Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when he plans to publish details on the future of Public Health England’s maternity and early years functions.

On Monday 29 March, we published ‘Transforming the Public Health System: Reforming the Public Health System for the challenges of our times’, which sets out our reform plans for the public health system. The publication can be found at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/transforming-the-public-health-system

We are proposing to move most of the Public Health England functions that directly support development and delivery of national health improvement policy into the new Office for Health Promotion in the Department of Health and Social Care, alongside existing Departmental capability on prevention and health improvement, as they are integral to policy development and delivery, and directly support national decision-making. This will include subject-matter expertise on a range of important public health issues, including but not limited to obesity and nutrition, physical activity, alcohol, tobacco, drugs, sexual health, public mental health, children and young people's public health.

Our proposals will strengthen the system and ensure it can meet the needs of the population. This means improving health throughout the life course; from pregnancy and early years, all the way through to old age. We will present more detail on our plans and ambitions for improving the public's health later in 2021.