Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee's 54th Report's chapter on Instruments on Interest, what assessment has his Department made of the adequacy of the Care Quality Commission to register the potential 1000 providers in scope of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) (Amendment) Regulations 2026 between 7 September 2026 and 6 December 2027.

The Department, in consultation with the Care Quality Commission (CQC), has agreed that there will be a phased approach to implementing the updated regulations. This is so:

• providers have sufficient time to prepare to submit their CQC registration applications and ensure compliance with the regulations;
• to prevent undue disruption to the events sector; and
• to allow the CQC time to prepare for the receipt of additional registration applications and to enable them to process those applications in a timely manner whilst at the same time fulfilling their existing regulatory obligations.

The CQC will produce guidance that sets out the date that providers would have to apply to be registered by. This aims to prevent a backlog caused by last-minute applications.

For applications received on or by this date that are fully complete at the time of submission to allow for validation, the CQC will take all reasonable steps to undertake assessment and advise providers of the outcome of their application on or before December 2027.

Following the Penny Dash Review, the CQC accepted the high‑level recommendations, including stabilising its regulatory platform and improving the registration experience for providers. The Department meets the CQC regularly to discuss the progress of its improvements.