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Health Care in London

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that explanation. I was referring to the proposals for north-east London, which emerged only because my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone) received a leaked letter from a clinician in the system. Again, the letter demonstrated what was going on but was kept from the public. It set out options, including the potential loss of A and E and maternity services at the Whittington hospital. The hospital is much loved and needed, and it serves one of the poorest communities in the country. The area has one of the lowest rates of car ownership in the country, yet it is proposed that those services should be lost. Again, my hon. Friend was right to get the matter into the public domain so that people can make their own judgments on the proposals. The belief, certainly in north-east London, is that the proposals are not evidence- based, and that wrong assumptions have been made about the potential impact of the loss of an A and E department at the Whittington hospital. People believe that conclusions are being drawn that do not stand up to analysis. I turn now to the private finance initiative, which has imposed an enormous burden on the NHS in London.