HC Deb 24 July 1973 vol 860 cc552-3W
Mr. Harold Walker

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) why he has withheld loan sanction for the provision of a hostel for the mentally subnormal which Doncaster county borough had proposed to build during the current financial year;

(2) why he has refused to approve expenditure by Doncaster county borough on the provision during 1973–74 of an aged persons' shelter at Wheatley, a holiday home on the East Coast, and a laundry service for the elderly;

(3) why he has refused to approve expenditure by Doncaster county borough during 1975–76 on the provision of a home for the aged at Springwell Lane, a day centre for the elderly at Cantley or Wheatley, and an old persons' shelter at Intake;

(4) why he has refused to approve expenditure by Doncaster county borough on the provision during 1974–75 of a day centre for the elderly at the Lodge, Hexthorpe.

Sir K. Joseph

Local authorities in England, when submitting lists of projects for which they hoped to seek my final aproval for loan sanction during the years 1973–74, 1974–75 and 1975–76, included projects whose key sector costs in total far exceeded the resources forecast, in the White Paper, Public Expenditure to 1976–77 (Cmnd. 5178), to be available. In determining which proposals should be omitted from the lists of projects provisionally approved, I sought to follow, so far as accorded with national priorities and an equitable distribution of available resources, the priorities attached to particular projects by the authorities themselves.