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On all those issues, I assure Mr McAllion that we are working with a variety of rail interests, including Railtrack, to try to get more investment into our railways.We want to improve journey times and the level of service.
I am sure that the minister has seen the latest figures on obesity in children, which show that, unfortunately, those initiatives—although welcome—are not working.
It might help committee members and all other members of the Parliament to note that they will receive shortly in their mail trays a document that was produced by the European Parliament and which contains the latest version of the constitutional treaty and appropriate briefing.
Has the minister considered the situation of grandparents who are looking after children, perhaps because the parents are deceased, but who cannot get the sort of payments that foster carers get?
If we were to find ourselves in that position, we could get into trouble. I have no objection in principle, but I would like to define tightly our work in that area, so that we do not get pulled into side roads and lose our way.
To put that into context, the overall funding in the United Kingdom that will be available to the new distributor for the year 2004-05 will be about £660 million, which means that Scotland will get about £76 million.
Have you noticed any changes in the appointment system since the new board came into being? For instance, can you tell at this stage whether we are going to get judges and sheriffs from the variety of backgrounds that you wished?