§ Mr. Gordon Wilsonasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many pensioners received aid with telephone installation and rental from local authorities in England and Wales in 1973 and 1974, and at what cost; and if she will state the numbers receiving aid as a percentage of those in receipt of pensions in these countries.
§ Mr. Alfred MorrisThe information in the form sought is not available as the statistics relate to households helped and not to people; nor do they distinguish between pensioners and others. The number of households where assistance was given to elderly and handicapped people in England and Wales, either under Section 2 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970 or Section 45 of the Health Services and Public Health Act 1968, with the installation and/or rental of a telephone were as follows:
ing day care places are children from one-parent families where the parent has to go out to work, and we are encouraging efforts to meet the needs of priority children for whom no place is yet available. Current constraints imposed by resource limitations emphasise the need to supplement nursery provision by promoting the development of flexible, community-based alternatives such as good child-minding, making fuller use of existing premises and increasing co-ordination between all the agencies concerned with the under-fives, as my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction stressed in the debate on one-parent families on 20th October.—[Vol. 898 c. 165.]