Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the potential for a role for the voluntary sector in helping support the Probation Service during the period after release.

Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip

We recognise the valuable role played by the thousands of voluntary sector organisations that work in partnership with prisons and the Probation Service to provide vital support to people serving their sentences in prison and on returning to the community.

We welcome the Independent Sentencing Review’s recommendations on how we can better harness the value the Third Sector can add to probation work, building even stronger partnerships to enable better targeting of resources and improve outcomes for offenders.

The Ministry of Justice and H M Prison and Probation Service are continuing to work with voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations to define the role that they can play in the Probation Service of the future.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of increasing the participation of the voluntary sector to assist with the probation service.

Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip

We recognise the valuable role played by the thousands of voluntary sector organisations that work in partnership with prisons and the Probation Service to provide vital support to people serving their sentences in prison and on returning to the community.

We welcome the Independent Sentencing Review’s recommendations on how we can better harness the value the Third Sector can add to probation work, building even stronger partnerships to enable better targeting of resources and improve outcomes for offenders.

The Ministry of Justice and H M Prison and Probation Service are continuing to work with voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations to define the role that they can play in the Probation Service of the future.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department centrally holds data on workforce capacity for allied health professions supporting prevention and community healthcare services in England by profession.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department does not centrally hold data on workforce capacity for allied health professions supporting prevention and community healthcare services in England by profession.

NHS England published monthly data drawn from the Electronic Staff Record, the Human Resources system for the National Health Service, on the number of staff employed in the NHS in England, which is available at the following link:

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/nhs-workforce-statistics

This information can be used to identify the number of individual allied health professionals employed but is not able to robustly identify the specific service or setting in which staff are delivering care.

The Government is committed to training the staff we need to ensure patients are cared for by the right professional, when and where they need it. We will publish a 10 Year Workforce Plan to set out action to create a workforce ready to deliver the transformed services set out in the 10-Year Health Plan.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether workforce modelling for community healthcare services separately identifies individual allied health professions, including dietitians.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

Integrated care boards (ICBs) plan, commission, and oversee the provision of local National Health Services, including community health services, to meet their population’s needs.

The Government is committed to training the staff we need to ensure patients are cared for by the right professional, when and where they need it. We will publish a 10 Year Workforce Plan to set out action to create a workforce ready to deliver the transformed services set out in the 10-Year Health Plan.

We know people are waiting too long for community health services. That is why, for the first time, we have set a clear target for systems to work to reduce long waits in NHS England’s Medium-Term Planning Framework.

By 2028/29 at least 80% of community health services activity should take place within 18 weeks, bringing community health services in line with targets for elective care.

In 2025, we published, for the first time, an overview of the core community health services, Standardising Community Health Services, that ICBs should consider when planning for their local populations to support improved commissioning and delivery of community health services, a vital part of Neighbourhood Health. Further guidance was published in February 2026, providing more detailed descriptions of the core components of community health services for ICBs.

100th anniversary of the birth of Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Found: Aquarone (Liberal Democrat; North Norfolk) Dr Scott Arthur (Labour; Edinburgh South West) Mrs Elsie Blundell

Found: Watch the meeting Members present: Ruth Cadbury (Chair); Steff Aquarone; Dr Scott Arthur; Mrs Elsie Blundell