Asked by: Douglas McAllister (Labour - West Dunbartonshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department has considered options for schemes to deliver compensation in line with the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman's report on Women's State Pension age communications.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Secretary of State announced in his oral statement of 11 November 2025 that we will retake the decision made in December 2024 as it relates to the communications on State Pension age.
This was because findings from a 2007 report had not been drawn to the attention of the previous Secretary of State as its potential relevance to the making of her decision was not evident at the time.
The process to retake the decision is underway and it is important that we give this full and proper consideration. Retaking the decision should not be taken as an indication that Government will necessarily decide that it should award financial redress. We will update Parliament on the decision as soon as a conclusion is reached and on 2 December 2025 we committed to re-take the decision within three months.
Asked by: Bambos Charalambous (Labour - Southgate and Wood Green)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to increase access to women's health hubs.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is encouraging integrated care boards (ICBs) to further expand the coverage of women’s health hubs and supporting them to use the learning from the women’s health hub pilots to improve local delivery of services to women and girls.
The 10-Year Health Plan set out our ambition for high autonomy to be the norm across every part of the country. ICBs are responsible for commissioning services that meet the healthcare needs of their local population and have the freedom to do so, and this includes women's health hubs and delivering the direction of the Women's Health Strategy. The Government is backing ICBs to do this through record funding. The 2025 Spending Review prioritised health, with record investment in the health and social care system.
Asked by: Stephen Gethins (Scottish National Party - Arbroath and Broughty Ferry)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to his Statement of 11 of November 2025, on Women's State Pension Age: PHSO Report, HCWS1044, when he plans to publish the conclusion of the review of the Government's response to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman report.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced in his Oral Statement of 11 November 2025 that we will retake the decision made in December 2024 as it relates to the communications on state pension age.
The process to retake the decision is underway. We will update Parliament on the decision as soon as a conclusion is reached and on 2 December 2025 we committed to re-take the decision within three months.
Asked by: Baroness Redfern (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the importance of women's oral health in bridging the gap between prison care and community health services; and what part that will play in their renewed women's health strategy.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Women’s oral health matters for pain, nutrition, mental wellbeing, confidence and for safe resettlement. Although no assessment has been made, evidence shows higher unmet dental need in prisons. Prisoners often enter prison with higher rates of dental decay and oral disease than their peers in the community but with lower levels of treatment. This was most recently reviewed in “A survey of prison dental services in England, Wales and Northern Ireland 2017 to 2018” published by Public Health England in 2019.
Our approach to tackling inequalities brings together the national prison dental specification, the Women’s Prisons Health and Social Care Review and the Women’s Health Strategy. We will strengthen trauma informed, preventative care in women’s prisons, promote pre-release dental planning wherever possible and use RECONNECT to support GP and dental appointments on release. RECONNECT offers liaison, advocacy and support to engage with community-based health services to help ensure health needs of people leaving prison are met. This helps improve treatment continuity and reduces inequalities between custody and community care.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to improve the diagnosis of the menopause for BAME women.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government acknowledges the challenges women face in seeking a diagnosis and support for menopause symptoms and that these are especially acute amongst certain groups, including those from an ethnic minority background.
We are clear that more needs to be done to address these barriers and that is why we announced earlier this year that menopause will be included in routine NHS Health Checks for over 40 year olds, raising awareness of symptoms and giving women the confidence to seek help. To improve uptake of the NHS Health Check we have developed a new NHS Health Check online service, currently being piloted in multiple local authorities, which people can use at home, at a time that is convenient for them.
As part of the Government’s renewal of the Women’s Health Strategy, we will look to identify specific barriers in access to healthcare and set out concrete action to remove them.
Through our National Institute for Health and Care Research, we have invested over £4 million into research on menopause in 2024/25. This includes research to understand Black women's experiences of digitally provided sexual and reproductive healthcare including on the menopause.
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
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 embedding routine and cross-system commissioning and provision of post-pregnancy contraception in post-partum care.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
No assessment has been made. The renewed Women’s Health Strategy will set out how the Government will take the next steps to improve women's healthcare as part of the 10-Year Health Plan and create a system that listens to women. Steps to improve contraception access are being fully considered as part of the renewal.
Asked by: Marie Goldman (Liberal Democrat - Chelmsford)
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 of proposed reductions in Integrated Care Board funding on their ability to establish and run Women’s Health Hubs.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The 10-Year Health Plan set out the ambition for high autonomy to be the norm across every part of the country. Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for commissioning services that meet the healthcare needs of their local population and have the freedom to do so, which includes women's health hubs and delivering the direction of women's health strategy. The Government is backing ICBs to do this through record funding. The Spending Review 2025 prioritised health, with record investment in the health and social care system.
We have heard from integrated care systems the positive impacts that women’s health hubs have on both women's access to care in the community and their experience. Our cost benefit analysis demonstrated £5 benefit for every £1 spent on women’s health hubs.
The Women’s Health Programme Board provides direction and strategic oversight to NHS England’s Women’s Health Programme. It monitors progress and delivery of the programme, and delivers the ambitions of the Women’s Health Strategy, reflecting the vision to improve health outcomes, reduce disparities and amplify women’s voices in healthcare.
The board is also responsible for ensuring alignment with wider interdependencies including the 10-Year Health Plan, and neighbourhood health models, as well as ensuring the delivery, oversight, and performance management of women’s health provision are consistent across the seven regions of England.
Asked by: Sonia Kumar (Labour - Dudley)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps she is taking to help ensure freedom of expression for women's health publications on social media.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
We recognise the importance of access to trusted health information. The Act does not prevent users from publishing legal content or children and adults from accessing relevant health information. Once the remaining duties come in, large platforms will not be able to arbitrarily remove content and there will be effective complaints procedures when they do. I have asked Ofcom to do everything possible to speed up this final phase.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to expand access to women's health hubs.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is encouraging integrated care boards (ICBs) to further expand the coverage of women’s health hubs and to support ICBs to use the learning from the women’s health hub pilots to improve local delivery of services to women and girls.
The 10-Year Health Plan set out the ambition for high autonomy to be the norm across every part of the country. ICBs are responsible for commissioning services that meet the healthcare needs of their local population and have the freedom to do so, and this includes women's health hubs and delivering the direction of the Women's Health Strategy. The Government is backing ICBs to do this through record funding. The 2025 Spending Review prioritised health, with record investment in the health and social care system.
Asked by: Mark Garnier (Conservative - Wyre Forest)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to his Oral Statement on 11 November 2025 entitled Pensions, whether the 2007 report on the effectiveness of automatic pension forecast letters is the one referenced in the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman's report entitled Women's State Pension Age: our findings on the Department for Work and Pension's communication of changes.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s reports titled “Women’s State Pension age: our findings on the Department for Work and Pensions’ communication of changes”, published 19 July 2021, and “Women’s State Pension age: our findings on injustice and associated issues”, published 21 March 2024, both refer to findings from DWP’s ‘Evaluation of Automatic Pension Forecast’ research.
In retaking the decision, we will review the evidence from DWP’s ‘Evaluation of Automatic Pension Forecasts’ Research Report, no.447 alongside evidence previously considered. The process to retake the decision has already begun.