To ask the First Minister when the Scottish Executive's Cabinet will next meet and what issues will be discussed. (S1F-591)

The Cabinet will next meet on Tuesday and we will discuss the issues of the day.

I hope that the Cabinet will discuss the bitter disappointment that many older people in Scotland will feel when they learn later this afternoon that the Scottish Executive will not implement for Scotland the Sutherland commission recommendation that all personal care costs should be met out of the national health service budget.

Last week, in the debate on the issue, we were told that Labour opposed that recommendation because it would benefit so-called rich pensioners. Does the First Minister consider the many thousands of pensioners who bought their council houses to be rich and that they should be forced to sell their houses to pay for their long-term care?

Mr McLetchie will have to wait a little while for the statement that Susan Deacon will make later.

I have said repeatedly that the test that we will apply is whether expenditure—it will be big expenditure—raises the standard of care for a significant number of people who require support in their homes or who are in residential care. When I talk to pensioners, the common complaints that I hear—certainly in my surgery and I suspect it is true of most members—concern a range of matters that are immediate priorities: the difficulty in getting appliances; the difficulty in getting the right support package that will allow someone to leave hospital; and the difficulties for families who are struggling with a heavy caring burden and looking for respite care. I repeat: the test is how we raise the standard of care for those who need it.

I thank the First Minister for that, but if he considers the record, he will see that the test that he was proclaiming last week in our exchange on the matter was one of fairness and equity. I agreed with him that it is a question of fairness and equity. Why then should the pensioner who bought his council house and developed Alzheimer's disease have to pay for his care, while the next-door neighbour, who remained a tenant, is entitled to care, irrespective of what illnesses may strike him or her in later life? Where is the fairness and equity in that?

Fairness and equity in public funding is ensuring that the people who require help and care are the ones who get it. Choices must be made. I know that members will hear later about an exciting package—which will cost a great deal of money—investing in community care and in help and support for older people who are suffering from the infirmities of age. It is right that we should concentrate on that as an immediate priority.

Has the First Minister's Cabinet discussed the continuing potential threat to the public ownership of the water and sewerage industry that is presented by the proposal to open up that industry to competition from English and French private companies? Many of those companies have opened up offices in Glasgow and Edinburgh in anticipation of that competition.

Will the First Minister say whether the Cabinet has considered asking for a block exemption from the Competition Act 1998? The water and sewerage industry is a strategic industry in Scotland and I believe it to be the will of the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish people that, like publicly owned railways in France and Spain, it should remain under public ownership and public control.

There has been a great deal of discussion among colleagues, led by Sarah Boyack, about how we should face up to the challenge of the competition that is being brought in by Westminster legislation, which is a difficult and complicated matter. I believe that a consultation document is available and no doubt all who have a point of view on the matter will want to contribute to the debate by responding to the points made in the consultation exercise. I give John McAllion an absolutely clear assurance that we have every intention of, and are totally committed to, keeping the water industry in the public sector.