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Primary Care Trusts and Ambulance Trusts

My hon. Friend has given the House absolutely brilliant news on Staffordshire ambulance service, and I am grateful to him and the rest of the ministerial team for listening to the people of Staffordshire. Will he confirm that Staffordshire ambulance service will remain operationally independent and that it will have its own trust board and its own chief officer, so that it can continue to run its system, which is completely different from those used by other ambulance services in the country? Will he also confirm that no merger will take place unless Staffordshire ambulance service agrees to it and unless the west midlands service comes up to the standard of the Staffordshire service, which delivers the fastest response times in the country?