Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the cost to the NHS of the resident doctors' strike between 25–30 July, including cover for absent staff, disruption and catch-up work.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The five-day resident doctor strike in July 2025 had an estimated cost to the National Health Service of around £240 million and this is a starting estimate for the planned November strike. The costs were lower than in July 2024 as a result of lower turnout. We continue to update estimates as new data becomes available, in line with receiving business as usual financial data from NHS systems.

The NHS has tried and tested plans in place to minimise disruption and will work with partners to ensure safe care for patients continues to be available and emergency services continue to operate.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government by what date they expect the abolition of NHS England to be completed.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

We will deliver on the planned timetable of bringing NHS England back into the Department within two years, a move that will put an end to the duplication of two organisations doing the same job.

The abolition of NHS England requires primary legislation, and as such is subject to the will of Parliament. We are working with the Leader of the House and business managers to ensure an appropriate timetable that enables us to work towards the two-year delivery timetable already announced.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to prevent manufacturing issues causing medicines shortages and to mitigate their impact.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

There are over 14,000 medicines and the majority are in good supply. While we can’t always prevent supply issues from occurring, we have a range of well-established processes and tools to manage them when they arise, to mitigate risks to patients. These include close and regular engagement with suppliers, use of alternative strengths or forms of a medicine to allow patients to remain on the same product, expediting regulatory procedures, sourcing unlicensed imports from abroad, adding products to the restricted exports and hoarding list, use of Serious Shortage Protocols, and issuing National Health Service communications to provide management advice and information on the issue to healthcare professionals including pharmacists, so they can advise and support their patients. Further information can be found in A guide to the systems and processes for managing medicines supply issues in England’.

The resilience of United Kingdom supply chains is a key priority, and we are continually learning and seeking to improve the way we work to both manage and help prevent supply issues and avoid shortages. The Department, working closely with NHS England, is taking forward a range of actions to improve our ability to mitigate and manage shortages and strengthen our resilience. These actions were set out in a policy paper published in August 2025, Managing a robust and resilient supply of medicines.

As part of that work, we continue to engage with industry, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, and other colleagues across the supply chain as we progress work to co-design and deliver solutions. However, medicine shortages are a complex and global issue and everyone in the supply chain has a role to play in addressing them, and therefore continued action requires a collaborative approach.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many fines they have issued in the past year for failure to report medicines shortages.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

Suppliers are legally responsible for reporting disruptions and discontinuations through the Health Service Products (Provision and Disclosure of Information) Regulations 2018 (the ‘Information Regulations’), this includes a provision that allows the Department to fine a company if they fail to report. To date the Department has not issued any fines.

Reporting of potential supply issues is critical, enabling the Department to complete a thorough risk assessment of the severity of the issue. Alongside legal requirements, the Department also has an online reporting tool, known as the Discontinuations and Shortages portal, launched in October 2020, which suppliers can use to notify the Department. When reporting issues are identified we work with companies to understand how we can help enable them to inform the Department of any future supply issues. While the majority of suppliers report disruption in a timely manner, not all do so, and this can impede our ability to mitigate patient risk. As part of our obligations under the ‘Information Regulations’, we regularly review and consider the need to amend provisions. We plan to consult on how to ensure we receive sufficient information to put in place effective mitigations for supply issues, and we will also be reviewing the penalties for not complying with legal reporting requirements to ensure that these support the timely reporting of supply issues.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government when they expect the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency to complete its assessment of DCVax-L.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is an executive agency of the Department and regulates medicine, medical devices, and blood components for transfusion in the United Kingdom, with responsibility for ensuring that medicines meet appropriate standards of safety, quality, and efficacy.

Northwest Biotherapeutics has submitted a Marketing Authorization Application to the MHRA for DCVax®-L, an immunotherapy for glioblastoma. The MHRA is unable to comment on applications during the process of review, but the MHRA can confirm that this application is not affected by any historical backlogs, and the agency is assessing all applications rapidly for safety, quality, and efficacy.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what progress they are making in speeding up the approval and rollout of personalised cancer vaccines.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency has completed a public consultation on its draft guideline on individualised mRNA cancer immunotherapies, a new type of personalised cancer treatment. These technologies use cutting-edge science such as artificial intelligence to design a medicine tailored to each patient’s unique tumour profile.

We received positive responses from across the life sciences community, the National Health Service, patient groups, academics, and international regulators. Feedback recognised the United Kingdom’s leadership in this area, while calling for greater clarity in some aspects of the guideline.

In response, we will refine the guideline to ensure regulatory expectations are clearly articulated, without hampering innovation. This will facilitate faster access to these promising new therapies, while upholding our standards of safety, quality, and efficacy. The final version of the guideline will be published in the coming months, with future updates anticipated as regulatory experience evolves in this rapidly developing field.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the likelihood of the NHS meeting its 2 per cent productivity growth target.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government remains committed to the 2% National Health Service productivity growth target, as set out in the Spending Review and Autumn Statement. This ambition is central to ensuring that the NHS can sustainably meet rising demand.

Recent data indicates good progress. NHS England’s latest estimates show productivity growth of 2.4% between April to July 2025, building on a 2.7% increase in 2024/25. While challenges remain, such as industrial action, these figures, which focus on the acute sector where data quality is strongest, suggest the NHS is on track to meet its productivity commitments.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many additional staff will be recruited for neighbourhood health centres in the next twelve months.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

At the Autumn Budget, we announced our commitment to deliver 250 Neighbourhood Health Centres (NHCs) through the NHS Neighbourhood Rebuild Programme. This will deliver NHCs through a mixture of refurbishments to expand and improve sites over the next three years and new-build sites opening in the medium term. The first 120 NHCs are due to be operational by 2030 and will be delivered through public private partnerships and public capital.

Nationwide coverage will take time, but we will start in the areas of greatest need where healthy life expectancy is lowest, including rural towns and communities with higher deprivation levels, targeting places where healthy life expectancy is lowest and delivering healthcare closer to home for those that need it the most.

Integrated care boards will be responsible for determining the most appropriate locations for NHCs.

We expect neighbourhood teams and services to be designed in a way that reflects the specific needs of local populations, including the workforce. While the focus on personalised, coordinated care will be consistent, that will mean the service will look different in rural communities, coastal towns, or deprived inner cities. A 10 Year Workforce Plan will be published in spring 2026, which will set out action to create a workforce to deliver the 10-Year Health Plan.

Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask His Majesty's Government, with regard to the review of raw cane sugar autonomous tariff quota (ATQ) and related considerations, published on 26 November, whether they will publish the data on which they based the conclusion that increasing the ATQ for sugar cane will not impact domestic sugar beet growers.

Answered by Lord Stockwood - Minister of State (HM Treasury)

The Government has published a summary of the factors and evidence which underpinned this decision on GOV.UK: Review of raw cane sugar ATQ and related considerations: 2025 - GOV.UK

Found: Lord Mountevans Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst Baroness Golding Sarah Bool Baroness Goudie Anna Gelderd Lord Mott

Found: Lord Carter of Coles (The Chair); Lord Blencathra; Baroness Cass; Baroness Coffey; Lord Laming; Lord Mott