To ask the Secretary of State for Health what her Department’s delegated expenditure limit is above which expenditure must be approved by HM Treasury. (144521)

The Department has delegated limits from HM Treasury for approving the following specific categories of expenditure:

NHS Estate: Land Transactions;

NHS Estate: Capital Projects (Buildings and Equipment)

Civil Estate: Land Transactions

NHS Trust Information Management and Technology Projects

Departmental Information Technology Projects

NHS Losses and Special Payments

Departmental (including Agencies and non-department public bodies) Losses and Special Payments

Clinical and Medical Negligence

Most of these categories in turn involve a number of different schemes and transactions, each of which has a different delegated limit. The delegated limit for the appointment of preferred bidder business case and full business case for a capital investment scheme under the Private Finance Initiative is £100 million; this falls within the NHS Estate: Capital Projects (Buildings and Equipment) category above.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health what requests for additional funds her Department made to HM Treasury in (a) 2005-06 and (b) 2006-07; what the date was of each request; and whether each was granted. (144522)

The Department has not made any requests to HM Treasury for additional funds in 2005-06 and 2006-07.