Asked by: Nigel Huddleston (Conservative - Droitwich and Evesham)
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 impact on jobs and employment on changes in regulation in the dairy sector, including through the proposed revisions to the Nutrient Profiling Model, the Soft Drinks Industry Levy proposed inclusion of dairy products, the increase to employer’s National Insurance contributions, and packaging taxes.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Soft Drinks Industry Levy (SDIL) and National Insurance contributions are the responsibility of HM Treasury and packaging taxes fall under the remit of the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs.
The Nutrient Profile Model (NPM) is under the remit of the Department of Health and Social Care. We are committed to updating the standards which underpin the advertising restrictions on television and online and the promotion restrictions in stores and their equivalent places online on ‘less healthy’ food and drink products. The NPM 2004/05 is plainly out of date and updating the standards will strengthen the restrictions by reflecting the latest dietary advice and more effectively target the products of most concern to childhood obesity. An impact assessment will be published alongside a consultation later this year.
It was announced at Budget 2025 that milk based and milk substitute drinks, for instance soya, almond, and/or oat, would be included in the scope of the SDIL from 1 January 2028. These reforms are not expected to have any significant macroeconomic impacts, including on employment, on the basis that the levy is limited to soft drinks, and an estimated 11% of United Kingdom soft drink sales will be affected. A full assessment of the impacts of these changes is included within the Strengthening the Soft Drinks Industry Levy – Summary of Responses document. This is available at the following link:
A Tax Information and Impact Note (TIIN) was published alongside the introduction of the bill, containing the changes to employer National Insurance contributions. The TIIN sets out the impact of the policy on the exchequer, the economic impacts of the policy, and the impacts on individuals, businesses, and civil society organisations, as well as an overview of the equality impacts. The Government protected the smallest hospitality businesses from recent changes to employer National Insurance by increasing the Employment Allowance to £10,500.
The Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs published the updated impact assessment of the packaging Extended Producer Responsibility scheme in October 2024, which evaluated the overall effects on packaging producers, without disaggregating by sector.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what advice his Department has received from the UK Health Security Agency on the health impacts and emerging evidence concerning electromagnetic fields associated with public exclusion zone requirements for telecommunications masts.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Advice provided by the UK Health Security Agency to the Government, which includes the Department, on the health impacts of electromagnetic fields associated with telecommunications masts is publicly available on the GOV.UK website, at the following link:
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they considered the findings of NHS England’s economic analysis which shows the community pharmacy sector is under-funded by over £2 billion per annum when deciding to clawback a further £16.8 million per quarter from community pharmacies through adjustments to drug tariff pricelists.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Funding for pharmaceutical services is through the Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework (CPCF) settlement. For 2025/26, this was increased to £3.073 billion, of which £900 million is the amount pharmacy contractors are allowed to retain as medicine margin, the difference between the reimbursement price and the purchase price paid by the pharmacy contractor.
The Department, along with Community Pharmacy England, the representative body of community pharmacies, assesses the medicines margin retained by community pharmacies in totality, through a ‘quarterly margin survey’. If too much medicine margin is being delivered, then downwards adjustments, or clawbacks, are made to bring this in line with the allowed medicine margin as agreed under the CPCF settlement.
The economic analysis is considered as part of the wider decision on the CPCF settlement, which was agreed with Community Pharmacy England, the representative body of community pharmacies. The medicine margin adjustment made each quarter, including the downward adjustment of £16.8 million per quarter made in January 2026, is operating within the agreed 2025/26 CPCF settlement.
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether the forthcoming national cancer plan for England will consider expanding access to non-genomic biomarker testing, in addition to genomic testing, to determine eligibility for cancer precision medicines.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department is currently developing the National Cancer Plan for England, which will be published shortly. The plan will build on the commitment in the 10-Year Health Plan to provide comprehensive molecular profiling of all cancers. Genomic testing is a key element of molecular profiling.
We also recognise the important role that nongenomic biomarkers play in identifying the most effective treatments for individual patients. The plan will consider how to ensure access to high-quality treatment, including access to testing that determines eligibility for precision testing.
Asked by: Will Forster (Liberal Democrat - Woking)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what information his Department hols on the longest time that someone has had to wait to obtain a wheelchair or walker on the NHS.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The information requested is not held centrally. Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for the provision and commissioning of local wheelchair services, based on the needs of their local population.
NHS England supports ICBs to reduce variation in the quality and provision of National Health Service wheelchairs, and to reduce delays in people receiving timely intervention and wheelchair equipment. Since July 2015, NHS England has collected quarterly data from clinical commissioning groups, now ICBs, on wheelchair provision, including waiting times, to enable targeted action if improvement is required. The latest figures from Quarter 2 2025/26 National Wheelchair Data Collection showed that 84% of adults and 78% of children received their equipment within 18 weeks. Further information is avaiable at the following link:
The Community Health Services Situation Report, which will be used to monitor ICB performance against waiting time targets in 2026/27, currently monitors waiting times for both children and young people, and adults through the Wheelchair, Orthotics, Prosthetics and Equipment line, with further information avaiable at the following link:
The NHS Medium-Term Planning Framework, published October 2025, requires that, from 2026/27, all ICBs and community health services must actively manage and reduce the proportion of waits across all community health services over 18 weeks and develop a plan to eliminate all 52-week waits.
These targets will guide systems to reduce longest waits. Improvement initiatives to meet these targets may affect waits that are over 18-weeks and 52-weeks.
Asked by: Will Forster (Liberal Democrat - Woking)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the average waiting time is for someone to obtain a wheelchair or walker on the NHS.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The information requested is not held centrally. Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for the provision and commissioning of local wheelchair services, based on the needs of their local population.
NHS England supports ICBs to reduce variation in the quality and provision of National Health Service wheelchairs, and to reduce delays in people receiving timely intervention and wheelchair equipment. Since July 2015, NHS England has collected quarterly data from clinical commissioning groups, now ICBs, on wheelchair provision, including waiting times, to enable targeted action if improvement is required. The latest figures from Quarter 2 2025/26 National Wheelchair Data Collection showed that 84% of adults and 78% of children received their equipment within 18 weeks. Further information is avaiable at the following link:
The Community Health Services Situation Report, which will be used to monitor ICB performance against waiting time targets in 2026/27, currently monitors waiting times for both children and young people, and adults through the Wheelchair, Orthotics, Prosthetics and Equipment line, with further information avaiable at the following link:
The NHS Medium-Term Planning Framework, published October 2025, requires that, from 2026/27, all ICBs and community health services must actively manage and reduce the proportion of waits across all community health services over 18 weeks and develop a plan to eliminate all 52-week waits.
These targets will guide systems to reduce longest waits. Improvement initiatives to meet these targets may affect waits that are over 18-weeks and 52-weeks.
Asked by: Jas Athwal (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to improve the quality of medical care available to people with learning disabilities.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Significant action is underway to improve access to and the quality of care for people with a learning disability. This will help deliver the shift from treatment to prevention, outlined in our 10-Year Health Plan, with further information avaiable at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/10-year-health-plan-for-england-fit-for-the-future
As part of this we are rolling out mandatory training for health and social care staff, improving identification on the general practice learning disability register and uptake of annual health checks, and implementing a Reasonable Adjustment Digital Flag in health and care records to ensure care is tailored appropriately. The NHS Learning Disability Improvement Standard also supports trusts by setting guidance on safe, personalised, and high-quality care provision. The standards are designed to support organisations in assessing the quality of their services and to promote uniformity across the National Health Service in the care and treatment provided to people with a learning disability. Further information on the standards is avaiable at the following link:
Each integrated care board must also have an executive lead for learning disability and autism and must demonstrate how they will reduce inequalities for people with a learning disability within their five year strategic plans under the Medium-Term Planning Framework. Further information is avaiable on the Medium-Term Planning Framework at the following link:
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will take steps to ensure NHS patients with Mantle Cell Lymphoma will continue to be able to receive the CAR-T treatment Tecartus after it has exited the Cancer Drugs Fund.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Decisions on whether new medicines should be routinely funded by the National Health Service in England are made by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) on the basis of an evaluation of their costs and benefits. NICE is currently re-evaluating brexucabtagene autoleucel (Tecartus) to determine whether it can be recommended for routine NHS use, taking into account real-world evidence generated through its use in the Cancer Drugs Fund. NICE has been unable to recommend the treatment in final draft guidance, which is available at the following link:
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/indevelopment/gid-ta11545/documents
This is because the available evidence does not suggest that brexucabtagene autoleucel is value for money in this population. Final guidance has not yet been published, and consultees have until 19 January to appeal NICE’s final draft recommendations.
In line with an arrangement between NHS England and the company, if NICE’s final guidance does not recommend use, patients who started treatment during the managed access period can continue their treatment.
Asked by: Helen Grant (Conservative - Maidstone and Malling)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, which recommendations of the Government’s British Sign Language Advisory Board he will implement to ensure the NHS is accessible to deaf and blind people.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Under the Equality Act 2010, health and care organisations have a legal duty to make changes in their approach and provision to ensure that services are as accessible to disabled people as they are for everybody else.
All National Health Service organisations and publicly funded social care providers are expected to meet the Accessible Information Standard, which details the recommended approach to supporting the information and communication support needs of people with a disability, impairment or sensory loss, including Deaf and blind people.
We welcome the British Sign Language Advisory Board’s report, Locked out: Exclusion of deaf and deafblind BSL users from health and social care in the UK. We will carefully consider its recommendations, including how, in the context of our work on the 10-Year Health Plan and reform of adult social care, we can improve the experiences of Deaf and blind people when accessing health and care services.
Asked by: Al Pinkerton (Liberal Democrat - Surrey Heath)
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 (a) quality and (b) accessibility of health and care services for people with learning disabilities in Surrey Heath constituency.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Significant action is underway to improve the quality and accessibility of health and care services for people with a learning disability at a local level, helping to deliver the shift from treatment to prevention, outlined in our 10-Year Health Plan, which is avaiable at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/10-year-health-plan-for-england-fit-for-the-future
The national Learning Disabilities Health Check Scheme is designed to encourage general practices to identify all patients aged 14 years old and over with a learning disability, and to offer them an annual health check and health action plan. Further information on the Learning Disabilities Health Check Scheme is available at the following link:
The latest published data for Surrey Heath shows that 82.78% of people with a learning disability in the area had completed a health check, and that 80.19% of learning disability patients in Surrey Heath had a completed health action plan. The latest published data for Surrey Heath is avaiable at the following link:
According to recently published data on Health and Care of People with Learning Disabilities, 81.5% of people with a learning disability had completed an annual health check in England. Further information on the recently published data on Health and Care of People with Learning Disabilities is avaiable at the following link:
The Surrey All Ages Mental Health, Learning Disabilities and Autism Oversight Committee routinely monitors the following:
- admissions and discharges for adults, and children and young people with a learning disability and any barriers to timely discharge;
- mandatory training on learning disability and autism;
- performance on Care (Education) and Treatment Reviews and commissioner oversight visits;
- Dynamic Support Register governance; and
- implementation of the Reasonable Adjustments Digital Flag.