To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list those years in the period 1974 to 1989 when financial cuts in real terms were made in the National Health Service in England and Wales.

Over the period 1974–75 and 1989–90 there has been a reduction in real terms in spending in the NHS in England in only one year—1977–78. Over the same period there were real terms reductions in NHS spending in Wales in 1976–77 and 1977–78.