To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to the answer of 26 November 2007, Official Report, column 255W, on NHS: loans, how much of the £777.881 million of loans issued to national health service trusts on 22 March was used to finance private finance initiative projects, broken down by individual trusts to which a loan payment was made. (171944)

In 2006-07 the informal and opaque system of cash brokerage and planned support that had previously operated across the national health service, was replaced for NHS trusts by a formal system of loans. The £777.881 million of loans issued to NHS trusts on 22 March 2007 was provided to finance the consequences of historic overspending that had previously been financed informally through the cash brokerage system.