asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will extend the supplementary sickness benefit to cover men who are in employment up to the age of 70 years and women up to the age of 65 years, if they are still paying full insurance contributions.

No. There are still strong reasons for not paying sickness benefit at more than the retirement pension rate to those who are over minimum pension age,

asked the Minister of Transport (1) on what date the British Railways Board submitted a scheme to replace the station at Falmouth; and on what date he asked to see further details of the scheme;(2) if he will now give approval to the scheme to construct a new station at Falmouth.

The Railways Board, in its application for grant for the Truro-Falmouth passenger service, dated 3rd December, 1968, proposed a scheme to replace Falmouth station.On giving the undertaking to pay grant on 31st December last year, I asked to see details of the scheme before giving my approval. I have just received this information which I am now considering.

asked the Minister of Transport if, in the light of the Gaskin Report on Development in the North-East of Scotland and the Government's decision in 1967 to require the track and formation to be kept, he will now make a statement regarding the Deeside railway line.

I am now awaiting the views of the Scottish Economic Planning Board before reaching a decision.

asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what has been the number of cattle earmarked by each field officer, Grade 3, in the Caithness area during the last two years.

Five field officers, Grade 3, are employed on the certification of calves for subsidy under the Calf Subsidy Schemes in the Caithness area, which comprises the counties of Sutherland, Caithness, Orkney and Zetland.The numbers of calves earmarked by each of these officers in the last two years were:

asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will list in the OFFICIAL REPORT those local authorities that have discontinued house building and those that have considerably curtailed their house building, respectively together with the relevant figures indicating housing completions in 1967, 1968, 1969 and the estimates for 1970.

Although in recent months we have not received the number of the formal submissions for approval which authorities' provisional programmes had led us to expect, I have no evidence that the cause has been policy decisions to discontinue or curtail house building. It would be unrealistic to expect some of the smaller authorities to undertake a new scheme every year, and the programmes of even the largest authorities vary from year to year.Statistics of new house construction in each local authority district for 1967, 1968 and the first quarter of 1969 will be found in the Housing Returns for Scotland, 31st December, 1967, 31st December, 1968, and 31st March 1969, published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office.

asked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many extra civil servants it has been necessary to recruit to the Scottish Office since October, 1964, on account of the enlarged responsibility of his Department for economic planning.

Officers in the Regional Development Division and the Scottish Statistical Office currently number 48 (including clerical staff) compared with 24 in October, 1964. All the Scottish Office Departments, however, contribute to economic planning work.

asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will list those local authorities which are using their permissive powers under section 24 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1966, to rate unoccupied properties.

The following local authorities indicated in response to a Departmental circular issued in November, 1968, that they had decided to rate unoccupied property: