Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, how much funding his Department plans to provide for global health programmes in each of the next three years.
Answered by Stephen Doughty - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) published 2025/26 Official Development Assistance (ODA) programme allocations in the Annual Report & Accounts on 22 July 2025. The Department is working through how to programme this spend. The FCDO publishes programme information in DevTracker and reports on ODA spend in the Statistics on International Development publication.
Over the coming months, we will work through detailed decisions on how the ODA budget will be used from 2026/27 to 2028/29, informed by internal and external consultation and impact assessments, ahead of publishing indicative multi-year allocations in the autumn.
Reducing the overall size of our ODA budget will necessarily have an impact on the scale and shape of the work we do. We will sharpen our focus on humanitarian, health and climate and nature.
At the Gavi Summit on 25 June the Foreign Secretary announced an additional £1.25 billion investment in Gavi. This will support the immunisation of 62.5 million children, saving around 1.25 million lives.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether (a) global health and (b) related international funding will be discussed at the UK-France summit.
Answered by Stephen Doughty - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
As part of the UK-France Summit, the Foreign Secretary agreed with his counterpart that the UK and France should specifically collaborate on issues such as global health security; Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR); One Health, including Antimicrobial Resistance; reform of global health architecture; universal health coverage and equitable health policies; and nutrition. These reflect shared priorities in global health.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
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 help tackle inequalities in early diagnosis of bowel cancer caused by late presentation by patients to health services.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Reducing unwarranted variation in cancer treatment and diagnosing cancer, including bowel cancer, earlier are high priorities for the National Health Service. The National Cancer Plan will include further details on what will be done to improve outcomes for cancer patients, as well as speeding up diagnosis and treatment, and ensuring patients have access to the latest treatments and technology, including for bowel cancer patients.
The bowel cancer screening standards have recently been reviewed by NHS England with representatives from the Department included, with changes taking effect from 1 April 2025. This will update the achievable and acceptable thresholds for both uptake and coverage. To further increase coverage across the population in England, NHS England is delivering new approaches to communicating with people about screening through the NHS App. NHS England is also working on improvements to the way eligible people are identified and invited for screening through the transformation of screening programme digital services.
NHS England runs Help Us Help You campaigns to increase knowledge of cancer symptoms and address barriers to acting on them, to encourage people to come forward as soon as possible to see their general practitioner. The campaigns run across England and are publicly accessible. The campaigns focus on a range of symptoms, as well as encouraging body awareness to help people spot symptoms across a wide range of cancers at an earlier point. Previous phases of the campaigns have focused on abdominal symptoms which, among other abdominal cancers, can be indicative of bowel cancer. It is the responsibility of local National Health Service organisations to consider whether they wish to run additional campaigns tailored to the needs of their local population and aligned to their service provision.
Reducing inequalities and variation in cancer care, including for bowel cancer, is a priority for the Government. The NHS England Cancer Programme 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. Rather than a single audit, NHS England commissions ten audits, by tumour type, including for bowel cancer. On 31 December 2024, the National Cancer Audit Collaborating Centre published its State of the Nation Report on Bowel Cancer, and the initial recommendations are informing improvements in treatment and care.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
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 rates of early diagnosis of bowel cancer.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Reducing unwarranted variation in cancer treatment and diagnosing cancer, including bowel cancer, earlier are high priorities for the National Health Service. The National Cancer Plan will include further details on what will be done to improve outcomes for cancer patients, as well as speeding up diagnosis and treatment, and ensuring patients have access to the latest treatments and technology, including for bowel cancer patients.
The bowel cancer screening standards have recently been reviewed by NHS England with representatives from the Department included, with changes taking effect from 1 April 2025. This will update the achievable and acceptable thresholds for both uptake and coverage. To further increase coverage across the population in England, NHS England is delivering new approaches to communicating with people about screening through the NHS App. NHS England is also working on improvements to the way eligible people are identified and invited for screening through the transformation of screening programme digital services.
NHS England runs Help Us Help You campaigns to increase knowledge of cancer symptoms and address barriers to acting on them, to encourage people to come forward as soon as possible to see their general practitioner. The campaigns run across England and are publicly accessible. The campaigns focus on a range of symptoms, as well as encouraging body awareness to help people spot symptoms across a wide range of cancers at an earlier point. Previous phases of the campaigns have focused on abdominal symptoms which, among other abdominal cancers, can be indicative of bowel cancer. It is the responsibility of local National Health Service organisations to consider whether they wish to run additional campaigns tailored to the needs of their local population and aligned to their service provision.
Reducing inequalities and variation in cancer care, including for bowel cancer, is a priority for the Government. The NHS England Cancer Programme 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. Rather than a single audit, NHS England commissions ten audits, by tumour type, including for bowel cancer. On 31 December 2024, the National Cancer Audit Collaborating Centre published its State of the Nation Report on Bowel Cancer, and the initial recommendations are informing improvements in treatment and care.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
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 help improve outcomes for bowel cancer.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Reducing unwarranted variation in cancer treatment and diagnosing cancer, including bowel cancer, earlier are high priorities for the National Health Service. The National Cancer Plan will include further details on what will be done to improve outcomes for cancer patients, as well as speeding up diagnosis and treatment, and ensuring patients have access to the latest treatments and technology, including for bowel cancer patients.
The bowel cancer screening standards have recently been reviewed by NHS England with representatives from the Department included, with changes taking effect from 1 April 2025. This will update the achievable and acceptable thresholds for both uptake and coverage. To further increase coverage across the population in England, NHS England is delivering new approaches to communicating with people about screening through the NHS App. NHS England is also working on improvements to the way eligible people are identified and invited for screening through the transformation of screening programme digital services.
NHS England runs Help Us Help You campaigns to increase knowledge of cancer symptoms and address barriers to acting on them, to encourage people to come forward as soon as possible to see their general practitioner. The campaigns run across England and are publicly accessible. The campaigns focus on a range of symptoms, as well as encouraging body awareness to help people spot symptoms across a wide range of cancers at an earlier point. Previous phases of the campaigns have focused on abdominal symptoms which, among other abdominal cancers, can be indicative of bowel cancer. It is the responsibility of local National Health Service organisations to consider whether they wish to run additional campaigns tailored to the needs of their local population and aligned to their service provision.
Reducing inequalities and variation in cancer care, including for bowel cancer, is a priority for the Government. The NHS England Cancer Programme 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. Rather than a single audit, NHS England commissions ten audits, by tumour type, including for bowel cancer. On 31 December 2024, the National Cancer Audit Collaborating Centre published its State of the Nation Report on Bowel Cancer, and the initial recommendations are informing improvements in treatment and care.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what steps he is taking with Cabinet colleagues to increase the number of trees planted for the purpose of improving carbon capture.
Answered by Kerry McCarthy - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Trees and forests are essential to our climate and nature goals. Tree planting rates in England are at their highest in 20 years and in March we launched the Western Forest, the first new national forest in 30 years.
Working together with forest countries, the UK is also playing a leading role in driving international efforts to halt and reverse deforestation and forest degradation by 2030 for people, nature and climate.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of social prescribing on (a) reducing GP appointments and (b) improving patient wellbeing in (i) mental health and (ii) social isolation.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government has underlined its commitment to taking a preventive approach to address health inequalities. We are determined to improve people’s physical and mental health, to support them to live longer and healthier lives, and we recognise the role that social prescribing can play in this. The Department funds the workforce through the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme, including social prescribing link workers in primary care. In March 2025, the Department agreed to a further year of grant funding for the National Academy for Social Prescribing, securing £1.5 million to advance and expand social prescribing.
The Health Mission specifically cites social prescribing as one of the services that can form part of the multi-disciplinary teams in neighbourhood health centres. The Neighbourhood Health Service has six initial core components, and social prescribing directly relates to both population health management and neighbourhood multidisciplinary teams.
We will soon launch the National Neighbourhood Health Implementation Programme, which will support systems across the country to test new ways of working, share learning, and scale what works, making neighbourhood health the norm, not the exception.
The Department has commissioned national research into different workstreams for social prescribing.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
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 support (a) voluntary and (b) community sector organisations delivering social prescribing services.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government has underlined its commitment to taking a preventive approach to address health inequalities. We are determined to improve people’s physical and mental health, to support them to live longer and healthier lives, and we recognise the role that social prescribing can play in this. The Department funds the workforce through the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme, including social prescribing link workers in primary care. In March 2025, the Department agreed to a further year of grant funding for the National Academy for Social Prescribing, securing £1.5 million to advance and expand social prescribing.
The Health Mission specifically cites social prescribing as one of the services that can form part of the multi-disciplinary teams in neighbourhood health centres. The Neighbourhood Health Service has six initial core components, and social prescribing directly relates to both population health management and neighbourhood multidisciplinary teams.
We will soon launch the National Neighbourhood Health Implementation Programme, which will support systems across the country to test new ways of working, share learning, and scale what works, making neighbourhood health the norm, not the exception.
The Department has commissioned national research into different workstreams for social prescribing.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to further integrate social prescribing into the Neighbourhood Health model.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government has underlined its commitment to taking a preventive approach to address health inequalities. We are determined to improve people’s physical and mental health, to support them to live longer and healthier lives, and we recognise the role that social prescribing can play in this. The Department funds the workforce through the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme, including social prescribing link workers in primary care. In March 2025, the Department agreed to a further year of grant funding for the National Academy for Social Prescribing, securing £1.5 million to advance and expand social prescribing.
The Health Mission specifically cites social prescribing as one of the services that can form part of the multi-disciplinary teams in neighbourhood health centres. The Neighbourhood Health Service has six initial core components, and social prescribing directly relates to both population health management and neighbourhood multidisciplinary teams.
We will soon launch the National Neighbourhood Health Implementation Programme, which will support systems across the country to test new ways of working, share learning, and scale what works, making neighbourhood health the norm, not the exception.
The Department has commissioned national research into different workstreams for social prescribing.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department will ensure national access to HIV peer support through (a) in-community, (b) in-clinic and (c) online services in partnership with voluntary sector organisations.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to ending new HIV transmissions in England by 2030, and is developing the new HIV Action Plan, which we aim to publish this year. The plan will address ways to optimise rapid access to treatment and retention in care, and will improve the quality of life for people living with HIV, including consideration of peer support services.
A key component of the Government’s successful HIV emergency department opt-out testing programme includes a recommendation that 10% of the funding allocated to each site should be used to support community and peer support services for individuals diagnosed with a blood borne virus.
NHS England holds overall accountability for the commissioning of HIV services, and since April 2025, commissioning responsibility, including support services for those living with HIV, has been delegated to the integrated care boards. In April 2024, NHS England published the updated national Service Specification for Adult HIV services, which sets out the standards of care that HIV providers are expected to meet, including the availability of community, psychological, and psychosocial support for patients.