Conservative Members and the Conservative party refuse to accept that overspending has to be put right where it has taken place. They refuse to accept that it is wrong that a minority of hospitals and other organisations have overspent—some of them, I am afraid, for many years—at the expense of the majority who have been in balance or in surplus. Conservative Members have a simple solution to the overspending that has taken place in Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire even though the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire did not come clean about it today. They want to take the money away from north Manchester and all the other parts of the country with the worst health needs and the worst health inequalities.
Mr. Mark Prisk (Hertford and Stortford) (Con): What does the Secretary of State say to the excellent staff at the QEII hospital? Two weeks ago, she met the senior management in Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire and two senior clinicians have now told me that she made it perfectly clear that the QEII will go, Hemel will go and our new hospital at Hatfield will go. Will she now put it on record that that is not her view and that that will not be the end result? The irony is that the end result would be one hospital in Stevenage, which is Labour, and one hospital in Watford, which is Labour.
Ms Hewitt: The hon. Gentleman should know because everybody who has looked at this—
Mr. Prisk: Are they safe?
Ms Hewitt:Just let me answer—[ Interruption.]
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Michael Lord): Order. The hon. Gentleman has asked a question and the least that he can do is let the Secretary of State answer.
Ms Hewitt:I am most grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman should know—everybody in the NHS in Hertfordshire who has looked at the issue knows—that there needs to be a reorganisation of hospital services in that county. There needs to be a reorganisation of hospital services in order to keep up with modern medicine, to give patients better and safer care and to ensure that Hertfordshire does not go on overspending at the expense of other parts of the country that are far worse off. Those decisions will be made only after full and proper consultation with his constituents and everybody else in Hertfordshire and they will be made on the basis of what is clinically right for patients and not on the basis of party politics of any kind.