Oral Answers to Questions

Katie Lam Excerpts

Tuesday 21st October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ashley Dalton]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, but I think he might be mistaken. We are opening more CDCs than ever before—I have lost count of the amount of CDCs we have been invited to open—and we are making sure that people have access to diagnostics in their community, from hospital to community, with the most access that there has been for some years.

[Katie Lam (Weald of Kent) (Con)]

9. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of the increase in employer’s national insurance contributions on general practices.

[The Minister for Care (Stephen Kinnock)]

Thanks to the decisions taken by the Chancellor at the Budget, we are investing an extra £1.1 billion in general practice—the biggest increase in a decade. That funding has allowed us to recruit an extra 2,000 GPs, agree a contract for the first time in four years, and introduce online access. Does the hon. Member welcome that investment, or would she cut it?

[Katie Lam]

GPs surgeries across the Weald of Kent, including in Woodchurch and Charing, tell me how much they struggle with rising staff costs, and the national insurance increases in last year’s Budget put huge pressure on them. Alongside the investment that the hon. Gentleman just mentioned, what discussions have he or his colleagues from the Department of Health and Social Care had with Treasury colleagues about protecting GP partnerships from further NI burdens in the upcoming Budget?

[Stephen Kinnock]

Again, I find it extraordinary that Conservative Members have the brass neck to ask those kinds of questions. They created the mess, and now they are criticising us—it is a bit like the arsonists heckling the firefighters. Patient satisfaction in general practice has risen from 67% last year to 75% this year, and the proportion of patients reporting difficulty contacting their practice has fallen from 18.7% in July 2024 to 10.6% in May 2025. We are just getting started, and I did not hear the hon. Lady welcome the investment.