Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
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 prevent double payments in clinical negligence cases.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The rising costs of clinical negligence claims against the National Health Service in England are of great concern to the Government. Costs have more than doubled in the last 10 years and are forecast to continue rising, putting further pressure on NHS finances.
As announced in the 10-Year Health Plan for England, David Lock KC is providing expert policy advice on the rising costs of clinical negligence and how we can improve patients’ experience of claims. The review is ongoing, following initial advice to ministers and the recent National Audit Office and Public Accounts Committee reports.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much funding his Department has allocated to counselling services for victims of rape and sexual assault in 2024-2025.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We cannot provide the information on this as the Department does not hold a single, centrally allocated budget line specifically for counselling services for victims of rape and sexual assault. Funding for these services is provided through a combination of routes, including National Health Service-commissioned mental health services, and through funding administered by other departments.
NHS England also funds sexual assault referral centres (SARCs) which provide crisis care, medical and forensic examinations, and onward referral to other support services. NHS England spent £57.6 million on SARCs in 2024/25.
More widely, the 10-Year Health Plan sets out ambitious plans to boost mental health support across the country, including victims of rape and sexual assault. This includes transforming mental health services into 24/7 neighbourhood mental health centres, improving assertive outreach, expanding talking therapies, and giving patients better access to 24/7 support directly through the NHS App.
The plan will build on the work that has already begun to bring down waiting lists. This includes providing an extra £688 million in Government funding this year to transform mental health services, to hire more staff, deliver more early interventions, and get waiting lists down.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps he is taking to (a) rationalise, (b) co-locate and (c) better utilise buildings across the wider public sector.
Answered by Anna Turley - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
The Government Property Strategy is driving a shift towards a smaller, better, and greener public estate. Significant progress has been made in consolidating the public estate. By disposing of unneeded assets, the Government has generated over £2 billion in capital receipts since 2022.
Programmes like One Public Estate are successfully unlocking potential across England by enabling co-location, releasing land for housing, and improving local public services. Since 2013, this work has helped transform places, supporting the release of land for over 54,000 homes, the creation of over 93,000 jobs, and delivering £211 million in running cost savings. Programmes to improve estate efficiency also operate in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, under the direction of the devolved administrations.
Co-location is also a key feature of the Government office estate, with multi-department hubs now operating across the UK. This initiative, alongside the Places for Growth drive to move roles to cities and regions, has allowed the Government - through the Plan for London - to commit to leaving 11 expensive London locations, saving taxpayers £94 million by 2032. Beyond the office estate, OPE also facilitates co-location of services, for example the Middlesborough Live Well hub which brings together public health services with employment, education, housing and welfare support.
The Government Property Strategy also focuses on ensuring the efficient use of the wider public estate. Full details on the performance and utilisation of the estate are presented to the House annually in the State of the Estate report.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what discussions she has had with her Syrian and Iraqi counterparts on the security and protection of Yazidis and other minority faith communities in Syria.
Answered by Hamish Falconer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
We have consistently advocated for an inclusive political transition in Syria and underlined the importance of protecting the rights of all, regardless of religious or ethnic background, both publicly and as part of our engagement with the Syrian Government. I raised this with the Syrian Foreign Minister during his visit to London in November and further pressed the point on the importance of human rights when we spoke last month.
Supporting stabilisation and safe returns of Yazidis to Sinjar, the Yazidi homeland, is a priority for the UK and part of our Freedom of Religion or Belief strategy (FoRB). In July 2025 the former Minister for Human Rights and the UK Special Envoy for FoRB met with Mir Hazem Tahsin Beg, the Prince of the Yazidis. We also raise threats to minority faith communities in regular engagements with the Government of Iraq, the Kurdistan Regional Government, and in multilateral fora. For example, at Iraq's Universal Periodic Review at the UN Human Rights Council in June, we recommended that Iraq upholds the right for minorities to freely practice their religion or belief, without fear of persecution.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps she is taking to help ensure Christian clergy and lay believers in Nicaragua are able to practice freedom of religion and belief.
Answered by Chris Elmore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
I refer the Hon Member to the answer provided on 3 November 2025 to Question 85308. We share widespread international concern about the suppression of democratic, religious, and other fundamental freedoms in Nicaragua.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to develop a workforce strategy to provide support for diabetes patients.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to publishing a 10 Year Workforce Plan to create a National Health Service workforce ready to deliver the transformed service set out in the 10-Year Health Plan.
The 10 Year Workforce Plan will ensure the NHS has the right people in the right places, with the right skills to care for patients, when they need it. We are working through how the plan will articulate the changes for different service areas and professional groups, such as those that support diabetes patients.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
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 ensure a robust audit of diabetes services.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Diabetes Audit (NDA), and the National Peadiatric Diabetes Audit (NPDA), which are delivered in partnership with NHS England, provide comprehensive data on care processes and outcomes.
NHS Digital’s NDA dashboards and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health’s NPDA dashboards are designed to help integrated care boards, providers, and paediatric diabetes units benchmark themselves and target improvements. Further information on NHS Digital’s NDA dashboards and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health’s NPDA dashboards is available, respectively, at the following two links:
https://www.rcpch.ac.uk/resources/NPDA-dashboards
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
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 increase the number of nurses and midwives.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to publishing a 10 Year Workforce Plan to set out action to create a workforce ready to deliver the transformed service set out in the 10-Year Health Plan. The 10 Year Workforce Plan will ensure the National Health Service has the right people in the right places, with the right skills to care for patients, when they need it.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what support exists for children under 16 diagnosed with Long Covid.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England has invested significantly in supporting people with long COVID. This includes setting up specialist long COVID services nationwide for adults, and children and young people, and investing in ensuring general practice (GP) teams are equipped to support people affected by the condition. Since April 2024, in line with the National Health Service operating framework and the establishment of integrated care systems, the commissioning of services to support patients with long COVID, including children, has been the responsibility of integrated care boards. Where local long COVID services are not available, children and young people with long COVID symptoms should see their GP, who will be able to refer them to alternative existing services depending on their clinical needs.
The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and the Medical Research Council (MRC), part of UK Research and Innovation, are committed to funding high-quality research to understand the causes, consequences, and treatment for long COVID. This includes a new funding opportunity for a development award which is focussed on the feasibility of a phase 2 platform clinical trial that tests multiple repurposed pharmaceutical and/or non-pharmacological interventions for the treatment of myalgic encephalomyelitis, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome, and long COVID.
We have also funded research specifically focused on long COVID in children and young people, including the approximate £1.9 million CLoCk study jointly funded by the NIHR and the MRC. The study developed an agreed definition of long COVID in children and young people and associated symptoms, to improve understanding of the condition and help harmonise research.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to introduce at-home test kits for cervical smears.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government has announced the introduction of human papilloma virus (HPV) self-testing in the National Health Service cervical screening programme for the under-screened population in England. The NHS has begun planning an in-service evaluation (ISE) of HPV self-testing in the wider population.
The purpose of the ISE is to ensure that the self-test is acceptable, accurate, and feasible compared with a clinician collected specimen, and to evaluate its impact on cervical screening uptake and ensure that the programme continues to prevent the same number of cancers. The findings of the ISE will inform any future UK National Screening Committee recommendation to ministers to offer self-testing across the whole population, alongside clinician-led screening.