asked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) why the medical laboratory scientific officer grades within the National Health Service are treated as professional for the purposes of registration as a profession supplementary to medicine but not for the purpose of pay determination;(2) why medical laboratory scientific officers have been excluded from the enhanced pay offer to nurses and professional staff.

Registration as a profession supplementary to medicine was not the determining factor in the Government's decision to include some professional groups with nurses and midwives for the purposes of pay offers. I refer the hon. Member to my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Dickens) on 25 October.—[Vol. 29, c. 303.]