Romsey MP Sandra Gidley was one of the first members to welcome new speaker, Michael Martin, into the House of Commons.

Congratulating Mr Martin on his election to the role on Tuesday, Mrs Gidley told him: "I hope your choice of clothing is an indication of a more more modern approach to come."

It was Mrs Gidley's first Health Question Time and the MP made the most of it by quizzing the Secretary of State for Health, Alan Milburn, about private finance within the National Health Service.

The MP asked Mr Milburn what studies his department had commissioned, undertaken or reviewed concerning the use of private finance in the NHS.

In response, the secretary of state said: "The greater use of private finance is helping to modernise the NHS, especially through the Private Finance Initiative. The PFI can be given the go-ahead only when it demonstrates better value for money in comparison with the publicly funded alternative and provides improved facilities for the NHS.

"NHS trusts are required to monitor performance throughout the lifetime of the PFI contract."

Mrs Gidley added: "Will the secretary of state concede that the recent King's Fund report is the latest in a series of reports to suggest that local health needs, particularly bed capacity in PFI projects, are not being consistently met? Will he go further than reviewing individual projects, as promised by ministers in another place? Will he undertake to review publicly all PFI hospital projects?"

Replying to the Romsey MP's questions, Mr Milburn said: "I am sorry I will have to disappoint the hon lady by saying no, that will not be possible. The truth is that the PFI is providing much-needed new hospitals in many parts of the country, sometimes in communities that have long campaigned for them.

"It is an efficient means of procuring new hospitals. Indeed, due to the time it costs overruns associated with the old method, which tended to procure through exchequer capital, the taxpayer ended up footing the bill for six hospitals and receiving only five in return. I do not known about Liberal Democrat economics, but that does not seem to make sense to me."

Ambulance services are high on the political agenda around Romsey at the moment and services across Britain were the subject of the next speaker, Mrs Jackie Lawrence, MP.

She asked the secretary of state for health, if he would give her an assurance that the PFI would not threaten the nation's ambulance services.

"Will he consider establishing an inspection service for ambulance services, like those for police and fire authorities, so that we can be sure that the funding and performance of UK ambulance services are monitored and that there is an equitable service throughout the UK?" said Mrs Lawrence.

"I assure my hon friend that we already monitor the performance of individual ambulance service trusts. It is important that we do so. I can further assure her that in future, we intend to move away from the PFI approach based purely on the procurement of an individual institution, such as a new hospital. As she is aware, when we establish a new hospital in the community, it has implications for primary, community and social services, as well as for ambulances," replied Mr Milburn.

After the commons debate, Mrs Gidley told TheRomseyAdvertiser: "Alan Milburn is right to say that the old method of funding was fraught with problems. Unfor-tunately, we believe that PFI projects will not yield huge savings but will be severely hampered by the lack of flexibility built into the contracts which could cause problems in the long-term.

"The Liberal Demo-crats believe that the projects should be publicly and openly reviewed. We believe that public and private partnerships, encompassing the strengths of both systems should be considered. I am disappointed with Alan Milburn's inflexible response and his unwillingness to provide reassurance that we could learn from our mistakes."