---

Department of Health

That has not been brought to my notice, but I hope that it will not be long before the House has a chance to debate the causes of the deficits. Another serious concern is the number of reports in the public interest issued by the Audit Commission to acute trusts, strategic health authorities and PCTs following significant financial problems. The hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Burrowes) raised that earlier, but has now left the Chamber, presumably to issue a press release. Under section 8 of the Audit Commission Act 1998, the external auditor must consider whether it is in the public interest to produce a report on any significant matters that come to his attention. If it is, they are set out in a public interest report. Twenty-seven public interest reports have been issued for SHAs, PCTs and NHS trusts since March last year, which reflects the number of NHS bodies with significant and potentially destabilising financial problems. No matter what people say, the Government cannot avoid the Audit Commission which, like some parliamentary Committees, exists to look at public expenditure. I am sure that it will do the competent and professional job that it has done in the past. A number of reasons have been given for the continuing financial deficits. A review by KPMG in December 2005 concluded that management capability was inadequate to deal with the financial position of trusts, that the quality of information was impeding recovery and that, in some cases, SHAs had permitted unproductive behaviour to damage the relationship between PCTs and hospital trusts. The Audit Commission’s managing director of health said that the number of such problems may lead to organisations having to merge to remain viable and he has asked for clarification of matters such as the way in which charges are made for elective and emergency care. Mergers are under way, so a debate on the issue is for another day, but in the next few days and months, we should look at the wider issues that have been highlighted and the questions that have been asked to try to find out exactly what the NHS costs. I gave an interview to a national newspaper earlier this month in which I said very much what the Secretary of State had said: we must make sure that we discover the cause of the overspends so that, hopefully, they will not happen again.