Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment has been made of the impact that mandating extended online consultation use at GP surgeries will have on the availability of face-to-face appointments.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

No formal assessment has been undertaken of the impact that mandating extended use of online consultations will have on the availability of face‑to‑face appointments.

Between November and December 2025, the number of online consultations fell by approximately 175,000, despite contract changes introduced in October 2025 to align online consultation hours with telephone and reception access. Over the same period, the proportion of appointments delivered face‑to‑face has remained stable. In December 2025, 61.5% of all appointments were conducted in person with a healthcare professional, a decrease of 2.5% compared with December 2024.

Practices already using online systems have seen significant improvements. One London general practice surgery reduced waits from 14 days to just three, with 95% of patients seen within a week.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment has been made of the potential impact of (a) the new online consultation system for GP surgeries and (b) as part of that, urgent clinical queries being included on forms meant for non-urgent business on levels of patient safety.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

General practices (GPs) are independent businesses contracted by the National Health Service to deliver essential services, and as part of these contracts they are required to provide modern telephony systems and online consultation tools. In the 2025 contract negotiations with the General Practitioners Committee England, agreement was reached to ensure online, telephone, and reception access is available throughout core hours. To support safe implementation, this was deferred to 1 October 2025, with support available from NHS England and the integrated care boards for practices that need help meeting the requirement. These changes build on several years of work to modernise GPs and improve access.

Online consultation systems already require practices to triage clinical need, so extending access to core hours does not change how urgent and non‑urgent queries are managed, it simply gives patients more choice in how they contact their practice and helps ensure urgent issues are identified quickly while non‑urgent requests are handled appropriately.

Practices already using online systems have seen significant improvements. One London GP surgery reduced waits from 14 days to just three, with 95% of patients seen within a week.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what provision has been made to help increase the number of appointments available within NHS primary care services in response to increases in online consultation use at GP surgeries.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

We have invested £160 million into the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme to support the recruitment of over 2,000 individual general practitioners (GPs) into primary care networks across England, helping to increase appointment availability and improve care for thousands of patients. The new £102 million Primary Care Utilisation and Modernisation Fund will also create additional clinical space within over 1,000 practices across England. This investment will deliver more appointments and improve patient care.

Last year, we invested an additional £1.1 billion in GPs to reinforce the front door of the National Health Service, bringing total spend on the GP Contract to £13.4 billion in 2025/26. This is the biggest increase in over a decade.

As a result, we have successfully delivered an additional 6.8 million GP appointments for patients compared to the same period last year, meaning more patients are getting the support they need, when they need it. Between November and December 2025, the number of online consultations fell by approximately 175,000, despite contract changes introduced in October 2025 to align online consultation hours with telephone and reception access.

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether his Department will consider amending The Rent Acts (Maximum Fair Rent) Order 1999 so that the formula to calculate the maximum fair rent for regulated tenancies uses the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rather than the Retail Prices Index (RPI).

Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)

Regulated tenancies under the Rent Act 1977 are entitled to a ‘fair rent’ which is determined and registered by rent officers. The Rent Act (Maximum Fair Rent) Order 1999 limits increases in registered fair rents to the change in the Retail Price Index plus a fixed percentage uplift.

The government has no plans to review or amend the inflationary index or to change the basis for calculating maximum fair rents from the Retail Price Index to the Consumer Prices Index.

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, for what reason his Department calculates the maximum fair rent for regulated tenancies using the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rather than the Retail Prices Index (RPI).

Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)

Regulated tenancies under the Rent Act 1977 are entitled to a ‘fair rent’ which is determined and registered by rent officers. The Rent Act (Maximum Fair Rent) Order 1999 limits increases in registered fair rents to the change in the Retail Price Index plus a fixed percentage uplift.

The government has no plans to review or amend the inflationary index or to change the basis for calculating maximum fair rents from the Retail Price Index to the Consumer Prices Index.

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether his Department plans to (a) review and (b) amend the maximum fair rent inflationary index set in the Rent Act 1977.

Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)

Regulated tenancies under the Rent Act 1977 are entitled to a ‘fair rent’ which is determined and registered by rent officers. The Rent Act (Maximum Fair Rent) Order 1999 limits increases in registered fair rents to the change in the Retail Price Index plus a fixed percentage uplift.

The government has no plans to review or amend the inflationary index or to change the basis for calculating maximum fair rents from the Retail Price Index to the Consumer Prices Index.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to encourage and support applications from apprentices to Erasmus+.

Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

We will work closely with institutions and our young people to maximise take-up, particularly among disadvantaged groups.

A UK National Agency will be appointed to administer the programme, with a dedicated website and guidance issued well ahead of the 2027 funding call which opens in November 2026.

On 17 December 2025, the department published on GOV.UK a page providing information about the Erasmus+ programme and the available opportunities.

There will also be a broad range of sector outreach activities to increase awareness and engagement, such as webinars and targeted communications to eligible organisations.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help (a) raise awareness of and (b) promote the opportunities offered by Erasmus+ among eligiblestudenrts and institutions.

Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

We will work closely with institutions and our young people to maximise take-up, particularly among disadvantaged groups.

A UK National Agency will be appointed to administer the programme, with a dedicated website and guidance issued well ahead of the 2027 funding call which opens in November 2026.

On 17 December 2025, the department published on GOV.UK a page providing information about the Erasmus+ programme and the available opportunities.

There will also be a broad range of sector outreach activities to increase awareness and engagement, such as webinars and targeted communications to eligible organisations.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when his Department will notify children’s hospices of allocations from the £80 million in funding announced on 16 October 2025.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

Children and young people’s hospices and integrated care boards will be informed of their children and young people’s hospice grant allocations for 2026/27 imminently. Communication regarding future allocations, for 2027/28 and 2028/29, will be sent once the 2026/27 process is complete.

Found: As mentioned by Ben Coleman in his line of questioning to the second panel, this creates a false economy

Found: Ben Coleman: When you say “potentially”—?

Found: Liberal Democrat; Oxford West and Abingdon) (Chair) Danny Beales (Labour; Uxbridge and South Ruislip) Ben Coleman

Found: Ben Coleman: Not overall?

Found: Q364 Ben Coleman: Because?