CAPTAIN MAXWELL-HERONasked the Secretary to the Treasury, Whether, in framing the Estimates for the ensuing year, the Government have taken into consideration the advisability of granting to Scotland an amount of medical relief in proportion to that given to the rest of the United Kingdom?
§ LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISHThe right hon. Gentleman the First Lord 1950 of the Treasury stated last year, in reply to a Question upon this subject from my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, that the Government was considering the subject of grants-in-aid at large with the view of devising, if possible, some better method of regulating the appropriation of public money for local purposes. It is impossible, in the present state of Public Business, to undertake that this subject, which is one of very great extent and importance, and connected, in a considerable degree, with the general question of local government, can be dealt with in the present Session; but my right hon. Friend is anxious to do so on the first opportunity; and the inequality referred to in the Question of the hon. Member and others now subsisting in the relative proportion of grants-in-aid in Scotland and England makes him especially anxious to find such an opportunity for dealing with the question in Scotland. In the meantime it has not been considered advisable to insert an additional sum in the Estimates for medical relief.