LABOUR leader Tony Blair has renewed the Party's attack on company cars in the National Health Service. In recent years the amount of cash spent on NHS vehicles has been regularly blasted by the Labour Party and the row resurfaced at the penultimate Prime Minister's question time.

Claiming that two thirds of health authorities and one third of hospital trusts were in deficit to the tune of £300 million Blair claimed that in the past six years there had been an increase in administration costs of more than £1.5 billion a year, with 20,000 more managers and 50,000 fewer nurses. And, he added: 'Is not the truth that the real challenge of the NHS is how to get money out of invoices, contractors, managers, company cars and pen-pushers and into front-line patient care so that we can rebuild the NHS.'

However, Prime Minister John Major hit back saying the £300 million deficit was 'blown out of all proportion', that the forecast deficit was a relatively small fraction of the NHS budget and that health service funding would increase by £1.6 billion in the next financial year.