Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to improve HIV testing across the UK.

Health is a devolved matter, and it is the responsibility of the individual administrations to commission comprehensive healthcare based on population need. All four nations, however, are committed to reducing HIV transmissions.

The Government is committed to ending new transmissions of HIV in England by 2030. The Department, the UK Health and Security Agency, NHS England, and partners are developing the new HIV Action Plan for England, which we aim to publish this year. Scaling up and increasing the availability of testing is a key objective of the new plan.

HIV testing is funded by local authorities through the ringfenced Public Health Grant (PHG). In 2025/26, we are increasing funding through the PHG to £3.858 billion, providing local authorities with an average 5.4% cash increase and a 3% real terms increase, the biggest real-terms increase after nearly a decade of reduced spending.

The Department is investing over £5.5 million from 2021 to 2026 to deliver the HIV Prevention Programme (HPE). The HPE aims to increase the awareness and acceptability of HIV testing and reduce barriers to access through the delivery of public campaigns such as National HIV Testing Week, during which we dispatch over 20,000 HIV testing kits in England.

On 28 November, the Prime Minister announced £27 million of additional funding to expand the highly successful National Health Service emergency department opt-out testing programme for 2025/26. This is particularly important in population groups less likely to access HIV testing via traditional sexual health services, such as people of black African and black Caribbean heritage.