We are three years on and three cabinet secretaries and two ministers later. Almost 200 civil servants have been involved, £2 million has been spent on private consultants and it has cost nearly £30 million of taxpayers’ money—just on this bill. Although I welcome the remaining provisions, the national care service is no more. Not a single penny of the £30 million has been spent on care packages. That money would have delivered a million extra hours of care and would have stopped care packages being cut and care homes being closed, yet the minister knows that the bill will do little to improve social care.

What a waste of time and money. The centrepiece of the SNP’s legislative programme has been sidelined—a bit like the health secretary. In 2021, Humza Yousaf said:

“The creation of a national care service will be the most significant public sector reform since the creation of the NHS in 1948, and the service will be operational within the five-year lifetime of this Parliament.”—[Official Report, 1 June 2021; c 29.]

Well, that has aged well. There is no national care service, and little difference has been made for those who receive social care. It has been yet another failure.