asked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many mentally handicapped patients detained under (a) Section 26, (b) Section 60 and (c) Sections 60 to 65 were eligible to apply for mental health review tribunals in the last year for which figures are available.

I regret that information in this form is not available. The only relevant information available centrally is that at 31st December 1975 of the detained patients in NHS hospitals in England recorded as suffering from subnormality or severe subnormality:

(a) 514 were detained under Section 26 of the Mental Health Act; and

(b) 721 patients were detained under Sections 60 and 61, some with restrictions on discharge under Section 65 of the Act.

These figures do not include mentally handicapped patients who were also suffering from mental illness. Not all of these patients would, however, have been eligible to apply for a Mental Health Review Tribunal hearing during 1975. There would also have been a number of patients who were not in hospital on 31st December who would have been eligible to apply for a tribunal hearing earlier in the year.

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what is his policy towards the giving of tiddlywinks or tokens to mental patients in order to encourage them to eat meals and take drugs.

Token economy programmes form a well-recognised and widely-used part of behaviour modification programmes. The use of such programmes is a matter for the clinical judgment of those responsible for a patient's treatment. I look forward to reading the report of the joint professions' working party that has been considering aspects of this subject.

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many juveniles are currently in private psychiatric hospitals because local authorities do not have proper resources to care for them.

The information is not available centrally.