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 increase innovation in adult social care.

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

The Government recognises that innovation is vital in supporting the adult social care sector to adjust to the changing needs of the population. We want to support local authorities and providers to adopt new approaches to delivering care, improving outcomes for people who draw on care, and their unpaid carers. This includes enshrining home-first principles that enable people to live independently in their communities for longer.

The Accelerating Reform Fund aims to address barriers to the adoption and scaling of innovation in adult social care and improve support for unpaid carers. Local authorities are supported to take forward locally identified innovative projects, working collaboratively with other local authorities, the National Health Service, care providers, and voluntary and community organisations in their integrated care system footprints.

Through the Adult Social Care Technology Fund, we are also supporting local systems to test, scale, and evaluate innovative digital solutions to ensure people are supported in their own homes for longer. We know there are opportunities for technologies to transform care, and by building our evidence base we can help identify care technologies with the potential for wider rollout.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to paragraph 2.72 of the Autumn Budget 2024, published on 30 October 2024, HC 295, whether the £600 million for social care is in addition to Accelerating Reform Fund money yet to be released to councils.

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

The Budget announced that the Government is providing at least £600 million of new grant funding for social care in 2025/26, as part of the broader estimated real-terms uplift to core local government spending power of approximately 3.2%. To support our unpaid carers, from April 2025, the Government will also increase the Carer's Allowance weekly earnings limit from £151 a week to £196, which is the equivalent of 16 hours at the National Living Wage.

The funding announced at the budget for 2025/26 is distinct from the £22.6 million intended to support the Accelerating Reform Fund in 24/25.

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 ensure that NHS services can meet additional demand in (a) the Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin integrated care board and (b) England in winter 2024-25.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

NHS England has written to integrated care boards (ICBs), trusts, and primary care networks to set out a national approach to 2024/25 winter planning. This builds on the priorities in the National Health Service’s planning guidance, and sets out the key steps to be taken to support the delivery of high-quality care for patients this winter.

The Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin ICB is undertaking an improvement programme that aims to better respond to the pressures of the demand upon the urgent and emergency care services. This is delivering changes to meet needs now, throughout winter, and sustainably for the future. There is a focus on the following areas:

• providing alternatives for patients rather than attending emergency departments;
• faster progress through emergency departments, improving performance against national waiting time standards;
• improving processes in inpatient wards to reduce delays for patients;
• coordinating and enabling more timely discharge, with more patients able to go home, in conjunction with the area’s local authorities; and
• a specific focus upon supporting frail older adults, to keep them well in their place of residence and minimise the time spent in hospital when an admission to hospital is required.

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 with Cabinet colleagues to help ensure that upper tier local authorities can meet additional demand for social care services in (a) Shropshire and (b) England in winter 2024-25.

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

On 17 September, I wrote to all local authorities, setting out priorities for improving service resilience across social care this winter. The letter emphasises the importance of close partnership working and joint planning between local authorities, the NHS and community partners. Local authorities are expected to have business continuity plans in place for a range of risks, including for localised disruptions caused by adverse winter weather.

The Department funds Partners in Care and Health, delivered by the Local Government Association, the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, and the Social Care Institute for Excellence, to provide a support offer that helps local authorities tackle operational challenges, including during winter.

Under the Market Sustainability and Improvement Fund (MSIF), local authorities must submit an adult social care capacity plan that provides assurance that plans are in place to meet estimated local demand for different types of long-term care services, with a focus on winter. These were submitted to the department in June 2024. The member’s local authority, Shropshire, submitted their 2024/25 capacity plan which is currently undergoing processing and quality assurance.

MSIF is designed to support increased adult social care capacity, improve market sustainability, and enable local authorities to make improvements to adult social care services. Shropshire has been allocated just over £6 million of MSIF funding in 2024/25 to support these aims.

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of extending agricultural compensation schemes to horticultural businesses impacted by forestry diseases such as Ash dieback.

Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Our policy is not to pay compensation for plant health measures. We believe that resources are best directed at detection of pests and diseases, risk management and proactive assessment of emerging threats. We also invest in research programmes that enhance our understanding of plant health issues and provide evidence to inform contingency plans and management responses.

Protecting plant health is not an issue for government alone. Many plant importers, nurseries and landowners already play a major role in minimising the risk and spread of pests through practising good biosecurity, including sourcing clean stock and identifying outbreaks on their sites. The current arrangements ensure that everyone (the Government and its agencies, industry, non-governmental organisations, landowners, and the public) shares a common understanding of biosecurity and their role and responsibilities. The UK Government provides other forms of financial and non-financial support to assist with essential management of some of the most devastating tree diseases, including ash dieback.

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he has had discussions with the Secretary of State for Business and Trade on steps to ensure horticultural imports are produced to the same environmental standards as domestic products.

Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

The UK has high environmental standards that underpin the production of fresh fruit and vegetables. As set out in the manifesto, the Government is committed to using our Trade Strategy to promote the highest standards of food production.

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 improve public health services focusing on (a) smoking cessation, (b) drug and alcohol and (c) children's health.

Answered by Andrew Gwynne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government is committed to improving public health as part of delivering a shift from sickness to prevention. As part of this, the Public Health Grant funds a range of preventative interventions across the country, including local authority-led stop smoking services, local authority-led alcohol and drug treatment services, and services which promote and support children’s health. The National Health Service’s 10-Year Health Plan will ensure that children and their families are cared for by the right professional, when and where they need it.

The Government is also delivering additional targeted interventions which will promote public health. On smoking, this includes delivering the national smoke-free pregnancy incentives scheme, and working to ensure that all hospitals integrate opt-out smoking cessation interventions into routine care.

For drug and alcohol treatment, the Government continues to invest in improvements to local alcohol and drug treatment and recovery services to enable people to access high quality help and support, should they need it. In addition, the Government has allocated local authorities a further £267 million in 2024/25 to improve the quality and capacity of drug and alcohol treatment and recovery, alongside £105 million made available by the Department of Health and Social Care, the Department for Work and Pensions, and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to improve treatment pathways and recovery, housing, and employment outcomes for people with drug and alcohol problems.

The Government is committed to raising the healthiest generation of children ever. There are a range of public health services through which children and their families can access support. This includes the Family Hubs and Start for Life Programme, which places at its heart preventative health services from conception to the age of two years old, in 75 local authorities with high levels of deprivation. In addition, the Healthy Child Programme provides targeted support, offering universal, personalised services provided by a health visiting team for those aged zero to five years old.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of the implications for his Department's policies of the report entitled Return on investment of public health interventions: a systematic review, published in March 2017. .

Answered by Andrew Gwynne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

We agree with the overall systematic review findings that local and national preventative public health interventions can be highly cost effective. The systematic review sets out analysis and evidence which has informed the Department’s own analysis.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of the potential impact of an increase in employers national insurance contributions on GP surgeries' finances.

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

The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when he expects to agree new phytosanitary arrangements with the EU for (a) agricultural and (b) horticultural businesses.

Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Following their meeting in Brussels on 2 October, the President of the European Commission and the Prime Minister have agreed to strengthen the relationship between the EU and UK. The UK and EU are like-minded partners with similarly high standards. The Government has already committed to seek to negotiate a veterinary/sanitary and phytosanitary agreement to help boost trade and deliver benefits to businesses and consumers in the UK and the EU. The Government is unable to speculate on timings before we have begun formal discussions with the EU.

Bus fare cap

Puppy smuggling bill

Social care workers and National Insurance

Agricultural Property Relief and Business Property Relief