To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to her answer of 27 April, Official Report, column 345, when the mental health task force is to begin collecting information on the closure of mental hospitals; when the data will be made publicly available; and what is the task force's definition of a long-stay psychiatric hospital.

The mental health task force has begun to collect information on the closure of long-stay mental illness hospitals. It intends to complete an analysis of initial returns by the end of July, which I will make available. Information is being collected on those hospitals listed as mental illness hospitals with more than 100 beds in 1960 and which are still open, plus hospitals opened since then with more than 100 beds which are predominantly mental illness hospitals.