Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the medicines margin and clawback system in accounting for local variations in prescribing habits.

In reaching a settlement for the 2025/26 Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework (CPCF), detailed discussions were had with Community Pharmacy England (CPE), the representative body of pharmacy contractors, which included the medicine margin arrangements and the long-term financial sustainability of community pharmacies.

The CPCF settlement for 2025/26, which was agreed with CPE, increased the allowed medicine margin to £900 million and included writing off £193 million of historic over delivered medicine margin. It was also agreed that should there continue to be further over delivery of medicine margin, requiring downward adjustments to reimbursement, consideration will be given to further strategies to stabilise category M.

No assessment has been made specifically on the effectiveness of the medicine margin and clawback system in accounting for local variation in prescribing habits. However, as part of the CPCF settlement for 2025/26, we committed to pursuing a number of reimbursement arrangement developments to support fairer access to medicine margin regardless of local prescribing habits.