asked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many
| Type of certificate | Date of increase | New fee |
| Certified copy issued by *General Register Office and a Superintendent Registrar. | 3s. 9d. (1952) | |
| 1 October 1968 | 8s. 0d. | |
| 1 October 1972 | 75p | |
| 1 October 1975 | £2·50 | |
| 1 April 1979 | £2·75 | |
| Certified copy issued from the register kept by Registrar. | 3s. 9d. (1952) | |
| 1 October 1968 | 5s. 0d. | |
| 1 October 1972 | 50p | |
| 1 October 1975 | £1·25 | |
| Short certificate of birth issued by *General Register Office and a Superintendent Registrar. | 9d (1952) | |
| 1 October 1968 | 3s. 0d. | |
| 1 October 1972 | 25p | |
| 1 October 1975 | £1·25 | |
| 1 January 1978 | £1·50 | |
| Short certificate of birth issued by a Registrar (one free certificate is issued at the time of registering a birth). | 1 October 1968 | 3s. 0d. |
| 1 October 1972 | 25p | |
| 1 October 1975 | £1·25 | |
| * Additional handling fees are charged on certificates supplied from General Register Office in response to postal applications: 25p (1968); 50p (1972); £2·00 (1975); £3·50 (1978); £3·75 (1979). | ||
asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will take steps to open the official registers of births, marriages and deaths for public scrutiny, free of charge, after the expiry of 100 years, and thus make them avail-
persons were awaiting admission to geriatric and psychogeriatric hospitals at the most recent date for which figures are available; and if he will make a statement.
At the end of March 1979 about 6,000 elderly people in England were awaiting admission to hospital departments of geriatric medicine. On the same date, about 2,000 adults were awaiting hospital admission for treatment of mental illness, but it is not possible to say how many of these were elderly people with severe mental infirmity.In general it is for each health authority to determine what action to reduce waiting lists is practicable and what priority such action should be given within available resources.