Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to oral evidence given to the Public Accounts Committee on 27 February 2017, if he will specify the legal status of the new organisations that will be established under NHS England's Sustainability and Transformation Plans; and what duties and powers to plan and provide health services those organisations will have.

Sustainability and Transformation Plans are not statutory organisations; instead they represent local organisations coming together to work collectively. The statutory architecture for health and care remains fully in place, as do the existing accountabilities for Chief Executives and Accountable Officers of National Health Service organisations.