§ Mr. David Priceasked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) if he will give details of how the cash injection of over £50 million of capital and revenue in the next financial year, which he announced in the course of his speech in the debate on the Address on Friday 4th November, for the health and social services is to be allocated between various branches of the services and between various regional health authorities; and if he will make a statement;
(2) if he will give details of how the extra £55 million is to be spent on capital spending on the health and personal services in the financial years 1978–79 and 1979–80, which he announced in the course of his speech in the debate on the Address on Friday 4th November; and if he will make a full statement.
§ Mr. EnnalsThe cash injection of over £50 million to the health and personal social services in England for 1978–79 consists of about £10 million for current expenditure in the health services and £5 million in the personal social services, together with £37 million for 63W capital expenditure from the Government's programme to assist the construction industry, of which £33 million is for health and £4 million for the personal social services. Further capital sums of £16 million for health and £2 million for personal social services will be made available in 1979–80 for the same purpose, making a total addition to capital expenditure of £55 million over the two years.
This extra cash will be deployed to advance the priorities set by "The Way Forward" as I indicated in the debate on the Address and to further our policy of a fairer distribution of resources. I also intend that the £10 million for current expenditure in 1978–79 will be used to ease the pressures on the health services, particularly with the transitional pressures we face in reorganising our services to meet the demands of the future, and I shall be discussing this with the chairmen of regional health authorities shortly.