Editing Enoch Powell (section)

===Minister of Health===
Powell returned to the government in July 1960, when he was appointed [[Secretary of State for Health and Social Care|Health minister]],{{sfn|Roth|1970|pp=229ff}} although he did not become a member of the Cabinet until the [[Night of the Long Knives (1962)|1962 reshuffle]].{{sfn|Roth|1970|p=270}} During a meeting with parents of babies that had been born with deformities caused by the drug [[thalidomide]], he refused to meet any babies affected by the drug.<ref name="StephensBrynner2009">{{cite book |title=Dark Remedy: The Impact of Thalidomide and Its Revival As a Vital Medicine |first1=Trent D |last1=Stephens |author2-link=Rock Brynner|first2=Rock |last2=Brynner |publisher=Basic Books |year=2001 |isbn=0738205907 |pages=51, 80–81 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9IGyL1Cwy08C |location=Cambridge, MA}}</ref> Powell also refused to launch a [[public inquiry]], and resisted calls to issue a warning against any left-over thalidomide pills that might remain in people's medicine cabinets (as US President [[John F. Kennedy]] had done).<ref name="StephensBrynner2009" />

In December 1961, Powell, as Minister of Health, announced that the [[birth control pill]] Conovid could be prescribed to women through the NHS at a subsidised price of 2 shillings per month.<ref>{{cite news |date=15 December 1961|title=Subsidizing birth control |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]|volume=78|issue=24|page=55|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,827091,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080205155642/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,827091,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=5 February 2008}}</ref>

As health minister he developed the 1962 Hospital Plan.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Rivett|first1=Geoffrey|title=Hospital Development : 1948–1968|url=http://www.nhshistory.net/hospital_development.htm|access-date=28 September 2014}}</ref> He began a debate on the neglect of [[Institutionalisation|psychiatric institutions]], calling for them to be replaced by wards in general hospitals.<ref group="nb">In his 1961 "Water Tower" speech, he said: "There they stand, isolated, majestic, imperious, brooded over by the gigantic water-tower and chimney combined, rising unmistakable and daunting out of the countryside—the asylums which our forefathers built with such immense solidity to express the notions of their day. Do not for a moment underestimate their powers of resistance to our assault. Let me describe some of the defences which we have to storm."</ref><ref>{{cite web |url= http://studymore.org.uk/xpowell.htm| first = Enoch | last = Powell | title = Water Tower Speech | year = 1961 | publisher = studymore | location = UK |access-date= 21 December 2013}}</ref> The speech catalysed debate. It was one of several strands that led to the [[Care in the Community]] initiative of the 1980s. In 1993, however, Powell stated that the criminally insane should have never been released and that the problem was one of funding. He said the new way of caring for the mentally ill cost more, not less, than the old way because community care was decentralised and intimate as well as being "more human"; and his successors had not, Powell stated, provided the money for local authorities to spend on mental health care. Institutional care had therefore been neglected and there was not investment in community care.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=941}}

After his speech on immigration in 1968, Powell's political opponents sometimes alleged that he had, when Minister of Health, recruited immigrants from the Commonwealth into the [[National Health Service]] (NHS). However, the Minister of Health was not responsible for recruitment (this was left to health authorities){{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=286}}<ref group="nb">[[Sir George Godber]], [[Chief Medical Officer (United Kingdom)|Chief Medical Officer]] for Her Majesty's Government in [[England]] from 1960 to 1973 (and for [[England and Wales]] from 1960 to 1969), stated that the allegation was "bunk&nbsp;... absolute rubbish. There was no such policy".</ref>{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=597}}<ref group="nb">Powell's biographer [[Simon Heffer]] also stated that the claim "is a complete untruth. As Powell's biographer I have been thoroughly through the Ministry of Health papers at the Public Record Office and have found no evidence to support this assertion".</ref><ref>''The Times'' (17 February 1998), p. 21.</ref><ref group="nb">During the early 1960s, Powell was asked about the recruitment of immigrant workers for the NHS. He replied by saying "recruitment was in the hands of the hospital authorities, but this was something that happened of its own accord given that there was no bar upon entry and employment in the United Kingdom to those from the West Indies or anywhere else [in the Commonwealth or colonies."</ref><ref name=immigration1>{{cite book|title=Enoch Powell: A Biography|last=Shepherd|first=Robert|chapter=Hypocrite on immigration?|pages=222–226}}</ref> Powell did welcome immigrant nurses and doctors, under the condition that they were to be temporary workers training in the UK and would then return to their native countries as qualified doctors or nurses.<ref name=immigration1 /> Shortly after becoming Minister of Health, Powell asked Rab Butler (the [[Home Secretary]]) if he could be appointed to a ministerial committee which monitored immigration.<ref name=immigration1 /> Powell was worried about the strain caused by NHS immigrants, and papers show that he wanted a stronger restriction on Commonwealth immigration than that which was passed in 1961.<ref name=immigration1 />