To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services, pursuant to his reply of 15 December 1987, Official Report, columns 495–6, what arrangements have been made to monitor the take up of the low cost 100 per cent. mortgage scheme being run by the Nationwide building society for nurses; and how many applications have been received from (a) single buyers, (b) dual buyers and (c) multiple buyers.

The recently launched low-cost mortgage scheme involves direct arrangements between Nationwide Anglia and individual members of NHS staff. The Department keeps in touch with the building society over the broad state of developments, but does not monitor the details of numbers of applications. It is for the society to decide when and in what manner to publicise these. The society's last public statement quoted in the Health Service Journal on 7 April, reported that there had been 3,000 expressions of interest in the scheme and of those about 300 applications had been made.