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Dementia Services

I must say to the hon. Gentleman that, as vice-president of the Alzheimer's Society, patron of my city's Alzheimer's group and someone who is contributing to the Alzheimer's Research Trust, I am surprised that he is making this a party political issue. Let me ask him a simple question. The thrust of the Audit Commission's review was that the strategy was good and that the new appointment of the director in charge of this matter will help, but that the £150 million allocated had not reached the parts for which it was intended because of the nature of decentralisation and the lack of ring-fencing. Given the Conservative party's commitment to the new NHS board and to even more decentralisation to professionals from the Secretary of State or politicians in this House, how could the hon. Gentleman possibly determine what a priority would be locally when he could not even determine it nationally?