Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the cost to the public purse is of freezing the withdrawal of the minimum price income guarantee from GP practices which receive it as of 1 August 2014.

Of the 2,824 practices that receive Minimum Practice Income Guarantee (MPIG) payments, around 15% of these (411 practices) are ranked in the upper 20% of areas on the Index of Multiple Deprivation.

The freezing of the withdrawal of the MPIG could cost up to £11 million in 2014-15. This is because the ‘global sum’ payments – into which the reductions in MPIG are added for all practices – have already been set for the year.

This estimated cost would be for 2014-15 only and assumes that any additional costs would only be for part of the year, i.e. from 1 August.