Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask His Majesty's Government what the relationship will be between the proposed Warm Homes Agency and Combined Authorities.
Answered by Lord Whitehead - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Warm Homes Agency will play a critical role in place-based delivery and work closely with local partners, including combined authorities. The Agency will seek to build on their good practice in local delivery, convening and supporting where necessary to build capacity to enable delivery to be led at a local level. The full scope of the Agency, including how it will work with combined authorities, is being finalised and will be confirmed in due course.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether the proposed Warm Homes Agency will allocate funding to Combined Authorities.
Answered by Lord Whitehead - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The full scope of the Warm Homes Agency, including any role in funding allocation, is being finalised and will be confirmed in due course.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether local authorities will be able to access the £2 billion fund to support zero and low-interest loans for solar panels, batteries, and other technologies proposed in the Warm Homes Plan, published 21 January.
Answered by Lord Whitehead - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
We will look to use our new Warm Homes Fund to help local authorities accelerate their existing consumer offers for low carbon technologies. In addition, Crown Commercial Services and Great British Energy are testing approaches to aggregating demand for these technologies to drive down unit costs for both social housing landlords and the public sector estate.
The Government will also provide support to local government, enabling successful delivery at the local level, including through the new Warm Homes Agency which will play a pivotal role in supporting local partnerships, convening, facilitating and supporting where necessary to build capacity within local government. Government is also funding five Local Net Zero Hubs which support local authorities to develop decarbonisation projects and attract commercial interest.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask His Majesty's Government how they will allocate the £2 billion fund to support zero and low-interest loans for solar panels, batteries, and other technologies proposed in the Warm Homes Plan, published 21 January.
Answered by Lord Whitehead - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Working with the finance industry, government will allocate up to £1.7 billion of the up to £5 billion allocation to our new Warm Homes Fund to new low and zero interest consumer loans, to help more households meet the upfront costs of improving their homes. This funding would be made available to lenders who apply to participate in the scheme and will be combined with up to £300 million of other government funding to lower the cost of loans for consumers.
We will launch a Call for Evidence in early 2026 to identify where else in the market the Fund can deliver the greatest impact, for example in supporting private and social landlords, investors or supply chains, alongside homeowners.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask His Majesty's Government what the regional organisation of the proposed Warm Homes Agency will be.
Answered by Lord Whitehead - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Warm Homes Agency will seek to operate and optimise delivery at a local level, across the whole of the UK, subject to agreement with Devolved Governments. The Agency will work closely with local partners, supporting and bolstering excellent work already being delivered by many strategic and local authorities. The specifics of the scope of the Agency, including where it will operate and how it will be organised, are being finalised.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have issued indicative spending figures for 2026–27 to integrated care boards; and if so, whether they will publish those figures.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England is responsible for determining allocations of financial resources to integrated care boards (ICBs), informed by a target formula to determine the ‘fair share’ of total funding available for each ICB. NHS England published allocations for ICBs covering 2026/27 to 2028/29 in November 2025, with further information available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/allocation-of-resources-2026-27-to-2027-28/
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what guidance, if any, they have issued to integrated care boards to ensure that community health services receive more additional funding than other services.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Our Medium-Term Planning Framework, published in October 2025, made it clear to integrated care boards (ICBs) that timely and effective community health services will be critical to shifting care out of hospital and into the community to deliver our ambitions for neighbourhood health.
ICB core programme allocations for 2026/27 to 2028/29, published in November 2025, gave an average recurrent allocation growth across all ICBs in England of 2.72% in 2026/27 and 2.92% in 2027/28.
And, for the first time, we have set a target for systems to reduce long waits for community health services in the Medium-Term Planning Framework. By 2028/29 at least 80% of community health services activity should take place within 18 weeks, bringing community health services in line with targets for elective care. Systems have also been asked to increase the capacity of community health services and to work to standardise the provision of core community services.
To help bring about integration, the Department and NHS England will create effective mechanisms which enable service level funding to flow from acute care to community health services and create financial incentives to invest in services that improve patient outcomes and deliver better value by creating funding flows and payment mechanisms that connect the savings from improved quality of care with the investment in new services in the community.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government which national body has formal responsibility for monitoring outcomes for placenta accreta spectrum, including missed antenatal diagnoses and maternal morbidity.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
There are currently no plans to introduce mandatory national reporting of placenta accreta spectrum cases and outcomes. Neither Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries across the UK (MBRRACE-UK) nor the National Maternity and Perinatal Audit record placenta accreta routinely in regular surveillance. However, MBRRACE-UK captures this data as part of their confidential enquiries relating to haemorrhage.
In 2020, NHS England commissioned placenta accreta networks in the United Kingdom which support local and regional screening, shared protocols, and co-ordinated referral pathways to specialist pregnancy accreta centres. Placenta accreta centres consist of highly experienced multidisciplinary teams with the expertise to manage this condition and improve the safety outcomes for women and babies.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to introduce mandatory national reporting of placenta accreta spectrum cases and outcomes; and if so, over what timetable.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
There are currently no plans to introduce mandatory national reporting of placenta accreta spectrum cases and outcomes. Neither Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries across the UK (MBRRACE-UK) nor the National Maternity and Perinatal Audit record placenta accreta routinely in regular surveillance. However, MBRRACE-UK captures this data as part of their confidential enquiries relating to haemorrhage.
In 2020, NHS England commissioned placenta accreta networks in the United Kingdom which support local and regional screening, shared protocols, and co-ordinated referral pathways to specialist pregnancy accreta centres. Placenta accreta centres consist of highly experienced multidisciplinary teams with the expertise to manage this condition and improve the safety outcomes for women and babies.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to discuss the publication of data on maternal deaths and severe maternal morbidity specifically attributable to placenta accreta spectrum with Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries across the UK.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
In 2020, NHS England commissioned placenta accreta networks in the United Kingdom which support local and regional screening, shared protocols, and co-ordinated referral pathways to specialist pregnancy accreta centres. These centres consist of highly experienced multidisciplinary teams with the expertise to manage this condition and improve the safety outcomes for women and babies.
At present, placenta accreta spectrum is not included as an indicator in NHS England maternity safety improvement programmes and dashboards. There are no plans to add this as an indicator in the future.
There are no plans to introduce mandatory national reporting of placenta accreta spectrum cases and outcomes. Neither Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries across the UK (MBRRACE-UK) nor the National Maternity and Perinatal Audit record placenta accreta spectrum routinely in regular surveillance. However, MBRRACE-UK captures this data as part of the haemorrhage confidential enquiries. There are currently no plans to discuss the publication of this data.