During a Conservative led debate on the crisis in the NHS, Charles Walker calls on the Health Secretary to explain why the Hertfordshire Partnership NHS Trust is being asked to cut its budget by £5.2 million when it has never been in deficit since 2001.

Mr. Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con): The Hertfordshire Partnership NHS Trust, which deals with mental health, has never been in deficit since 2001. It provides an excellent service and has never overspent, yet this year it has been asked to cut its budget by £5.2 million. Can the Secretary of State tell me why it is being asked to cut its budget, when it has always operated within its financial parameters?

Ms Hewitt: I shall come to that point in a little more detail in a moment.

The problem with the minority of organisations that are overspending, including many across Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, is that those problems have an impact on other parts of the NHS, including the mental health trust to which the hon. Gentleman refers, which have been living within their budget.

Of course, restoring the NHS to financial balance entails difficult decisions. Nobody wants redundancies, and every hospital and primary care trust will do everything that it can to avoid making a staff member, particularly a front-line clinical member of staff, redundant. Behind almost every story on redundancies, every scare-mongering headline and every figure that the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire uses-he did it again this afternoon-is a hospital that is sensibly cutting back on temporary staff from expensive private agencies, like West Hertfordshire Hospitals Trust. It has a deficit of £28 million and an agency bill of £17 million, and it is going to get that down.

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