Parliamentary Questions - Written Replies

NAVAL CLOSURE: Last November's proposals to close Portland Naval Base by April 1996, transfering operational sea training to Devonport, and to cease refit work at the fleet maintenance and repair organisation, Portsmouth, were confirmed by Archie Hamilton, Minister of State for Defence.

PRESCRIPTION COSTS: The prescription charge has increased seven-fold in real terms since the Conservatives took office in 1979, Brian Mawhinney, Minister of State for Health, told Barry Jones (Lab. Alyn and Deeside). By 1 April, he said, the charge will have increased 757 per cent, although the charge remained 'substantially less than the average cost of a prescribed item to the NHS', and charge exemptions covered one in five prescribed items, compared with two in five in 1979.