HC Deb 24 October 1966 vol 734 cc619-21
28. Miss Pike

asked the Minister of Health if he will publish in the OFFICIAL REPORT a list, together with their cost, of the cuts to be made, as announced on 25th July of this year, in the proposed expenditure for 1967 in the different health and welfare services provided by local authorities.

34 and 36. Mr. Scott

asked the Minister of Health (1) if he will publish in the OFFICIAL REPORT details, including cost, of the cuts to be made in the proposed expenditure for 1967 on workshops, social centres and hostels for the mentally ill as a result of the £3 million cut in proposed expenditure in 1967 on local authority health and welfare services, which were published on 25th July of this year;

(2) if he will publish in the OFFICIAL REPORT details, including cost, of the cuts to be made in the proposed expenditure for 1967 on centres and homes for elderly, including the elderly mentally infirm, as a result of the £3 million cut in proposed expenditure in 1967 on local authority health and welfare services, which were published on 25th July of this year.

38. Mr. Dean

asked the Minister of Health whether he will give details of the cuts to be made in the proposed expenditure during 1967 in local authority health and welfare services for mothers and young children as a result of the cuts in expenditure announced on 25th July, 1966.

23. Mr. Maurice Macmillan

asked the Minister of Health whether he will publish in the OFFICIAL REPORT details, including cost, of the cuts to be made in the proposed expenditure for 1967 on centres and homes for the physically handicapped as a result of the £3 million cut in proposed expenditure in 1967 on local authority health and welfare services, announced on 25th July of this year.

Mr. K. Robinson

The necessary reduction in capital expenditure in 1967–68 will be secured by limiting the total value of loan sanctions issued to local health and welfare authorities during 1966–67. It is not possible at this stage to say for which individual projects issue of loan sanction will have to be deferred to 1967–68.

Miss Pike

Has the Minister taken any steps to try to assess the cumulative effects of these cuts on the hospital services and in the deprivation of the people concerned? Will he give an assurance that where these cuts take place, for example, in the local authority services, the local authorities will not have to bear the blame for the reduction in services which they have to make as a result of the Minister's cuts?

Mr. Robinson

It would be as well to keep a sense of proportion in this. I do not think that the hospital services will be adversely affected, and, despite these reductions, the amount of loan sanctions for health and welfare capital projects expected to be issued during 1966–67 is higher than that for any previous year.

Mr. Scott

Will the Minister issue instructions or a list of priorities to local authorities about which services should be cut back? Does not the whole thing make nonsense of the claims of the Government Front Bench that the social services are being exempted from the Draconian measures of the Chancellor of the Exchequer?

Mr. Robinson

No, Sir, it does not make nonsense at all. It is a very small reduction of less than 10 per cent. for the year in question. I have made clear that, in the issuing of loan sanctions, priority will, in general, be given to health centres, to mental health projects and to old people's homes the construction of which will lead to early closure of ex-public assistance institutions.

Mr. Dean

Are not these cuts very shortsighted? Does not the Minister agree that many of these projects involve comparatively modest capital expenditure and that, without this, the already over-burdened hospital service will find it still more difficult to give people the service they need?

Mr. Robinson

Any reduction is, of course, unfortunate; but nevertheless this was necessary in the light of the economic situation at the time.

Sir D. Walker-Smith

When the Minister makes his claim for the amount of loan sanction relative to previous years, does he make it in the context of real value or does he make any discount for the fall in the value of the £ in the last two years, which would mean imposing a cut upon a cut?

Mr. Robinson

What I said would, I think, be equally true in real terms, but, if the right hon. and learned Gentleman will put a Question down in those terms, I shall be glad to answer it.

Dr. Owen

Will my right hon. Friend take it that many of us are very grateful to him for the way he has shielded the health and welfare services from the cuts, but will he impress upon his colleagues that what we are really suffering from is a tremendous backlog of lack of investment over many years?

Mr. Robinson

I do not dissent from what my hon. Friend has said.