§ Mr. Lawrenceasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether an appellant from a decision of the supplementary benefit appeals tribunal (a) could obtain legal aid for his appeal before 1980 and (b) can obtain legal aid for his appeal now.
§ Mrs. ChalkerLegal aid was available to an appellant to the High Court from a decision of supplementary benefit appeal tribunal given before 24 November 1980.
1950 1960 1970 1980 (a) NHS directly employed staff UK* not available 565,000 741,000 1,228,000 (b) Total population UK 50,565,000 52,559,000 55,522,000 56,010,000 (c) Percentage of population (in (b)) not covered by a private health scheme† 99.76 98.11 96.43 93.61 Notes
* These figures are from Department of Employment returns. This is the only source to yield overall totals of directly employed NHS staff in the United Kingdom for the years in question, although a strict comparison of the 1980 figure with those of earlier years is not possible because of the effects of the 1974 reorganisation of the NHS. These figures include both part-time and full-time staff and cannot be translated into whole-time equivalents.
† This information is derived from "Provident Schemes Statistics 1980" produced by Lee Donaldson Associates. The information relates only to the three main provident associations which are estimated as accounting for about 98 per cent. of total subscription income.