26. Major Lloydasked the Minister of Health whether he will cause to be published regularly in the Ministry of Labour Gazette a summary of the quarterly returns of domestic staff rendered by the hospitals to his Department.
§ Mr. Iain MacleodI do not regard this as a suitable medium for publication of these returns. The total numbers of domestic staff are published in the annual reports of my Department; the detailed figures for individual hospitals in 1949 are shown in the recently published volume of hospital statistics, and figures for later years will be available shortly.
Major LloydAs it appears that we only get this information approximately once a year and in view of the enormous number of people employed in this capacity, over which apparently the House has no control as it gets the information only once a year, why should we not 1544 have this included, if not in the Ministry of Labour returns, at least in some more frequent information?
§ Mr. MacleodThe Ministry of Labour returns include domestic staff under the very large heading of Professional, Financial and Miscellaneous Services and no subheads are given. I do not think that the Ministry of Labour Gazette is a suitable vehicle for this. It is true that we are badly behind with the volume of hospital statistics, but it is hoped that we shall become much more up to date in the near future.