HC Deb 16 May 1984 vol 60 c351
6. Mr. Willie W. Hamilton

asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the amounts collected by the local health authorities in Scotland under the terms of the National Health Service (Charges to Overseas Visitors) Regulations since the inception of the scheme.

Mr. John MacKay

Health boards in Scotland collected £275,800 in the first year of operation of the scheme.

Mr. Hamilton

Does the Minister agree—I am sure that he will—that this has been a massive cock-up, even by this Government's standards? Is he aware that the administrative costs of the scheme far exceed the miserable sum to which he referred? Will he exercise a spark of common sense and drop the whole ruddy nonsense?

Mr. MacKay

The hon. Gentleman has no evidence to justify his statement that the administrative costs are greater than the £275,000 I mentioned. It is odd that the hon. Gentleman expects people who pay taxes and national insurance in Britain, and who decide to have private medical care, to pay for any NHS service that they may use, yet believes that people who pay no taxes in Britain should come here and obtain health services completely free.

Mr. Maxton

Will the Minister provide those administrative costs? Instead of asking the Greater Glasgow health board to waste manpower and money on this stupid scheme, will he ensure that it spends the money properly on establishing a health centre in Castlemilk?

Mr. MacKay

There is no evidence that the Greater Glasgow health board, or any other health board, has taken on more staff. I should have thought that the income from the scheme of almost £100,000 to the Greater Glasgow health board in 1982 was a welcome addition to its resources.