Come on, ask! Do you have the answer? [Laughter.] Perhaps you can tell me how we are going to pay for the national debt. Where will the money come from? How much money are we overspending? Without answers to these questions, the understanding of the Bill before us is short from complete and it is the attitude of the Minister, who on the one hand is extraordinarily charming, extremely capable, and on the other hand has the capability of cutting down the guillotine on the real and hard issues. And from a parliamentary point of view, I find this extraordinarily difficult to digest.
We appreciate the effort made in pushing money to local government. Not enough has been done. The amount of money allocated by our government remains disproportionate, but it is a vertical division. If you look at it segment by segment, take education for example, money is not spent on schools and teachers or on school books or on structures. Well, structures are public walls, but if you do it horizontally, that will come under the same picture. It is part of the governance of a system.
This is a major flaw and it compounds with the tendency, which is horizontal, of allocating the bulk of the money that we are spending today, that we are authorising to be distributed today from the highest level of government. It's money spent by government to run itself; and until or unless there is a fundamental revision of what government needs are at the top level and whether or not we need to involve national departments, these allocations will remain flawed.
In conclusion, my main thrust was lost, as the Minister is not here today, to stop mocking and begin answering. I want to refer him to the answer given by Richard V, the dauphin's ambassador - this is the last sentence - he can research it himself and read in there how I feel about him. [Laughter.] [Time expired.]