To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether he proposes to make changes to the powers of the NHS management board.

The NHS management board has not existed since 1989. I have no plans to make changes to the powers of the management executive that replaced it.

Will the Secretary of State ensure that before all the management board members dwindle away to take up high-paid jobs in self-governing hospitals, they do something about the plight of low-paid NHS workers? I refer particularly to blood transfusion workers in the northern region, who have waited two and a half years for a pay regrading under the guidelines issues by the management board. Everyone is praising those workers, rightly, at this time—but will the Secretary of State ensure that they get properly paid as well?

The management board has already dwindled away, because it no longer exists. However, I take the hon. Gentleman's point and he is right to say that there are too many low-paid people in the health service. In the negotiations on ancillary pay, we should try to shift attention towards the lowest-paid.