Gareth Thomas

The Government is committed to delivering a National Health Service that is fit for the future, and we recognise that delivering high quality NHS healthcare requires the right infrastructure in the right places.

That is why, over the course of our 10-Year Health Plan, we aim to establish a Neighbourhood Health Centre in every community, transforming healthcare access by bringing historically hospital-based services into communities and addressing wider determinants of health through services like debt advice, employment support, and obesity management programmes.

We recently announced the places that will form wave 1 of the National Neighbourhood Health Implementation Programme (NNHIP), after a rigorous assessment of applications against the core criteria. The first wave of the NNHIP covers 43 sites across England, from Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly in the south-west to Sunderland in the north-east, ensuring that communities nationwide benefit from this new model of care.

Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for commissioning, planning, securing, and monitoring general practice services within their health systems through delegated responsibility from NHS England. Both ICBs and local health systems will be responsible for determining the most appropriate locations for Neighbourhood Health Centres.

Nationwide coverage will take time, but we are starting in the areas of greatest need where healthy life expectancy is lowest, including rural towns and communities with higher deprivation levels, using public capital to update and refurbish existing, under-used buildings.

In Fit for the Future: 10 Year Health Plan for England, the Government has committed to tackling harmful levels of alcohol consumption by exploring options to encourage consumers to reduce their alcohol intake by substituting standard strength drinks with no- and low-alcohol (NoLo) alternatives.

One of the first steps to support further growth of the NoLo sector, and potentially increase the range of NoLo products, will be to explore raising the upper alcohol limit for drinks labelled as alcohol-free to 0.5% alcohol by volume (ABV) from 0.05% ABV, whilst providing clarity to consumers and producers. At the same time, we will explore measures to regulate access to NoLo products in line with other alcoholic beverages, including prohibiting sales to individuals under the age of 18 years old.

Alongside the plan, a large, multi-year National Institute for Health and Care Research study is underway to examine the public health impacts of NoLo products, and we look forward to the findings of that study being available in the coming year.

As outlined in the 10-Year Health Plan, our ambition is that by 2035 all provider trusts will be foundation trusts, using their freedoms to work with others and improve population health.

Integrated care boards have a duty to provide health services to meet the needs of their population and already work closely with the voluntary, community, and social enterprise (VCSE) sector, which includes the commissioning and delivery of services and, in some cases, by appointing representatives from the VCSE sector to their boards.

Charities, co-operatives, social enterprises and mutuals have always been part of the National Health Service and social care. Today, social enterprises provide services for approximately two thirds of the United Kingdom population, delivering more than £2.5 billion of NHS care each year. This includes services such as community care, primary and urgent care, out-of-hours services, mental health support, drug and alcohol rehabilitation centres, end of life care, physiotherapy, audiology.

Social enterprises are often able to take a more agile approach and will continue to be critical to the success of the NHS and in delivery of the 10 Year Health Plan and supporting the three shifts.

London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust provides cancer services at Northwick Park, Central Middlesex, Ealing, and St Mark's Hospitals, with speciality cancer teams at each site. Performance data on cancer pathways is reported at trust level.

The trust demonstrated strong performance up to mid-2023, particularly for the Faster Diagnosis Standard, with 84.7% performance in July 2023 being 14.7 percentage points above the 75% standard, and the 31-day treatment standard, with 100% performance in July 2023 being four percentage points above the 96% standard.

From mid-202,3 data quality issues and a temporary reduction in activity following the implementation of Cerner, an electronic patient record system, plus capacity constraints, saw a decline in performance. Backlogs increased with the number of patients waiting over 104 days for treatment peaking significantly.

A recovery programme was implemented to reduce the backlog, using real-time data to drive action and accountability. Actions included increasing the trust’s capacity and workforce, with specialist nurses, radiographers, and consultants, plus extended hours and weekend clinics. Rapid triage and assessment pathways led to faster diagnosis, along with expanded one-stop clinics, especially for breast cancer and gynaecology, with more patients also being sent straight to test for lower gastrointestinal cancers.

By early 2025, the number of patients wating more than 104 days was close to zero, with a steady improvement seen in two-week waits and the Faster Diagnosis Standard. As the trust has started to stabilise its backlog, there has been significant improvement in the 62 day performance target with the trust continuing to be above the London target of 70%.

Latest waiting time performance from July 2025 has been promising, with the trust achieving 81.5% Faster Diagnosis Standard performance and 100% 31-day treatment performance. 62-day referral to first treatment performance was 83%, one of the best in the country.

Full cancer performance figures are published in the trust’s annual report, which is available at the following link:

https://www.lnwh.nhs.uk/annual-report-and-accounts

The UK regularly raises our concerns about Palestinian children in detention with the Israeli authorities. We are clear that children must always be protected, and their rights upheld in accordance with international law. We are horrified by reports of mistreatment or abuse of Palestinian children in detention and call on the Israeli authorities to investigate these urgently and to ensure any perpetrators are held to account. Children must only be detained in line with internationally agreed juvenile justice standards or other applicable international law, and we call for an end to the military detention of Palestinian children where this is incompatible with those principles. We continue to call on Israel to immediately facilitate urgent, unhindered access to all child detainees from the West Bank and Gaza to persons providing legal assistance, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and appropriate experts for the purposes of monitoring and reporting.

The UK and Nepal share a deep historic relationship. We were appalled at the violence that transpired in Kathmandu and across Nepal following protests that were triggered by the Government of Nepal banning a number of social media platforms, as well as public frustrations about levels of corruption and nepotism. The UK supports fundamental freedoms and respect for human rights in Nepal and elsewhere, including the right to protest and peaceful assembly. The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) made public statements condemning the violence and calling for accountability and peaceful dialogue.

On 12 September, our Embassy in Nepal welcomed the appointment of Rt Hon Sushila Karki's as interim Prime Minister. As Nepal's oldest friend, we recognise the challenges ahead and affirm our commitment to support Nepali aspirations for accountability and inclusive governance.

The UK is appalled by the extremely high number of fatalities, arrests and detentions of media workers in the State of Palestine. We have called on all parties to fully uphold International Humanitarian Law and ensure protection of civilians including journalists. In a recent joint statement with 28 other members of the Media Freedom Coalition, we called on the Israeli authorities and all other parties to make every effort to ensure that media workers in Gaza, Israel, the West Bank and East Jerusalem can conduct their work freely and safely. The statement also called for all attacks against media workers to be investigated and for those responsible to be prosecuted in compliance with national and international law. Earlier this year the UK provided funds to United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) Special Fund for Gaza, supporting locally based journalists and providing vital equipment.

The UK has repeatedly made both public and private representations to Israel to ensure that humanitarian workers are protected and medical and aid workers can do their jobs safely.

At the UN, the UK has worked to enhance the safety of aid workers by co-sponsoring United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 2730 on the Protection of Humanitarian Personnel in 2024. Working with our Australian counterparts, we developed the political Declaration for the Protection of Humanitarian Personnel which launched at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on September 21 and secured endorsement from 105 states. We will continue our engagement to drive forward implementation.

The Government recognises that credit, when provided responsibly, supports business growth, and can be crucial for people facing unexpected expenses or managing their cash flow.

The UK has a diverse landscape for credit provision to individuals and businesses, comprising traditional banks, challenger and specialist banks, and non-bank finance providers such as Community Development Finance Institutions (CDFIs). In 2024, CDFIs and social banks lent £96.7 million to 364 social enterprises, with 67% of this lending directed to the UK’s most disadvantaged areas.

The Government recently published its Financial Inclusion Strategy which sets out an ambitious programme of measures to improve financial inclusion and resilience for people across the UK. In recognition of the important role responsible credit can play for consumers, the strategy includes a focus on access to credit, among other priority issues, with the launch of new funding to support the credit union sector in England and a small sum lending pilot.

I refer the Honourable Member to the answer I gave on 28 October to PQ 84135.

The Government recognises that credit, when provided responsibly, can be crucial for people facing unexpected expenses or managing their cash flow.

The UK has a diverse landscape for credit provision to individuals, comprising traditional banks, challenger and specialist banks, credit unions, and non-bank finance providers. Within this landscape, Community Development Finance Institutions (CDFIs) play an important role in delivering credit to consumers who are underserved by mainstream lenders. In 2024, CDFIs provided £81.8 million in loans to over 130,000 individuals. More than a third of these borrowers in England were based in the North, which contains most of England’s mission critical neighbourhoods as identified by the Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods.

Today I have published the Government’s Financial Inclusion Strategy, which includes a focus on how to improve access to affordable credit. The Strategy outlines measures to support the community finance sector, including encouraging partnerships between the sector and mainstream firms. It was developed in collaboration with a range of consumer and industry representatives and the Government will continue to work closely with stakeholders to deliver on the interventions.

As outlined in my previous response, the Government recognises the vital role Community Development Finance Institutions (CDFIs) play in providing affordable credit to underserved consumers and businesses. However I cannot comment on how individual banks decide to approach provision of affordable credit.

I am very grateful for the engagement by a range of banks and CDFIs in contributing to the upcoming Financial Inclusion Strategy, which includes a focus on access to affordable credit and will seek to ensure people have access to useful products and services for their needs.

The government is committed to exploring legislative reform to the credit union common bond to ensure it remains fit for purpose.

Responses to the call for evidence are currently being considered, and the government will provide an update on this work in due course.

The Bank Referral Scheme is a legislative initiative that requires major lenders (designated banks) to refer SME customers that they reject for finance, with the SME’s permission, to designated finance platforms that can connect the SME with alternative finance providers.

The Scheme is designed so that once an SME has consented to referral, its details are shared with all designated finance platforms – there are currently three. Each designated finance platform is an online service that hosts a panel of lenders. Under the design of the Scheme, lenders decide whether to offer finance to an SME applying for finance and on what terms, and it is for the SME to decide whether it wishes to proceed if an offer is made. The SME could potentially be offered finance by more than one provider and would be free to choose the product best suited to its needs.

On 27^th October, the Government launched a consultation and call for evidence on the Bank Referral Scheme, inviting views on a range of issues and proposals aimed at better facilitating SME access to finance through the Scheme. Depending on feedback, the Government will consider whether the existing legislative framework needs to be amended. The consultation is available here and will close on 22^nd December: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/bank-referral-scheme-consultation-and-call-for-evidence

The Government recognises the vital role Community Development Finance Institutions (CDFIs) play in providing affordable credit to underserved consumers and businesses. To support this, in November 2024, the British Business Bank launched the Community ENABLE Funding (CEF) Programme, which aims to deploy £150 million over the next two years to ‘not for profit’ lenders, including CDFIs.

Several banks have already shown tangible support for CDFIs. For example, in 2023 NatWest provided £900,000 to the sector, with half distributed directly to households to help meet immediate needs during the cost-of-living crisis, and the remainder used to strengthen the sector’s capacity for future support. Similarly, Lloyds was announced as the lead investor in a new £62 million Community Investment Enterprise Fund, designed to help small businesses across England and Wales access finance through CDFIs, supporting local jobs and economic activity.

My predecessor co-chaired a roundtable in July with Responsible Finance, which was an important opportunity to discuss how banks and CDFIs can work together to improve access to affordable credit. However, the Government has no plans to require banks or other major providers to invest in CDFIs.

The Treasury receives correspondence across a wide variety of subjects including financial services. While we are not able to measure the number of complaints the department receives in relation to high-cost credit for business loans with interest rates payable of more than 40%, the volume of correspondence on the cost of credit in relation to business loans is generally low.

The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) publishes annual and quarterly insights into which areas are attracting most complaints. In its last quarterly publication, it noted that complaints about unaffordable lending had halved. That data-point does not, however, distinguish between household and commercial credit and the areas of topical complaints may change quarter on quarter. In the last five years, credit card related complaints to the FOS have been one of the top five areas of complaints, but business lending specifically is not a significant source of FOS disputes in comparison to household and personal credit.

The Bank of England’s ‘bankstats’ data provides insights into business and household credit, including the effective interest rates for SMEs on new and outstanding loans. The monthly average of UK resident banks’ sterling weighted loans for new advances to SMEs now stands at 6.35%, as of 31st August 2025, a figure that has tracked down as the base rate has fallen.

The Government recognises the vital role Community Development Finance Institutions play in providing affordable credit to underserved consumers and businesses. To support this, in November 2024, the British Business Bank launched the Community ENABLE Funding (CEF) Programme, which aims to deploy £150 million over the next two years to ‘not for profit’ lenders, including CDFIs.

This will enable these organisations to provide enhanced support to consumers and businesses by broadening access to finance. In 2024, CDFIs and social banks lent £96.7 million to 364 social enterprises, with 67% of this lending directed to the UK’s most disadvantaged areas.

In July, my predecessor co-chaired a roundtable in July with Responsible Finance which was an important opportunity to discuss how banks and CDFIs can work together to improve access to affordable credit.

Several banks have already shown tangible support for CDFIs. For example, in 2023 NatWest provided £900,000 to the sector, with half distributed directly to households to help meet immediate needs during the cost-of-living crisis, and the remainder used to strengthen the sector’s capacity for future support. Similarly, Lloyds was announced as the lead investor in a new £62 million Community Investment Enterprise Fund, designed to help small businesses across England and Wales access finance through CDFIs, supporting local jobs and economic activity.

Furthermore, in recognition of the important role responsible credit can play for consumers, the Government’s forthcoming Financial Inclusion Strategy includes a focus on access to credit, among other priority issues, and will seek to ensure people have access to useful products and services for their needs.

The Government recognises the vital role financial services play in supporting millions of businesses across the UK, and believes all customers should be treated fairly by banks and have access to the financial services they need.

This is why the Government introduced new rules earlier this year to require banks to give customers 90 days' notice before closing accounts and provide a clear explanation. The Government’s new rules will ensure more transparent and predictable access to banking, while still recognising that it is a commercial decision for a provider as to whom they provide services for.

More widely, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) monitors banks regarding account openings and closures and has published reports looking at debanking. Beyond this, the Treasury has no plans to require banks to submit further information in this area.

There are six credit unions in the UK currently offering mortgages.

Of these, two are headquartered in England, three in Scotland, and one in Northern Ireland.

Of those headquartered in England, one is located in the North West and one is located in London.

Depending on the credit union in question’s common bond type, these credit unions may serve members outside of their headquartered regions.

Credit union policy is devolved to Northern Ireland, and so legislation may differ.

The government recognises the role that credit unions play in providing savings and affordable loans to their members, serving local communities throughout the country. This is why the government is taking steps to ensure credit unions are fully supported to grow and scale into the future.

This includes exploring legislative reform to the credit union common bond, to ensure it remains fit for purpose. We launched a call for evidence at last year’s Mansion House on the potential reform, which closed in March this year.

Responses to the call for evidence are being carefully considered and the government will provide an update on this work in due course.