§ Mr. George Foulkes (Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley)It is a great pleasure for me, Mr. Speaker, as joint chairman of the all-party pensioners' association in the House, to present a petition signed by Mr. George Dunn, the general secretary of the National Federation of Old Age Pensioners' Associations, together with nearly 74,000 signatures of members of the national federation. They are concerned at the threat to the eyesight, health and pockets of pensioners posed by the provisions of the Health and Social Security Bill, under which many old people will for the first time have to pay the full cost of spectacles. Many will have to resort to the old practice of trying to get their spectacles on the counter at Woolworth's. They feel that by the provisions of the Bill we are moving back towards the Victorian age.
The petition concludes:
Wherefore your petitioners pray that the Health and Social Security Bill, Clause 1, be amended to prevent a potential deterioration in standards of health care.And your Petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray etc.
§ To lie upon the Table.