Asked by: Baroness Walmsley (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what they expect the timeline to be for bringing forward energy drinks age-of-sale legislation.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is taking decisive action on obesity, easing the strain on our National Health Service and creating the healthiest generation of children ever.
As part of this, we will fulfil our commitment to ban the sale of high-caffeine energy drinks to children aged under 16 years old, introducing the ban within this Parliament.
We ran a 12-week consultation, which was open from 3 September 2025 to 26 November 2025. The Department is currently reviewing all submissions to the consultation and will set out a formal consultation response, and further information on our timelines, in due course.
Asked by: Baroness Walmsley (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what lessons they have learnt from the review and updating of previous age-restricted sales legislation; and how those lessons will inform the approach to keeping any future energy drinks age-of-sale legislation under review as new products enter the market and consumption patterns evolve.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government continues to learn from the implementation of previous age-restricted sales legislation. We recognise the importance of clear guidance, proportionate enforcement arrangements, and ensuring legislation is responsive to evidence, development in products, sales channels, and consumer behaviour.
Any future age of sale measures for energy drinks will be designed with these considerations in mind. We are reviewing consultation responses and will set out next steps in due course. The consultation specifically asked for views on our proposals for how the age restrictions will be enforced and its impact on local government.
Decisions on resourcing and enforcement will be taken alongside wider policy design and parliamentary scrutiny.
Asked by: Baroness Walmsley (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what lessons they have learned from previous age-restricted sales legislation, to ensure local authorities are adequately resourced to support the monitoring and enforcement of any future energy drinks age-of-sale legislation.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government continues to learn from the implementation of previous age-restricted sales legislation. We recognise the importance of clear guidance, proportionate enforcement arrangements, and ensuring legislation is responsive to evidence, development in products, sales channels, and consumer behaviour.
Any future age of sale measures for energy drinks will be designed with these considerations in mind. We are reviewing consultation responses and will set out next steps in due course. The consultation specifically asked for views on our proposals for how the age restrictions will be enforced and its impact on local government.
Decisions on resourcing and enforcement will be taken alongside wider policy design and parliamentary scrutiny.
Asked by: Baroness Walmsley (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether NHS England's forthcoming quality strategy will include a new model for financial incentives in the NHS, including specialised, secondary, primary and community care.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The new NHS Quality Strategy will build on the 10-Year Health Plan and Dr Penny Dash’s review of patient safety across the health and care landscape. The 10-Year Health Plan commits to using sharper financial incentives to deliver value and improve outcomes. We expect the NHS Quality Strategy will reference, alongside other interventions, how the Department and NHS England will develop these incentives to ensure they drive high quality care across the National Health Service.
Asked by: Baroness Walmsley (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to increase opportunities to diagnose chronic kidney disease early, particularly through increased urine albumin to creatinine ratio testing.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England is delivering a comprehensive programme to improve the diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes of people with kidney disease. In 2023, NHS England published a renal services transformation toolkit to support earlier identification of chronic kidney disease and more joined up services. These changes are intended to make it easier to deliver improvements along the whole patient pathway, including earlier diagnosis and treatment, that can potentially prevent or delay the need for dialysis and transplant further downstream in the pathway.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is the independent body responsible for providing clinical guidance and quality standards. NICE’s guidance on chronic kidney disease includes guidance on the use of annual urine albumin-creatine ratio tests as the preferred method to detect and monitor kidney disease. The guidance is available on the NICE website.
Asked by: Baroness Walmsley (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure the uptake of guidelines-directed medical therapies in primary care for (1) cardiovascular disease, (2) diabetes, and (3) chronic kidney disease.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published a strategy in March 2025 setting out a collective ambition for improving uptake and adoption of NICE guidance by the health and care system over the next three years. The strategy aims to improve the uptake and adoption of NICE guidance in priority areas which align with the National Health Service 10-Year Health Plan by 10% by March 2029. This includes guidance on cardiovascular disease and diabetes, further details on which can be found on the NICE website.
In 2023, NHS England published a renal services transformation toolkit to support earlier identification of chronic kidney disease and more joined up services. Eight commissioned regional renal clinical networks are implementing this toolkit, in collaboration with providers. The regional networks are designed to improve care for kidney patients by standardizing treatment, reducing health inequalities, and promoting best practices, including for medical therapy use, across hospitals, commissioners, and specialists.
Asked by: Baroness Walmsley (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to ensure that cigarette filter tips are included in the definition of relevant products in the Tobacco and Vapes Bill that are not allowed to be advertised or promoted.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act 2002 prohibits any advertisements whose purpose or effect is to promote a tobacco product. The Advertising Standards Authority’s rules state that marketing communications for cigarette filters should not encourage people to start smoking or increase their consumption.
The Tobacco and Vapes Bill restates the restrictions on the advertising of tobacco products. We have no current plans to introduce additional restrictions on the advertising of filters through the bill.
Asked by: Baroness Walmsley (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what percentage of nurses dropped out of (1) all nurse training, (2) paediatric nurse training, (3) adult nurse training, and (4) mental health nurse training, in the most recent year for which figures are available.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Higher Education Statistics Agency publish the proportion of nursing entrants to undergraduate courses that are no longer in higher education. The following table shows the proportion of United Kingdom domiciled undergraduate nursing entrants who are no longer in higher education 2019/20. The rates in will not include students that have transferred to a course in another subject. Non-continuation rates are not available at the level of specific nursing professions.
| Proportion of entrants that are no longer in higher education |
Young students (21 years old and under) | 4.70% |
Mature students (over 21 years old) | 7.10% |
Source: The Higher Education Statistics Agency Non-continuation rates 2022.
Asked by: Baroness Walmsley (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure the COVID-19 vaccine programme is (1) resilient, and (2) stable, in terms of vaccine supply and product diversity; and whether they will avoid overreliance on one COVID-19 vaccine technology.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
The United Kingdom has received sufficient supply of vaccines to meet the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation’s current advice for the autumn booster vaccination programme. This includes Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna, with Novavax where no other UK-approved COVID-19 vaccine is deemed clinically suitable. These vaccines, which the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency has approved for use in the UK, are currently in deployment.
The majority of the Government’s contracts with developers contain flexibilities to ensure that the UK can receive updated vaccines being produced, including the recently regulated bivalent mRNA vaccines, which provide broader protection against variants and variant-specific vaccines. We remain in regular contact with the vaccine manufacturers to ensure the future supply of vaccines to the UK.
Asked by: Baroness Walmsley (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is the timeline for future Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (1) deliberations, and (2) decisions, on the COVID-19 vaccine booster programme; and whether those decisions will be published in full.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) continues to monitor COVID-19 epidemiology and evaluate data from the United Kingdom and globally in order to provide advice to the Government on potential vaccination programmes. However, as this is an ongoing process, we are unable to confirm a specific timetable.
The minutes of the JCVI’s meetings, where advice to the Government is discussed, is published in an online only format at GOV.UK.