§ Ms Oona KingTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement about the annual financial estimates and accounts for Greenwich Hospital. [88574]
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§ Mr. SpellarGreenwich Hospital is a Crown charity, of which my right hon. Friend is the sole trustee. It derives all its income from its property and investments and applies it for the benefit of seafarers and their dependants. I am today laying before Parliament copies of the audited accounts for Greenwich Hospital for 1997–98. Following an undertaking given during the passage of the Greenwich Hospital Bill in 1967 by the then Under-Secretary of State for the Navy (Mr. Foley) it has been the practice also to place in the Library of both Houses copies of the annual financial estimates for Greenwich Hospital which, nowadays, are prepared solely for this purpose. This practice no longer serves a useful purpose, given the more informative published financial accounts, and I have therefore decided to discontinue it.