want to consult and design the scheme with stakeholders. Thus, they want more to come under secondary legislation so that we can have that flexibility. Why can that co-design, which is a good thing, not be done before the legislation comes to Parliament? Everyone will then know what stakeholders think, although there are often different views among stakeholders, and then Parliament can come to a view. Why does that have to happen after the primary legislation has been passed?

I am not quite sure that you have answered my question. Why can the co-design not happen first, so that the Parliament gets to scrutinise that? What is the benefit to the Parliament, to legislation and to good law if that co-design happens first?

Do you think that one of the reasons why the Government got itself into an issue with the health and social care bill was that the co-design was going to be done once the legislation was passed but many voices were telling us different things? In retrospect, do you think that it would have been better for more detail to have been found about that bill at an earlier stage, so that Parliament could have come to a view on it, rather than moving it or kicking it into the long grass?

Yes.

That is an interesting philosophical question, which might be for another day.

I will move on. As you will be aware, one issue with secondary legislation is that we have to take it or leave it—we vote for it or we vote against it. We can make comments but, ultimately, the power that Parliament has is to say yes or no. Some witnesses have suggested that there should be an ability to amend secondary legislation or have the ability to conditionally approve it. For example, that might allow us to say, “We like 98 per cent of this, but we have real concerns about 2 per cent. Would the Government look at that again and bring forward a fresh view on it?” Could that approach work? Would the Government be open to it?

On the amount of secondary legislation, your thesis or argument is that there is not substantially more than there was 26 years ago. Do you not recognise that Covid and Brexit led to an increase in secondary legislation? That was absolutely justifiable, but they led to an increase.

We have also heard evidence that the Government has changed in the past 26 years. Rightly or wrongly, we live at a faster pace. We are all driven by social media, and decisions are made on that basis. That is a legitimate reason why there is more secondary legislation. Do you not accept that in any way at all?

I return to your point about parliamentary time. Primary legislation does not come to the chamber on a weekly basis. We spend a lot of time debating important topics, but that is not legislation. The issue has to do with our approach to stage 1—we understand that. However, when we scrutinise bills, is the pressure on committees rather than on the whole chamber? My gut feeling is that we do a stage 3 no more than every six or eight weeks. That does not seem to be a lot of pressure on Parliament itself. There might be pressure on ministers and behind the scenes but, for Parliament, that deeper scrutiny is not a pressure on time, is it?