Section 24 extends the current scheme of capital allowances for buildings used as private hospitals to hospitals providing certain acute services on a day case basis. The main change made to the provision is that, in the case of a day case hospital, the minimum bed requirement is being reduced to 40 beds from the 70 bed requirement that applies generally. As this extension has been the subject of some public debate, I want to outline how it arose. In the Finance Act 2001 I introduced a scheme to encourage the development of private hospitals. This followed a similar relief to encourage the development of private nursing homes. The scheme had a range of conditions about the services to be provided, the number of beds, etc. to ensure only genuine hospitals qualified as well as providing for conditions such as discounts for public patients. The minimum bed requirement was reduced in last year's Finance Act from 100 to 70.