§ 2.40 p.m.
§ LORD O'HAGANMy Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
§ [The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they consider that the mentally ill and the subnormal receive their fair proportion of major building projects initiated by the Department of Health and Social Security.]
4§ THE MINISTER OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND SOCIAL SECURITY (BARONESS SEROTA)My Lords, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State has discussed the matter with the Regional Hospital Boards whose duty it is to keep under review the priority of particular building schemes and concluded that more needs to be done in the short term before it can be said that these services can be regarded as receiving their fair share. Accordingly, in giving Boards their allocations of capital for 1970–71 he asked them to devote £2 million more to schemes for long-stay services—that is, geriatric and psychiatric —than they had indicated in their provisional programmes, of which at least £1 million was to be devoted to schemes for the mentally handicapped.
§ LORD O'HAGANMy Lords, may I thank the noble Baroness more than formally for that reply, and beg leave to ask the second Question standing in my name on the Order Paper?
§ LORD PLATTMy Lords, before the noble Lord goes on to the second Question, I should like to ask the Government whether they are aware of the enormously good effect on morale, and therefore on recruiting, derived from having modern buildings for the services which have been mentioned?
§ BARONESS SEROTAMy Lords, I am only too conscious of the point the noble Lord has made. We hope that by this additional allocation of money we shall continue to raise morale in the services.