asked the Minister of Health what steps he is taking to facilitate the registering with a doctor of aged helpless people, who at present have to take the initiative.

These old people or anyone looking after them, acting on their behalf, should ask the local Executive Council to allocate them to a doctor.

Is my right hon. Friend aware that the welfare authorities, whose responsibility it is to look after these helpless, aged persons, are being seriously handicapped in the Liverpool area by the fact that the Manchester Region of the Assistance Board refuses emphatically to give any information at all to the welfare committee regarding people who are in receipt of supplementary allowances under the National Assistance scheme?

The reason why this is so is because the National Assistance Board consider that the information upon which they give supplementary pensions is confidential and should not be given to anyone else. I am, however, trying to arrange that the Minister of National Insurance shall give a comprehensive list of all persons in receipt of old age pensions, which would assimilate those in receipt of supplementary pensions and not identify them in any particular.