Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of expanding community-based diagnostic and treatment services to reduce pressure on hospital capacity.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The 10-Year Health Plan sets out a transformed vision for elective care by 2035, where the majority of interactions no longer take place in a hospital building, instead happening virtually or via neighbourhood services. Planned care will be more efficient, timely, and effective, and will put control in the hands of patients.
The Elective Reform Plan sets out the productivity and modernisation efforts needed to reach the 92% standard by March 2029. This includes expanding existing community diagnostic centres (CDCs), and building up to five new ones in 2025/26, as well as extending opening hours to 12 hours per day, seven days a week. We will also expand the number of hubs over the next three years. Further details and allocations will be set out in due course.
CDCs are key to delivering on the Government’s ambition to move more planned care from hospitals to the community, reducing pressure on hospitals and delivering more convenient care close to home. Under the Government, CDCs have delivered over 9.4 million tests and scans since July 2024, supporting patients to access vital tests, scans, and checks around their busy working lives.
Dedicated and protected surgical hubs transform the way the National Health Service provides elective care by focusing on providing high volume low complexity surgery, as recommended by the Royal College of Surgeons of England. By separating elective services from urgent and emergency care, hubs improve patient outcomes and reduce hospital pressures. There are currently 123 operational hubs across England, 22 of which have opened since the Government took office.
The 2025 Spending Review confirmed over £6 billion of additional capital investment over five years across new diagnostic, elective, and urgent care capacity. Further details and allocations will be set out in due course.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have had discussions with commercial users about pricing arrangements for access to datasets through the Health Data Research Service.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
To ensure an appropriate commercial model is developed for the Health Data Research Service (HDRS), discovery work has been undertaken to gain insight into existing commercial models that might be applicable for the HDRS. This discovery work included engagement with 19 commercial organisations representing users of health data, allowing the development of a robust, up to date, and United Kingdom-wide evidence base. Decisions regarding what commercial model and pricing arrangement is used will be within the remit of the incoming HDRS senior leadership team.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to assess the clinical safety and cost effectiveness of AI mental health tools funded and used by the NHS.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to ensuring that artificial intelligence (AI) tools used in mental health care within the National Health Service are clinically safe and deliver value for money. We are working with regulators such as the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, and other partners to ensure all AI mental health tools deployed in the NHS meet the requirements of the United Kingdom’s regulatory system, to ensure these technologies are safe for use and cost-effective.
Additionally, NHS England applies the Digital Technology Assessment Criteria to evaluate the safety, security, and usability of digital health tools. Independent clinical evaluations and pilot studies are also undertaken prior to wider implementation of these technologies.
Through the AI in Health and Care Award, which ran from 2020 to 2024, the NHS AI Lab funded the testing and evaluation of two mental health technologies, Limbic Access and Wysa. As set out in the 10-Year Health Plan, the NHS is working towards rolling out digital mental health tools. As part of this process, each technology is assessed not only for clinical safety but also for cost-effectiveness, ensuring that these innovations deliver measurable benefits and represent good value for the NHS and taxpayers.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of artificial intelligence tools on employment levels, in the light of the finding in the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development Labour Market Outlook report, published on 10 November, that 17 percent of UK employers expect to reduce their workforce due to AI tools in the coming year.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
We want to ensure people have access to good, meaningful work. AI has the potential to transform the labour market and Government is working to ensure the UK is well prepared, so that AI drives growth and opportunities for workers, businesses, and communities.
We are closely monitoring data on the impact of AI on the workforce, such as the CIPD report, and actively preparing for a range of scenarios. We are supporting workforce readiness for AI through multiple initiatives. Including our commitment to give 7.5 million workers essential AI skills by 2030.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to develop accessibility standards for AI-enabled assistive communication technologies used by people with disabilities.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations require most public sector organisations to ensure their services, websites, intranets, extranets, published documents, and apps are accessible to disabled people by meeting the requirements of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines v2.2 to level AA and by publishing a prescribed format accessibility statement. This includes requirements to work with assistive technologies. The regulations apply regardless of if the technology is AI enabled or not. The Government Service Standard requires Departments to make sure everyone can use the service. The standard doesn’t apply to the wider public sector.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of reports that children are using artificial intelligence chatbots for mental health advice, in particular with regard to online safety and child protection.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
This Government is committed to improving NHS mental health services to ensure that children and young people receive the right support at the right time for their mental health.
The Online Safety Act requires all in-scope services, including AI chatbots, to proactively remove illegal suicide and self-harm content. Services likely to be accessed by children must take steps to prevent children from accessing suicide, self-harm, or eating disorder content.
DHSC’s 10 Year Plan has set out an ambitious reform agenda to transform mental health services to improve access and treatment and promote good mental health and wellbeing for the nation.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to review the regulatory requirements applying to AI-enabled toys for children.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
Government has committed to reviewing product regulations including the Toys (Safety) Regulations. These reviews will examine whether changes are needed to detailed safety requirements to reflect modern challenges, such as the use of AI in toys.
Following an appropriate consultation as required under The Product Regulation and Metrology Act 2025, Government will decide whether to implement any changes to the Toy (Safety) Regulations to ensure they address modern safety issues and technological developments, harness opportunities to create economic growth, and continue to protect people and places from product-related harm.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the risk to consumers using AI chatbots for financial advice, following the consumer study findings from Which? stating such tools provided inaccurate financial advice.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The government recognises that many people lack the support they need to make financial decisions and are increasingly turning to technologies such as general purpose large language models for help.
Together with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the government wants to ensure that people can receive meaningful support from firms they know and trust, such as their bank or pension provider. That is why we are enabling trusted firms to do more to proactively support their customers.
To deliver this, the government is introducing a new regime for targeted support, which will allow firms to engage directly with customers and suggest products or courses of action for their financial situation. As announced by the Chancellor at Mansion House, targeted support will be available online in time for the next financial year.
Alongside this, the UK’s data protection framework applies to the processing of personal data across the design, development and deployment of AI tools. Organisations are required to ensure that personal data is processed fairly, lawfully, transparently, and securely. People also have a number of rights over how their personal data is used, such as the right of access, rectification, or erasure.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of reports that UK inflation slowed to 3.6 per cent in October, and what the implications are for policies aimed at reducing cost-of-living pressures for households and businesses.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The OBR expects inflation to have peaked in Q3 2025, and that it will fall progressively to the Bank of England’s 2% target in Q1 2027. The Bank of England has overall responsibility for controlling inflation and beyond this, the government is targeting inflation at its source, by bearing down on everyday expenses such as energy bills, transport and childcare costs to ease cost of living pressures.
Taken together the OBR’s forecast shows government policy will reduce CPI inflation by 0.4 percentage points in 2026/27. This is the biggest near-term reduction in inflation due to government policy ever forecast by the OBR at a single fiscal event, outside of a crisis.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to encourage UK-based fintech founders to retain and expand their companies in the UK, including through targeted tax and regulatory incentives.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Financial Services Growth and Competitiveness Strategy identified Fintech as a priority growth opportunity, and set out the government’s ambition for the UK to remain a leading jurisdiction to start, scale and list a Fintech business.
The Strategy set out a series of measures to shape a regulatory environment for financial services that is proportionate, predictable and internationally competitive. These included working with the regulators to make it quicker and easier for new firms to achieve regulatory authorisation, as well as the launch of a joint FCA-PRA Scale-Up Unit, to enhance engagement with fast-growing, innovative regulated firms.
The Government published its Corporate Tax Roadmap at Budget 2024, which set out a number of commitments for this Parliament. Central to this is the commitment to cap Corporation Tax at 25 percent for the duration of this parliament, confirming the UK as the jurisdiction with the lowest rate in the G7. This is supplemented by some of the most generous business investment tax reliefs and allowances in the OECD - includes full expensing, R&D tax reliefs, and the Patent Box regime.