asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what studies are in progress in her Department on the comparative cost of maintaining an old person in a bed in a geriatric ward of a hospital, and alternative means, for example, home help, meals on wheels, home nursing, of providing for the same old person within the community.

My Department is currently planning a new research project into the practicability and relative costs of alternative patterns of support for high dependency groups of old people. It is a project to which I attach high priority as at present we have inadequate information on comparative cost.