Asked by: Bob Blackman (Conservative - Harrow East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to tackle tobacco bundle packs; and whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of prohibiting the promotion of these bundles.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has not made an assessment on the potential merits of prohibiting the sale of bundles, consisting of hand rolling tobacco, cigarette papers, and filters, being sold together at a discount.
The Tobacco and Vapes Bill gives my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care powers to regulate the features of all tobacco products, including their size and shape, as well as the number of individual products contained in an individual packet. The bill also widens this power to cover tobacco related devices, herbal smoking products, and cigarette papers. The bill gives my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care the power to make, via regulations, prohibitions, requirements, and limitations on the supply of these products. This power would cover bundles of products that are sold in a package together.
Tobacco taxation is a matter for HM Treasury. As announced at Autumn Budget 2024, duty rates on all tobacco products were increased, in line with the tobacco duty escalator, by 2% above Retail Prices Index (RPI) inflation. The duty rate on hand-rolling tobacco was increased by a further 10% to 12% above RPI inflation, to reduce the gap with duty on cigarettes. These changes came into effect on 30 October 2024. High and increasing rates of tobacco duty are proven to incentivise those who currently smoke either to quit or to smoke less, and support public finances.
Asked by: Bob Blackman (Conservative - Harrow East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the National Prostate Cancer Audit's report entitled NPCA State of the Nation Report 2024, published in January 2025, if he will take steps to tackle inequalities in accessing NICE-recommended treatments following advanced prostate cancer diagnosis for (a) black men and (b) men from areas of socio-economic deprivation.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Making improvements across different cancer types, including prostate cancer, is critical to reducing disparities in cancer survival. Early cancer diagnosis is also a specific priority within the National Health Service’s wider Core20Plus5 approach to reducing healthcare inequalities.
To address disparities and find ways to better detect prostate cancer earlier, we have invested £16 million in the United Kingdom-wide TRANSFORM trial, aimed at helping find the best ways of detecting prostate cancer in men, even if they are not displaying any symptoms. This research will aim to address some of the inequalities that exist in prostate cancer diagnosis by targeting black men in trial recruitment, ensuring that one in ten participants are black men.
We have also asked the National Screening Committee to review the evidence for prostate cancer screening, including for high-risk groups like black men.
As part of our wider strategy on early diagnosis, we are directly targeting our activity at areas we know will make a difference. This includes awareness raising campaigns such as the NHS Help Us, Help You campaign, to increase awareness of cancer symptoms and encourage people to get checked.
The NHS England Cancer Programme also commissions clinical cancer audits, which provide timely evidence for cancer service providers of where patterns of care in England may vary, increase the consistency of access to treatments, and help stimulate improvements in cancer treatment and outcomes for patients, including those with prostate cancer.
Following publication of the 10-Year Health Plan, we will publish a new National Cancer Plan, which will include further details on how we will improve access to treatments and outcomes for all tumour types, including prostate cancer. We are now in discussions about what form that plan should take, and what its relationship to the 10-Year Health Plan and the Government’s wider Health Mission should be. We will provide updates on this in due course.
We need to tackle the inequalities that people from different groups face, which will be part of the National Cancer Plan as we look at addressing all barriers to providing cancer care across prevention, diagnosis, screening and treatment.
Asked by: Bob Blackman (Conservative - Harrow East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to help tackle health inequalities in prostate cancer.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Making improvements across different cancer types, including prostate cancer, is critical to reducing disparities in cancer survival. Early cancer diagnosis is also a specific priority within the National Health Service’s wider Core20Plus5 approach to reducing healthcare inequalities.
To address disparities and find ways to better detect prostate cancer earlier, we have invested £16 million in the United Kingdom-wide TRANSFORM trial, aimed at helping find the best ways of detecting prostate cancer in men, even if they are not displaying any symptoms. This research will aim to address some of the inequalities that exist in prostate cancer diagnosis by targeting black men in trial recruitment, ensuring that one in ten participants are black men.
We have also asked the National Screening Committee to review the evidence for prostate cancer screening, including for high-risk groups like black men.
As part of our wider strategy on early diagnosis, we are directly targeting our activity at areas we know will make a difference. This includes awareness raising campaigns such as the NHS Help Us, Help You campaign, to increase awareness of cancer symptoms and encourage people to get checked.
The NHS England Cancer Programme also commissions clinical cancer audits, which provide timely evidence for cancer service providers of where patterns of care in England may vary, increase the consistency of access to treatments, and help stimulate improvements in cancer treatment and outcomes for patients, including those with prostate cancer.
Following publication of the 10-Year Health Plan, we will publish a new National Cancer Plan, which will include further details on how we will improve access to treatments and outcomes for all tumour types, including prostate cancer. We are now in discussions about what form that plan should take, and what its relationship to the 10-Year Health Plan and the Government’s wider Health Mission should be. We will provide updates on this in due course.
We need to tackle the inequalities that people from different groups face, which will be part of the National Cancer Plan as we look at addressing all barriers to providing cancer care across prevention, diagnosis, screening and treatment.
Asked by: Bob Blackman (Conservative - Harrow East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the press article entitled Mind the gap: supporting prison leavers with mental illness from the University of Manchester, published on 27 March 2024, what steps he is taking to ensure that prison leavers with severe mental health issues receive the necessary support with (a) housing, (b) access to services, and (c) community reintegration.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Health Service’s RECONNECT care after custody service supports prison leavers with an identified health need, including severe mental illness, to transition to community-based services, and starts working with them before they leave prison.
NHS England is piloting Enhanced RECONNECT in four areas to support people leaving prison who are identified as being of high risk of harm to the public and who have complex health needs to access appropriate community services.
NHS England is also piloting new models of care in the community for those with severe mental illness in six neighbourhood areas from this spring. These will provide people and their families with 24/7 support if they are in crisis without needing to book an appointment, as well as provide housing or employment advice to support them to stay well.
Asked by: Bob Blackman (Conservative - Harrow East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what funding his Department is providing to support the implementation of ongoing and holistic post-release support for prison leavers with severe mental health issues.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The NHS RECONNECT service supports people leaving prison with identified health needs to make the transition to community-based services, including mental health services, which are funded by local health and care systems.
Asked by: Bob Blackman (Conservative - Harrow East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the maximum net pensionable earnings paid by the NHS to an orthodontist was in England in each of the last three years.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Data is not held centrally on the net pensionable earnings paid by the National Health Service to an orthodontist and how many orthodontists were paid more than £1 million by the NHS. Data is published on dentists earnings and expenses, however this does not differentiate between NHS and private earnings or reference orthodontists specifically. This data is available at the following link:
Asked by: Bob Blackman (Conservative - Harrow East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of the potential implications for her policies on prevention of the Cancer Research UK publication entitled, Longer, better lives: A manifesto for cancer research and care.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
The Government welcomes the Cancer Research UK report which rightly highlights progress made against cancer. We have invested over £100 million into cancer research in 2021/22 through the National Institute for Health and Care Research. We are working closely with research partners in relevant all sectors and are confident the Government's continued commitment to cancer research will help us to continue to make progress, leading to continued improvements for cancer patients.
Cancer is being diagnosed at an earlier stage, more often, with survival rates improving across almost all types of cancer and the National Health Service seeing and treating record numbers of cancer patients over the last two years.
Our Major Conditions Strategy will set out how we will improve cancer prevention, diagnosis and treatment and we have opened 135 community diagnostic centres offering over five million additional tests, including for cancer.
Asked by: Bob Blackman (Conservative - Harrow East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, by which date in early 2024 her Department plans to publish the Major Conditions Strategy.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
Following publication of the Strategic Framework, we will continue to develop the strategy, informed by the Call for Evidence and ongoing engagement. Our intention is to publish the Major Conditions Strategy in early 2024.
Asked by: Bob Blackman (Conservative - Harrow East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Written Statement of 17 April 2023, HCWS710, on Achieving Smokefree 2030: cutting smoking and stopping kids vaping, whether his Department has conducted modelling on the potential impact of the measures outlined in the statement on progress towards the target of reducing smoking rates to 5% or less by 2030.
Answered by Neil O'Brien - Shadow Minister (Education)
Annex 1 of ‘Stopping the start: our new plan to create a smokefree generation’ sets out the modelling used to forecast changes in smoking prevalence over time based on legislating for a smokefree generation. This modelling is preliminary and will continue to be further refined ahead of publication of a full impact assessment.
Annex 1 is available at the following link:
Asked by: Bob Blackman (Conservative - Harrow East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether it remains the Government's policy to meet its smokefree 2030 target of an adult smoking prevalence of 5% or less.
Answered by Neil O'Brien - Shadow Minister (Education)
Smoking rates in England have been consistently falling and are currently at the lowest rate on record at 12.7%, based on 2022 data.
The Government remains firmly committed to the ambition of England being Smokefree by 2030, namely a smoking prevalence of 5% or less, and recognises that progress must be accelerated to meet this bold ambition. On 4 October 2023, the Prime Minister unveiled plans to introduce a new law to stop children who turn 14 this year or younger from ever legally being sold cigarettes, in a bid to create the first ‘smokefree generation’. This announcement was accompanied with additional funding including £70 million extra per year to fund local stop smoking services and £5 million this year and then £15 million per year thereafter to fund national stop smoking marketing campaigns.
This is in addition to a range of other measures which we announced in April 2023. The measures included a new national swap to stop scheme to provide vapes to one million smokers to help them to quit, and an evidence-based financial incentives scheme to help all pregnant smokers to quit.
We are confident that these new measures, in addition to the actions we are already taking, will set us on course to achieve our Smokefree 2030 ambition. We will continue to monitor progress.