Sir David Price: To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what arrangements he has made to ensure that existing recipients of attendance allowance and mobility allowance receive disability living allowance in April.
Sir David Price: Will those in the third category, who are claiming extra money to help with personal care and who do not currently receive attendance allowance, have their claims determined by an adjudication officer or a medical practitioner? Will social factors be given equal weight with medical factors when determining such claims?
Sir David Price: My hon. Friend will be aware of the fact that under separate legislation midwives today have limited powers of prescribing.
Sir David Price: Like the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms. Harman), I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims) on his good fortune in winning a high place in the ballot. I am delighted that he has chosen to introduce a Bill on nurse prescribing and I am honoured to be associated with it as one of its sponsors. As my hon. Friend said, the Bill deals primarily with the delivery of health...
Sir David Price: My hon. Friend has made an excellent point, succinctly put, which has not yet been fully recognised by the Treasury. The Touche Ross report had to be completed in a considerable hurry, for reasons that we understand. Let us not attach too much weight to it, because the overall response rate from the 18 district health authorities surveyed was 15 per cent. of district nurses and 23 per cent....
Sir David Price: Is my right hon. Friend aware that those of us who take a particular interest in the cause of the severely disabled are pleased that he was able to do so much more for the independent living fund, on which some of us have been pressing him for a long time? In view of his obvious confidence in the independent living fund, what is its future?
Sir David Price: In the interests of the many right hon. and hon. Members who wish to speak, I shall not attempt to answer the election speech of the hon. Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers). Like you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I am one of a rapidly diminishing number of right hon. and hon. Members who belong to a generation who had to pay a very heavy price in blood for the continuous neglect of defence in this...
Sir David Price: Why are the three best infantry regiments in the British Army—the Grenadier Guards, the Coldstream Guards and the Scots Guards—being asked to take 50 per cent. cuts?
Sir David Price: The hon. Gentleman is wrong.
Sir David Price: The history of our regiments shows that they were founded in the 18th, not the 19th century, and many were raised privately. Is the hon. Gentleman recommending that we return to private armies?
Sir David Price: Does my right hon. Friend recall that I introduced a Bill in 1983 based on an all-party Select Committee report which dealt with equality of age opportunity between men and women and with flexibility? It was never defeated, but simply talked out. Therefore, I invite my right hon. Friend to reintroduce my Bill in the next Session of Parliament. It is all there, there is no problem and I am...
Sir David Price: Does my right hon. Friend agree that none of us can determine whether any hospital is correctly manned without an analysis of the staffing needs of that hospital in relation to its detailed health objectives? I can well understand that my right hon. Friend does not normally wish such figures to be published, but as two particular cases have been the subject of great public controversy, will...
Sir David Price: To ask the right hon. Member for Selby, representing the Church Commissioners, whether there are any proposals to fund the employment of a disablement officer for every diocese.
Sir David Price: Is my right hon. Friend aware that despite what he said, access for people in wheelchairs is difficult or impossible in a significant number of Anglican churches and that some vicars and bishops are singularly negative in their attitude towards trying to solve this problem?
Sir David Price: I am sure that the whole House is grateful to the right hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris) for bringing to the Floor of the House the whole problem of the extra costs of disability. As the House will know, the ninth report of the old Social Services Select Committee considered disability in relation to care in the community. A section of that report dealt with the cost of...
Sir David Price: I shall be brief, being aware of the desire of hon. Members to make progress due to circumstances outside the House. I congratulate the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) on his first appearance at the Dispatch Box. This is a good subject on which to make one's first appearance there because the issue rightly produces harmony across the Floor of the House. I am pleased that he and...
Sir David Price: It will not.
Sir David Price: If my hon. Friend wants to improve public transport from his constituency to Southampton, he should work with British Rail and the county council so that the system is sited over the existing railway line. He might then achieve his aim. This, however, is just a mickey mouse scheme in the middle of Southampton.
Sir David Price: On his interesting democratic point, does my hon. Friend accept that when a Bill is before the House, the views of local Members of Parliament are of overriding importance? If a motion is before the local city council, it is quite different.
Sir David Price: The kindest comment that I can make about the speech of the hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Garrett) is to remind the House of those famous lines of Oliver Goldsmith: Every absurdity has a champion to defend it.
