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Why is there not? It is known that there will need to be an IT system to support this. You said that you did not want to pluck figures out of the air for an IT system, but figures have been plucked out of the air for every other aspect of the bill. Why could there not have been a best estimate for an IT system?

There will be IT costs relating to this bill; surely there should have been some provision for those costs in the financial memorandum.

They have the statutory duty today, but they might not have it next year or the year after. They might be burdened by a capital cost for years to come, because they do not know what will happen.

I will move on to my next question. You mentioned COSLA’s figures—I think that COSLA has estimated a cost of £1.5 billion—and said that you do not agree with them.

Would you expect to see that soon, minister?

On the VAT implications, we discussed at the last committee meeting the figure of, I think, £32 million, around which there was also some uncertainty. CIPFA seemed to dispute it. Is there a new estimate for VAT, or do you still think that £32 million might be at risk?

From what we have heard so far, it seems that it could have been done the other way round. We could have had the co-design first, and then the introduction of a bill that we would all have understood much more.

Why would they have said that that was not the right way? I do not understand that, because we would have had more detail.

You have said that we need to get this right.

There are aspects such as IT, which Daniel Johnson mentioned earlier. There is no provision at all for that in there. You said that you did not want to pluck figures—

I agree, but it might not be a statutory duty for local authorities in the future. With local government having to make difficult decisions, the uncertainty caused by the bill might make the situation in care worse. My question is: why would local authorities invest now?