Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether future breast screening service specifications will include details and standards outlining the on-site support, equipment, and reasonable adjustments screening units must be able to provide to women with disabilities and support needs.
Answered by Sharon Hodgson - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The NHS Breast Screening Programme takes equality of access and opportunity for breast screening seriously. There is guidance in place to support breast screening services to address specific needs that people may have in order to attend their breast screening. This guidance is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/breast-screening-identifying-and-reducing-inequalities
Breast screening services are already expected to meet these requirements as part of the current national specification.
A project is underway to assess how the Reasonable Adjustments Digital Flag can be best implemented across screening programmes and how provider services can be best enabled to respond to these requirements. The national screening service specification will be appropriately updated to reflect changes.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when NHS England will be able to provide robust breast screening data on all protected characteristics.
Answered by Sharon Hodgson - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England is currently building and rolling out new services for breast screening. The future breast screening service is expected to improve the consistency and completeness of demographic and equality data capture, which should support more robust reporting over time.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the revised Contracts for Difference eighth allocation round timetable on large solar projects that are unable to bid into the pre-qualification window for that round, including those projects that are well advanced and strategically aligned.
Answered by Michael Shanks - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Government recognises the importance of providing clarity and certainty for investors and developers participating in the Contracts for Difference scheme, which is why we have confirmed we intend to open the next Allocation Round in July. We will confirm the details of Allocation Round 8 ahead of July, informed by stakeholder engagement.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, with reference to the revised timeline for the Contracts for Difference eighth allocation round, what steps his Department is taking to support large solar projects that have begun planning for construction but may not be able to bid in the pre-qualification window under the revised timeline.
Answered by Michael Shanks - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Government recognises the importance of providing clarity and certainty for investors and developers participating in the Contracts for Difference scheme, which is why we have confirmed we intend to open the next Allocation Round in July. We will confirm the details of Allocation Round 8 ahead of July, informed by stakeholder engagement.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the alignment between the new timings for Contracts for Difference eighth allocation round and statutory planning decisions for large renewable projects key on the delivery of the Clean Power 2030 Action Plan.
Answered by Michael Shanks - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Government recognises the importance of providing clarity and certainty for investors and developers participating in the Contracts for Difference scheme, which is why we have confirmed we intend to open the next Allocation Round in July. We will confirm the details of Allocation Round 8 ahead of July, informed by stakeholder engagement.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether consideration was given to laying the provision maintaining the frozen pensions policy, currently within the Social Security Up-Rating Regulations 2026 laid on the 6 March, as a standalone instrument.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Social Security Benefits Up-rating Regulations 2026 are in general consequential on the Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2026 and can only be laid once the Up-rating Order has been approved by Parliament. The Up-rating Regulations were laid on 6 March 2026 and will come into force on the same date as the Up-rating Order on 6 April 2026.
This is a convention that has been in place for a number of years.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if his Department will set out what criteria is used to determine whether provisions relating to the frozen overseas state pensions policy are laid under the Negative rather than Affirmative procedure.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The provisions in the Social Security Benefits Up-rating Regulations 2026 cannot be included in the Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2026 because the powers on which the Up-rating Order relies are insufficiently wide to include these provisions.
The Regulations are subject to the negative procedure, and this is a convention that has been in place for a number of years.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department will take forward the recommendations of the report entitled Mental health clinically-led review of standards - Models of care and measurement: consultation response, published on 22 February 2022, including the development of an access standard for non-urgent community mental health care.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Following the clinically-led review, data is now available showing the number of referrals for urgent mental health crisis care (specifically Crisis Resolution and Home Treatment Teams), by level of urgency, and the number responded to within the appropriate timeframe for that level of urgency. These are for new urgent referrals within 24 hours; and new very urgent emergency referrals within 4 hours. This data is available at the following link on the National Health Service Mental Health Dashboard:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/nhs-mental-health-dashboard/
As there are numerous different services and patient pathways provided within the mental health sector, there is no single waiting list standard and there are multiple ways of measuring how many people are waiting for the start of support, help or treatment.
With regard to accessing non-urgent community mental health services, as part of the mental health clinically-led review of standards in 2022, NHS England has collaboratively developed additional mental health waiting times metrics across NHS-funded urgent and emergency care, and NHS-funded community mental health services. While no specific waiting times standard for community mental health services has been set, the review recommended four weeks.
Some children and young people who have a mental health need as part of a referral pathway may also have other needs. NHS England has tried to separate out referrals in a way that shows more clearly where waits lie without enforcing a hard, exclusionary line that might lead to perverse incentives, longer waits and the risk that children and young people are left with no support. From December 2025, some limited breakdowns of children and young people’s waits have been published, with four broad groups: (a) autism; (b) other neurodevelopmental; (c) gender identity; and (d) all other waits. This last group is expected to be mostly mental health related waits. As a single patient referral spell may be included in multiple groups, NHS England also publishes an indicator of the overlap between this last group, and the other groups.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of trends in the waiting times for children and young people to start community eating disorder treatment, based on the data published by NHS England.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government keeps waiting time data for children and young people’s community eating disorder services under close review, drawing on the statistics published regularly by NHS England.
We recognise that demand for eating disorder services has increased in recent years and that performance varies across the country. That is why we are reforming eating disorder services so that children and young people can access timely, effective support when they need it, rather than after their condition has escalated.
This shift towards prevention and stronger community-based support underpins the new National Health Service guidance for children and young people’s eating disorder services, published last month. The guidance makes clear that children and young people should receive timely, joined-up care delivered as close to home as possible.
The Government is also recruiting 8,500 additional mental health workers across the NHS to increase capacity and ensure that help is available when and where it is needed. NHS England continues to work with integrated care boards to improve performance against national access standards and reduce unwarranted variation in waiting times.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will take steps to help reduce geographic variation in waiting times for children and young people to start community eating disorder treatment.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government recognises that there is unacceptable geographic variation in waiting times for children and young people accessing community eating disorder treatment.
We are reforming eating disorder services to ensure that children and young people can access timely, effective support when they need it, rather than after their condition has escalated. This shift towards prevention and stronger community-based support underpins the new National Health Service guidance for children and young people’s eating disorder services, published last month. The guidance makes clear that children and young people should receive timely, joined-up care delivered as close to home as possible.
In addition to the updated guidance, NHS England has commissioned the Royal College of Psychiatrists to deliver a National All-Age Audit of Eating Disorders. The audit seeks to drive improvement of the identification and appropriate management of eating disorders and the quality and consistency of services for children and young people, adults of working age, and older adults. The audit covers both community and inpatient settings. A key part of this work is to produce a report that will map out eating disorder services in England and the care offered by them. In understanding what variation exists, we can begin to address the variation in care provision.
To support this, the Government is recruiting 8,500 additional mental health workers across the NHS to increase capacity and ensure that help is available when and where it is needed. NHS England continues to work with integrated care boards to improve performance, reduce unwarranted variation, and ensure services meet national access standards so that all children and young people can access high-quality eating disorder care regardless of where they live.