Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of expanding the Healthy Start scheme eligibility criteria to include all families on Universal Credit, in the context of recent expansions to free school meal eligibility.

There are currently no plans to expand the eligibility of the Healthy Start Scheme to all families on Universal Credit. The Healthy Start prepaid card is a financial product and cannot be issued without the applicant accepting the terms and conditions, therefore the NHS Business Services Authority is not able to automatically provide eligible families with a Healthy Start prepaid card. However, we remain open to all viable routes to improve uptake to ensure that as many eligible people as possible are accessing the scheme.