I beg to ask permission to present a Petition to this honourable House signed by citizens to the number of 36,089 throughout Great Britain.

That the proposed increased charges for prescriptions, dentures, and spectacles under the National Health Service and the increases in the Health Insurance stamps and the charge for welfare foods constitute a threat to the national health, impose a burden on those least able to bear it and depart still further from the principle of a Health Service free for all at the time of need.

Wherefore your Petitioners pray that such increases should not be imposed but, rather, that the additional expenditure required for the National Health Service be raised from general taxation.

And your Petitioners, as in duty hound, will ever pray.