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Department of Health

In the context of the point made by the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Michael Jabez Foster), the right hon. Gentleman may wish to know that Surrey and Sussex SHA has called for a 3 per cent. top-slicing on its PCT allocations. John Bacon, the transitional lead for London, is taking 3 per cent top-slicing. Thames Valley SHA is taking 3.5 per cent. Why are they doing it? Because they anticipate deficits in their SHAs of more than 1 per cent. this year and probably the same next year. They are proposing, in effect, to renationalise all the growth money in those SHAs in order to start baling out deficits across the system.