Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the effectiveness of local authority cross-charging arrangements for sexual health services.

There is no requirement on local authorities to have cross-charging arrangements in place; this is a matter for local determination.

No estimate has been made of the number of local authorities that do not have cross-charging arrangements. Public Health England recently conducted a survey into the commissioning arrangements for sexual and reproductive health and HIV, including assessment of cross-charging arrangements.