Major-General Sir Richard Luce: 37. asked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he is aware that in three of the destroyers serving on the China station the medical officers have been obliged to see their patients and keep their medical stores in part of the latrine accommodation of the ships; that the same medical officers unable, owing to lack of accommodation, to obtain cabins, have been refused hard-lying or other...
Major-General Sir Richard Luce: Was not hard-lying money instituted for this purpose?
Major-General Sir Richard Luce: Is it not a fact that this extra work has been going on for some considerable time?
Major-General Sir Richard Luce: I wish to say a word or two in favour of this new Clause. I regret that pressure of time prevented a similar proposal to the one we are considering being dealt with in this House. [HON. MEMBERS: "The guillotine."] However, the Amendments we put on the Amendment Paper were not reached, and another place has fulfilled a useful function on this occasion. We welcome this new Clause because we are...
Major-General Sir Richard Luce: 63. asked the President of the Board of Trade if the necessary sickness and mortality statistics are available or in process of preparation for the use of the joint committee appointed by the Board of Trade and the Ministry of Health to consider matters affecting the health of the mercantile marine?
Major-General Sir Richard Luce: I wish to follow the lead of my colleague, the right hon. Gentleman the senior Member for Derby (Mr. J. H. Thomas). This Bill has received a Second Heading and there is no need to describe what it contains or the great advantages that are expected from it by the town of Derby. We are concerned merely with those Clauses against which the Instruction has been moved. As has been said, the Bill...
Major-General Sir Richard Luce: 53. asked the Secretary of State for Air if the director of medical services of the Air Force has been granted a further extension; and, if so, for how long?
Major-General Sir Richard Luce: I beg to move, in page 3, line 28, to leave out from the beginning to the word "any" in line 29. The object of this Amendment is to remove the option which is given to local authorities in regard to the working of certain parts of the health services and to insure as far as possible that in future those services which can be administered under existing Acts shall be so administered, and not...
Major-General Sir Richard Luce: In view of the sympathetic way in which the right hon. Gentleman has treated this Amendment and of his promise to reconsider the point, I ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Major-General Sir Richard Luce: 10. asked the Home Secretary whether any new system for taking statements in criminal cases has been adopted by the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police; and, if so, whether he will make a statement on the subject?
Major-General Sir Richard Luce: 4. asked the Minister of Pensions to consider the possibility of extending benefit under the Pensions Act to the orphan children of pensioners who are mentally or physically deficient after they reach the age of 21?
Major-General Sir Richard Luce: I do not rise to approve of the reduction of the Vote, but to raise several points with regard to the Royal Army Medical Corps, and firstly with regard to the reduction of the establishment of that Corps, which is being made in the Estimates of this year, by 22 officers and 284 men. That is out of an establishment of 4,163—a reduction, therefore, of about 6.8 per cent. It will be seen that...
Major-General Sir Richard Luce: Not the administration but the construction.
Major-General Sir Richard Luce: I said that the Government were doing their bare duty.
Major-General Sir Richard Luce: Also as a member of the Select Committee, I wish to oppose this Clause, and I do so for several reasons. The first has already been referred to by a Member on this side who was Chairman of the Committee, and it is that when we were taking evidence before the Committee, we had applications from two sets of nursing homes for exemption under this Bill. One was from the medical profession, that...
Major-General Sir Richard Luce: Would that apply to the first part of the Clause as well where it says "In respect of any nursing homes," so as to make it read, "In respect of any homes"?
Major-General Sir Richard Luce: 66. asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether any conclusion has yet been come to in the matter of establishing a more satisfactory definition of miners' nystagmus; and whether he is aware that the present definition is differently inter preted by different ophthalmic surgeons and makes it difficult for the medical referees to give equitable decisions in many of these cases?
Major-General Sir Richard Luce: 35. asked the Minister of Health whether he is now in a position to make any statement as to the steps to be taken to give effect to the recommendations of the Royal Commission on National Health Insurance and, in particular, those relating to the abolition of insurance committees and the provision of a specialist and consultant medical service for all insured persons by means of a partial...
Major-General Sir Richard Luce: I just want to raise one point which was not referred to by my Noble Friend in his original speech. It is the question of the Indian Medical Service. I gather that the long negotiations and the long consideration of the future of that Service are now almost completed. These negotiations have been going on for what, perhaps, may seem to be a very long time. It is now over three years since the...
Major-General Sir Richard Luce: As a Member of the Select Committee which considered this question, and as one who has had in the past considerable experience of nursing homes, fortunately not as a patient, I should like to say a few words to recommend the Second Heading of this Bill. When the Committe began to sit, I came to the question with a very considerably open mind. In my previous experience, in days gone by, I had...
