asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if she will now authorise the building of the hospital in Skelmersdale New Town.

Health authorities have been asked to review existing service plans and to submit by January 1977 strategic plans including capital proposals for the ensuing decade. We shall shortly be notifying regional health authorities of the financial assumptions on which their capital programmes for 1976–77 and subsequent years should be based. It is in this context that the future pattern of hospital provision for the Ormskirk district, including Skelmersdale, will be determined.