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Dementia Services

I see the hon. Gentleman nodding his head. This is an important debate at an important time. I do not want to speak for very long, but I would like to cover some of the problems and talk about Leicestershire and some of the possible solutions, because we have heard about aspects of care, but not a lot about the solutions for people who have the condition. I therefore hope that I can add something. I echo the earlier remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Robert Key), who talked about amnesia, not dementia. The Government's attitude to this subject has something in common with their attitude to energy, in that they appeared to suffer from amnesia in their policy on both dementia and energy for about the same length of time. For about 11 years, we did not have an energy strategy, and we certainly did not have a dementia strategy. It is amazing that the Government could have been in power for so long and then, as it were, stumbled across the issue so late in their tenure of office, which many of us suspect is almost over. The Minister of State is shaking his head, so we had better not go down that route, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Indeed, I can see you shaking your head, too. We have had various statistics—