If she will make a statement on the financial situation of Selby and York primary care trust.

Selby and York primary care trust recorded a deficit of £6.6 million in 2004–05. It is working with its national health service partner organisations to put in place a financial recovery plan.

Is the Minister aware that the projected deficit could reach £47 million by the financial year 2007–08, and is he concerned that for every two GPs there is an administrator looking after them? Is he aware of the implications of the working time directive, the GP contract and the new consultant contract on the budget, and what is he going to do to reduce the deficit?

I am well aware of those points. Having spent a little time looking at the health economy in Selby and York this morning, I hope that the hon. Lady will join me in celebrating the results of the record investment that has gone into her Constituency. Cancer mortality is down by 10 per cent. in York and by 22 per cent. in Selby, and mortality from circulatory disease is down by 25 per cent. in York and by 19 per cent. in Selby. Only 449 people now wait more than six months for treatment in her PCT, and we plan to boost investment yet again. She points out that the deficit will grow to north of £40 million if no further action is taken, and I am happy to say that plenty of action is proposed. She will know that the deficit is currently only just over 4 per cent. of the £225 million that the PCT gets each year, and that over the next two or three years—

Order. Perhaps the Minister could write to the hon. Lady.

Can my hon. Friend confirm that the Selby and York PCT will continue its plans to rebuild the Selby War Memorial hospital? In the light of earlier answers, will he also confirm that, when that hospital is rebuilt, the local primary care trust will continue to be able to choose to employ staff directly there and, if it so chooses, to employ district nurses, who serve Selby so well, without central interference?

First, may I congratulate my hon. Friend on his championing of the Selby War Memorial hospital, for which he has been an effective advocate for some time? I have reviewed the position and can confirm that plans for the Selby War Memorial hospital will press ahead and will be published at the PCT board meeting in December. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said, it will quite rightly be a local decision as to whether NHS staff continue to be employed locally.

Surely the key issue is that services to patients should not be cut as a result of the deficit. Given that the NHS budget for our local area has doubled, can the Minister give an assurance that, if a prompt recovery plan is brought into effect, services to patients will not suffer?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. We made a big promise to the British people in May: to transform our health services over the next few years from suffering the scandal of the year-and-a-half waiting lists that we inherited to one in which waiting lists are down to just 18 weeks. What is more, we shall put in the resources to deliver and to ensure that those are not just empty promises. One does not have to be a health economist, though my hon. Friend is one, to understand that investing another £80 million in the Selby and York PCT over the next few years amounts to eight times the deficit that is currently being recorded.