Clause 2.—(FINANCING OF PREMISES USED FOR GENERAL PRACTICE.) (Hansard, 14 February 1966)

§ Mr. Richard Wood (Bridlington)
I beg to move Amendment No. 1, in page 2, line 1, after "loans" to insert: with or without charging interest". During the Second Reading debate, the Minister of Health gave some information about the future of the existing system of interest-free loans. He said that 618 loans had been approved, amounting to something over £3½ million. He also told us: The existence of the Finance Corporation need not affect in any way loans already made."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd February, 1966; Vol. 723, c. 1423.] The effectiveness of this scheme in the future is obviously reduced, as the right hon. Gentleman made clear later, by the agreement which he has been able to reach in his conversations with the British Medical Association.
The report of those conversations was issued in June of last year, and paragraph 25 states: The Government have said that they are prepared to consider with the profession a scheme providing in principle for 100 per cent. direct reimbursement of reasonable expenditure on rent (including, for the owner-occupier, an allowance representing a return on the capital invested in the practice) and rates. It is obvious that any system of direct reimbursement of reasonable expenditure on rent and rates, which would include the allowances I have mentioned for owner-occupiers, is bound to diminish the advantages which have previously been enjoyed by those who qualified for interest-free loans. The question whether or not these advantages will be extinguished obviously depends on the nature of the new system that is coming into being, and on the date on which it starts.
The right hon. Gentleman explained to us, again in the Second Reading 927 debate, that there would be consequential adjustments resulting from this scheme of reimbursing practice expenses. I should like to know quite clearly from the Minister whether these consequential adjustments are designed exactly to neutralise the advantages which would otherwise accrue to doctors who have received, or who are at present receiving, loans under the group practice loan scheme.
I should also like to know quite clearly how these adjustments will affect the general practitioner during the time he is repaying, or when he has completed the repayment of his loan. For instance, will the allowance for the owner-occupier, which represents a return on the capital invested, be gradually increased as he repays the loan, until it reaches the maximum when the loan is fully repaid and when, therefore, all the capital invested in the practice belongs to the doctor himself, or to a group of doctors?
During our Second Reading debate, the Minister mentioned a transitional problem in regard to loans—which I believe may total about £600,000—which have been approved, but which will not have been issued by the time the General Practice Finance Corporation starts its operation. Is it the right hon. Gentleman's intention that the Corporation shall itself assume responsibility for this sum of £600,000, being loans already approved? Will it be in the power of the Corporation, as this Amendment aims to secure, to lend this £600,000 if the prospective recipients so wish, on exactly the terms already agreed, subject of course to the adjustments I have mentioned?
I am anxious to secure that those to whom promises have already been made shall not be deprived by the Bill from access to finance on terms which they believe are suitable to their particular requirements. I have been encouraged by the promise which the right hon. Gentleman gave on Second Reading: We would not withdraw from such doctors the option of an interest-free loan if that was what they preferred."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd February. 1966; Vol. 723, c. 1423.] I am encouraged to believe that he will either accept this Amendment or assure me that the Corporation not only has this power, but will be ready to use it if the doctors are anxious for it to do so.

§ The Minister of Health (Mr. Kenneth Robinson)
I can assure the right hon. Member for Bridlington (Mr. Wood) that the Corporation would not need to be specifically empowered to forgo interest on any loans it might make, but he will appreciate that it will have to operate on a sound commercial basis and break even financially over a period. Since it will have to pay the market rate of interest on its own borrowings, it will hardly be in a position itself to offer interest-free loans. It could do that to some doctors only if it charged an unreasonable and perhaps prohibitive rate to other doctors. I am sure that neither of us would want that to happen.
I quite appreciate the right hon. Member's motives in putting down this Amendment. It is to probe further the position of the doctors who are in receipt of loans now interest-free in the group practice loans scheme and doctors to whom I referred on Second Reading whose loans will probably not have been finalised by the time the General Practice Finance Corporation comes into operation.
The right hon. Member referred to what I said about the adjustments that might have to take place, or will have to take place, in connection with the reimbursement of notional rents to those doctors in receipt of group practice loans. He asked whether it was my intention completely to neutralise the advantages. It is perhaps a little early to say exactly how this will work out.
The point I re-emphasise is that, one could not give a doctor a direct reimbursement of a sum of money from which he had already been exempted by the group practice loans scheme. There would have to be consequential adjustments to the notional rent which those doctors would receive. We have not yet worked out the basis of the notional rents in final detail with the profession, nor the way in which they will be adjusted when there is an interest-free loan outstanding.
I think that I am right in saying that for this purpose the doctor would be treated as an owner-occupier and the fact that he is paying back capital over a long period would be reflected. It would be reflected in the interest he would pay and the interest would be reflected in the reimbursement he got because notional reimbursement covers actual rent paid and interest. I add one thing to our 929 intentions about the interest-free loan doctors. We envisage that the abatement will be reduced each year as the loan is gradually repaid.
I come now to the question of doctors whose loans have been approved under the existing scheme. I have mentioned a possible total of £600,000. We are still in discussion with the profession as to the best way of handling this matter. One possible way would be for the Corporation to lend the money in the ordinary way, but, since it would be inappropriate for it to lend on an interest-free basis, no doubt the executive council might pay the interest on the loan, thereby relieving the receiving doctors from having to pay interest. I should not like to commit myself to a particular solution of this problem because we are still in discussion with the profession.

§ Dr. David Kerr (Wandsworth, Central)
Will my right hon. Friend explain this? If the executive council is to repay interest, from which fund will it do so? Is there a possibility that this might diminish the amount of money for practitioners in contract with the executive council?

§ Mr. Robinson
No, it would not diminish it. Arrangements would be made, if that hypothetical solution were adopted, for the executive council to pay. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Wandsworth, Central (Dr. David Kerr) will not continue to think in terms of the old central pool. I had a feeling that that idea was in his mind when he made that intervention.
The right hon. Member talked about completely neutralising the advantages which a group practice received under the old loans scheme. I reiterate that we are envisaging a wholly new method under the new contract of encouraging group practice. Those groups which qualified under the group practice loans scheme will equally qualify for the additional payment proposed under the new contract to pay for groups. In this connection, groups are defined in the same way as they were for the old scheme.
In view of this information, I hope the right hon. Member will not feel that he wishes to press the Amendment.

§ Mr. Wood
I have listened with in-interest to what the Minister said. He assured us that the General Practice Finance Corporation would not need this specific power if it wishes to make interest-free loans. He pointed out that to meet loans free of interest it would have to charge higher rates in order to fulfil its obligations under the Act.
What I was anxious to elucidate was the position under these transitional loans. I take it that the right hon. Gentleman has assured us that either by means of the Finance Corporation, or as a cooperative exercise between the Corporation and executive councils, this position will be dealt with and, therefore, the promise already entered into will be met in some way or other by these arrangements.
In view of the explanation, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

§ Dr. Wyndham Davies (Birmingham, Perry Barr)
I beg to move Amendment No. 2, in page 2, line 1, after "loans", to insert "or grants".

§ The Chairman
With this Amendment we can discuss Amendment No. 4, in page 2, line 13, leave out subsections (2) and (3); Amendment No. 6, in Clause 3, page 2, line 22, after "loans", insert "or grants"; and Amendment No. 7, in page 2, line 26, leave out paragraph (b).

§ Dr. Wyndham Davies
I move this Amendment because of the promises made by the Minister, as reported in HANSARD for 27th July, 1964, when he pressed the then Minister of Health and said: A system of loans must be replaced by one of grants. That is what a Labour Government would be prepared to do."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th July, 1964; Vol. 699, c. 1017.] I am sure that the Minister would not wish to go back on that, although he will no doubt point out that on Second. Reading he said this: The profession did not ask for grants from the Government; it asked for an independent corporation."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd February, 1966; Vol. 723, c. 1424.] I contend that whoever has been advising the Minister on the matter of grants has not been listening to the profession very carefully. He must have been meeting a very small selection of the 931 profession who do not seem to be at all representative of the general views of general practitioners. He seems to have entirely ignored the view of a body to whose views the Labour Party has attached great weight over many years.
I refer to the Medical Practitioners' Union which, since the early days of the conception of the National Health Service, has done much to aid the Labour Party in these matters. Many years ago the union set up a working party which pressed on the Conservative Government of the day the need for a £100 million total grant as a minimum to aid surgery premises and help the general practitioner service to go ahead and be something of which everyone could be proud.
It seems ironic that it is a Labour Minister of Health who has presented this inadequate Bill which, essentially, is asking the moneylenders of Threadneedle Street and the gnomes of Zurich to come to the rescue of himself and his Government and provide loans, which must be on a commercial basis, I understand, at a rate of interest which will be entirely commercial.
This seems a very strange way for the Minister to try to get the Service going effectively. It is strange, because under this Government we have the highest Bank Rate the country has ever known, lasting for the longest period. The poor general practitioner who is trying to set up his surgery is likely to have to pay the commercial rate of 7 per cent. I know that the Minister will argue that the doctor will get some rebate, but it seems hardly fair that in some cases general practitioners will receive only 2¾ per cent. on the value of their premises which were taken over at the inception of the Service, but their sons will perhaps have to borrow at 7 per cent., or even more, to set up practice. I hope that some hon. Members opposite will spring to their feet and say their little piece about this, but I fear that they will remain silent.
So we have not the magnificent aid to general practice which we were promised by the right hon. Gentleman and his Friends in the run-up to the General Election. We have a rather pettifogging, miserable Bill which will allow only a maximum sum of £25 million, which will be on loan, and the whole splendid conception 932 of a grant of £100 million to get surgery premises of the standard that patients expect from the Service will not be realised.
I ask the right hon. Gentleman to think again about his decision not to introduce grants in addition to loans. I ask, further, that some of the original commitments of grants on an interest-free basis entered into under the previous Government—a very satisfactory scheme which only requires extending by the provision of Government money—should not be abolished by this pettifogging measure.

§ Mr. Raymond Gower (Barry)
Though it appears that the Minister has somewhat modified the views he held a few years ago, he might deem it an advantage to have this additional power reserved for the Corporation. My reading of the Bill as it stands is that the power to grant loans is not mandatory; the word "may" preserves a discretion. It would be a manifest advantage for the Corporation to have the additional power to make grants in suitable circumstances. I say this merely to supplement the very pertinent points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Dr. Wyndham Davies).

§ Dr. M. S. Miller (Glasgow, Kelvingrove)
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that at present executive councils have the power to make interest-free loans repayable over a very long period? The Bill is merely an additional procedure by which doctors can obtain money which otherwise they would not be able to obtain.

§ Mr. Gower
I am aware of that. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Perry Barr made an oblique reference to that power, which is exercised more in theory than in practice.

§ Dr. Miller
This is not true.

§ Mr. Gower
My point, which I hope that I did not express too extravagantly, is that it would be an obvious advantage for the new Corporation to possess the additional power of making grants as well as loans.

§ Dr. David Kerr
Very rashly, a challenge is something I cannot resist. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Dr. Wyndham Davies) suggested that one or two hon. Members on this side 933 might leap to their feet—to support him, I presume he meant. I hasten to disillusion the hon. Gentleman. I also hasten to correct an error he made, which I should have thought any doctor would be ashamed to admit.
The group practice loan scheme was nothing to do with Government money. It was part of a settlement between the profession and the Ministry of Health—it was not the present Ministry of Health—under which a certain sum of money out of the now discredited pool was set aside for group practice loans.
The hon. Gentleman should also know that this sum of money is augmented year by year by the repayments of those practitioners who have been able to take advantage of the loans. There is no question of shortage of money. I know of no case in which an application for a group practice loan has been made and refused. Therefore, the hon. Gentleman's argument on that score does not begin to hold water.
I do not think that it would be tactful or wise of me to attempt to pull my right hon. Friend's chestnuts out of the fire, because he is so expert at pulling them out himself that he would not do anything but resent any offered hand from me. I feel bound to say, however, that this suggestion that a Finance Corporation should be set up under an Act of Parliament to make grants would be such an upside-down way of approaching any method to assist general practitioners to improve their circumstances, that I can only regard the Amendment as a rather spiteful and derisory sort of act.
We all know that the most effective way of assisting the development of general practice would be through health centres, and this is something which we on this side of the Committee continue to regard as the best method. I look forward to seeing the hon. Member for Perry Barr with all flags flying, demanding an extension of health centre practice.

§ Mr. K. Robinson
I do not think that I ought to start by apologising to the Committee for the miserable and pettifogging sum of £25 million which the Teasury is prepared to guarantee to set up a corporation which has not, I hasten to assure the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Dr. Wyndham Davies), 934 come to the rescue of the Government. It is to be established to help the medical profession. It helps those members of the medical profession who prefer to own their own premises, but who want the money loaned by an independent corporation. It is in deference to the wishes of the profession, as expressed to me through their representatives, that we have adopted this method of modernising general practitioner premises.

§ Dr. Wyndham Davies
Is the right hon. Gentleman entirely satisfied that the gentlemen whom he has met on 40 occasions during the past year are representative of the profession in this country?

§ Mr. Robinson
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will give me a few minutes in which to deal with the few points that he has raised before assuming that I intend to dodge any of them.
From the very start the profession showed no interest in direct Government grants, presumably because they felt that this would give Government a control over their practice premises, which those who felt like this and did not wish to practise from health centres would not want to see. Therefore, we were willing to adopt what I think I can say is the chosen method of the profession.
Of course, they get direct reimbursement of notional rents, and, therefore, even though the rate of interest that the Corporation has to charge in the early stages while interest rates remain high may be more than some of us would like to see, I think this will be a very much smaller burden on the family doctor under the new contract which I hope shortly will be in operation, than it would ever have been under the old average method of reimbursing practice expenses out of the pool.
I did not quite understand what the hon. Member for Perry Barr meant by saying that it would have been very much better if we had merely extended the existing scheme of grants which was set up under the previous Government. It was not a scheme of grants at all. It was a scheme of loans, and this is exactly what the Corporation is to do. In the debate on the last Amendment I assured the right hon. Member for Bridlington (Mr. Wood) that doctors would not be disadvantaged under the new 935 arrangements. I should perhaps have said that they will be advantaged in that they will be able to borrow over a much longer period than under the existing group practice loan scheme. From every point of view I think it is better that the outstanding loans not yet taken up should be channelled through the Finance Corporation.
4.15 p.m.
The hon. Gentleman cast some doubts on the representative nature of those general practitioners with whom I and my officials have been negotiating. I can only say that these were the chosen negotiators of the General Medical Services Committee, which is the chosen instrument through which I carry on negotiations with general practitioners. There is provision for the Medical Practitioners Union to be represented on the General Medical Services Committee. I believe there is a representative on the English committee at this moment.
The hon. Gentleman sang the praises of the Medical Practitioners Union and said that it had done a great deal to aid the Health Service in the past. As long as the emphasis is on the past, I would not dissent from what the hon. Gentleman has said. I cannot say that some of the observations which have been made in recent months and weeks by that organisation have been exactly designed to assist a satisfactory solution of the difficulties through which we have been going.
I think that, as the hon. Gentleman said, I dealt in the course of my winding-up speech in the Second Reading debate with the point that I made about grants when we were in opposition, when the whole situation in general practice was very different from what it is today. I repeat that we have adopted the instrument which the profession itself chose through the only representative machinery of which I am aware, and I feel that in those circumstances the hon. Member, as a member of his profession, ought not to cast doubt on the representative nature of the negotiators.

§ Mr. Wood
I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman must be longing for the end of this debate on this question of grants in relation to the loans that he is now suggesting in the Bill. In his Second Reading speech, as he has made clear to 936 us, he pointed out to me that although he had suggested that grants were the right method before the election, the profession had not asked for grants and he said rather plaintively to me towards the end of the debate that it did not seem to him that there was any useful purpose in asking them to have grants instead of loans.
I happen to believe—and, unlike the right hon. Gentleman, I have always believed—that loans are, in fact, the right method of providing finance. I do not take the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Dr. Wyndham Davies) that a system of grants instead of these loans would be an advantage.
However, before we decently bury this rather unfortunate promise of the right hon. Gentleman, I should like to make two remarks. First, the medical profession itself is to be warmly congratulated on its long-sighted preference for a loan-producing finance corporation over the carrot which the right hon. Gentleman rather seductively dangled before the medical profession during the season of promises in the high summer of 1964.
Secondly, when we think back to that speech of the right hon. Gentleman our minds really boggle at his munificence. He put all the past benefactors in this country to shame and made them seem like miserable Scrooges. Luckily, I think that he has now learned wisdom at the hands of the medical profession who, if I may say so, saved him from a very awkward dilemma—either a very awkward hour together with the Chancellor of the Exchequer in Treasury Chambers when I think the right hon. Gentleman might have had quite an unpleasant time, or a succession of awkward hours at Question Time trying to justify his escape from this promise which he made in July, 1964.
Therefore, for the right hon. Gentleman's sake as much as for anyone else's, I am very glad at the wisdom of the medical profession in preferring this method which I believe is right. I do not know what my hon. Friend will now decide to do, but I think it right to concentrate on a system of loans, and I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on at last reaching the wisdom which he has put into the Bill.

§ Mr. K. Robinson
I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Bridlington (Mr. Wood) for his sympathy for the possible difficulties which he thinks I might have found myself in with the Chancellor, but I ask him to cast his mind back to the situation of general practice at the time when I made that speech. It was clear that unless a radical change was made there was danger of a breakdown in general practice. We have made, or are about to make, more radical changes than I had in mind then and of a different character from the solution which I then propounded.
I would add the one point to help the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Dr. Wyndham Davies) make up his mind on how to proceed, that the Amendment would not be possible within the framework of the financial provisions of the Bill.

§ The Temporary Chairman (Mr. Grant-Ferris)
The remaining Amendments are either out of order or have already been discussed.

§ Dr. David Kerr
I appreciate the decision not to call the Amendments on the Notice Paper standing in my name and in the names of two other honourable and qualified Members, but before we move on to the next Clause I feel bound to remind the Minister of what he said on Second Reading, when his attention was called to this particular lacuna. He undertook then if possible to extend the Bill. It has clearly not proved possible, but I place on record the fact that the dental profession—

§ The Temporary Chairman
I am sorry to interrupt, but discussion on dentists is not in order. It is outside the scope of the Bill and I must ask the hon. Member to move on to another subject.

§ Dr. Kerr
I accept your Ruling, Mr. Grant-Ferris, with a certain amount of regret, and pass to the other Amendments which you have not called and to emphasise another point which came up on Second Reading. I hope that in this case I shall not be transgressing your Ruling.
938 This refers to the interpretation of the words in the Clause: …of medical practitioners undertaking to provide general medical services…". This line clearly relates to the provision of general medical services under the National Health Service Acts.

§ The Temporary Chairman
I am sorry to interrupt again, but this, also, is outside the scope of the Bill and I must ask the hon. Member to leave dental matters alone.

§ Dr. Kerr
I am not talking about dental matters. I refer specifically to general medical services in line 4 of the Clause. In accordance with your instructions I have abandoned the dentists to their fate.
"General medical services" ought to relate to a reference in two lines of the two National Health Service Acts. I ask the Minister to make quite clear that it is the intention of the Clause always to relate the provision in those lines to doctors, the majority of whose work is undertaken in those terms. If the General Practice Finance Corporation were to find itself in a position to make loans to practitioners whose work was predominantly outside the Health Service this might look a little odd.
This leads me to another matter—the question of doctors who having obtained a loan under the Clause decide to alter the terms so that they would no longer provide a general medical service under the Acts. I ask for the Minister's assurance that this problem will be looked at in those terms.

§ Mr. W. A. Wilkins (Bristol, South)
apologise in advance to you, Mr. Grant-Ferris, and to my right hon. Friend if I am on a false point, but I did not have the advantage of hearing the Second Reading debate. I should like to ask how the financial provisions of the Clause would apply in two particular instances. The Clause says that the Corporation may make loans to provide, or acquire a share in, premises used or to be used, in whole or in part, for the provision of such services referring to medical services.
I take it that essentially the idea is that a group practice of doctors desirous of erecting or taking over some premises and of adapting them for their practice could 939 obtain a loan. What would happen where a group of doctors, such as the Minister will recollect when he visited the clinic at Belle Vue Road, St. George, Bristol, wanted to establish their group practice and were permitted to do so by the local health authority in a new clinic? Can they do so? Would the cost be apportioned in such a way that they could take up a loan on the portion of the premises they were using?
How would this apply in other circumstances, which happen to be taking place in Bristol, where, in a certain place where new blocks of flats have been erected, a portion of the premises on the ground floor is offered to doctors for group practice? Is this covered by the financial provisions? Could they have a loan from the Corporation to provide, or, what is more interesting, "acquire a share in" a block of flats for the purposes of carrying on medical practice there?
I put this matter to my right hon. Friend because it has been represented very strongly to me by a doctor speaking for a group of doctors in my constituency. There seems to be a reluctance to accept premises from the local housing department which are on the ground floor of a block of flats. Generally speaking, doctors seem to prefer separate premises, but does the Clause apply in cases such as I have cited? Would the doctors be financially helped if they wanted a place for their clinic, and how would the authority be reimbursed for such accommodation?

§ Dr. Miller
May I have your guidance, Mr. Grant-Ferris? I should like to know what might happen in the case of a doctor providing general medical services who wished to reconstruct his premises and to apply for a loan and who might have a dentist occupying a part of the premises. Would the provisions of the Clause apply to the dentist? I am certain that it is the intention of a future Labour Government to abolish completely all Health Service charges, and this would include dental charges. It would appear, therefore, that dentists would come within the scope of any future legislation in this connection.
We are, perhaps, the only nation that would specifically exclude dentists from a discussion of general medical services, but the services which dentists provide 940 are, in effect, part of the general medical set-up. Does the Bill apply to a doctor, or two doctors, or a group of doctors who ask for a loan for the purposes of building, extending or renovating their premises in order to supply a general medical service when a dentist is included in their medical set-up? Would their rights be denied in this instance merely because the dentist was there with them? Would they still get a loan, or would the dental part of the medical and dental set up have entirely different provisions applied to it?

§ Dr. Wyndham Davies
For your guidance, Mr. Grant-Ferris, and for the confusion of the Minister, perhaps it might be as well if hon. and qualified Members on both sides were to point out that many doctors are qualified in dentistry also, and many dentists are qualified in medicine and ultimately practise it. For example, I recently called for a dental appointment at my own dentist's surgery and found that he was away ill, but there was my general practitioner doing his work.
With respect, Mr. Grant-Ferris, may I suggest that we might hear what the hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central (Dr. David Kerr) has to say about dentists, and perhaps the Minister could give us an answer on the drafting point which has been raised.

§ The Temporary Chairman
No. I am afraid that we may not hear the hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central in the sense in which he wished to address us. He seeks to extend the Clause. The hon. Member for Glasgow, Kelvingrove (Dr. Miller), on the other hand, does not seek to do that, but asks the Minister whether he thinks that dentists are covered by certain provisions of the Clause, which is quite another matter.

§ Mr. K. Robinson
Fortunately, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Dr. Wyndham Davies) cannot add to the confusion because general dental services and general medical services are really terms of art under the National Health Service Act, 1946, and are quite separate.
The short answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Kelvingrove (Dr. Miller) is that he has raised a detailed point which one could not attempt 941 to answer now, certainly not in advance of the scheme of the Corporation being submitted and approved. Even then, perhaps, that sort of case might not be dealt with in the scheme but might be a matter for administrative decision by the Corporation itself.
I call my hon. Friend's attention to the actual phrase in subsection (1) paragraph little (a), premises used or to be used, in whole or in part, for the provision of such services that is, general medical services. Whether the fact that part of the premises was used by a dentist would modify the amount of the loan which would otherwise have been made is, I think, a matter which we must leave to the Corporation itself when it considers the particular point.
I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Wandsworth, Central (Dr. David Kerr) that it is our intention that practitioners whose practice is substantially private shall not; be eligible for loans. It would not, in any event, be appropriate to spell this out in the Bill. This also is something which could be adequately covered by the scheme which the Corporation has to make and submit for the approval of Ministers, or, if necessary, it could be dealt with in directions. I can do no more than assure my hon. Friend of our intention on that point.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South (Mr. Wilkins) raised matters which would not normally be within the scope of the Bill. I think that I am right in saying that the St. George Health Centre, in Bristol, which, I agree, is an excellent example of a health centre, is in local authority premises and there is, therefore, no question of ownership by the doctors who practise there. They pay a rent. I think that this is equally true in the ordinary case of a local authority letting part of a block of flats in a new housing estate to a group of doctors to provide family doctor services for the area. It is usual that the ownership remains in the local authority, which then charges a rent to the doctors. In both those cases, of course, the new arrangement for direct reimbursement of rents would assist the doctors.
In the rare case of part of a block of fiats being sold off, so to speak, to doctors, I would see no reason why a doctor should not be able to apply to the Corporation for a loan in order to purchase 942 what would, in fact, be one flat in a block. It is becoming not unknown for people to purchase flats in a block nowadays, although it was very rare in this country up to about ten years ago. In this circumstance, I think that the Corporation could function, but in all the other cases mentioned by my hon. Friend it would be a question of reimbursement of rent rather than of loan for the purchase of premises.