Asked by: Shivani Raja (Conservative - Leicester East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has to reduce the variation in integrated care board (ICB) funding for children's hospices; and if he will commit to holding ICBs to account for the way in which they (a) commission children's palliative care and (b) comply with their legal duties in this area.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Palliative care services are included in the list of services an integrated care board (ICB) must commission. ICBs are responsible for the commissioning of palliative care and end of life care services, to meet the needs of their local populations. To support ICBs in this duty, NHS England has published statutory guidance and service specifications.
Most hospices are charitable, independent organisations which receive some statutory funding for providing National Health Service services. The amount of funding each charitable hospice receives varies both within and between ICB areas. This will vary depending on demand in that ICB area but will also be dependent on the totality and type of palliative care and end of life care provision from both NHS and non-NHS services, including charitable hospices, within each ICB area.
We are supporting the hospice sector with a £100 million capital funding boost for eligible adult and children’s hospices in England to ensure that they have the best physical environment for care.
We are also providing £26 million in revenue funding to support children and young people’s hospices for 2025/26. I can also now confirm the continuation of this vital funding for the three years of the next spending review period, 2026/27 to 2028/29 inclusive. This funding will see circa £26 million, adjusted for inflation, allocated to children and young people’s hospices in England each year, via their local ICBs on behalf of NHS England, as happened in 2024/25 and 2025/26. This amounts to approximately £80 million over the next three years.
The Department and NHS England are currently looking at how to improve the access, quality and sustainability of all-age palliative care and end of life care in line with the 10-Year Health Plan.
We will closely monitor the shift towards strategic commissioning of palliative and end of life care services to ensure that services reduce variation in access and quality, although some variation may be appropriate to reflect both innovation and the needs of local populations.
On ICB accountability, NHS England has a legal duty to annually assess the performance of each ICB in respect of each financial year and publish a summary of its findings. This assessment must assess how well the ICB has discharged its functions.
Asked by: Shivani Raja (Conservative - Leicester East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to Together for Short Lives’ report entitled Overstretched and Underfunded: The State of Children’s Hospice Funding in 2025, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of cuts to ringfenced NHS funding for children's hospices beyond 2025-26 on the adequacy of (a) end of life care, (b) respite support and (c) other essential services.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Children and young people’s hospices do incredible work to support seriously ill children and their families and loved ones when they need it most, and we recognise the incredibly tough pressures they are facing.
We are providing £26 million in revenue funding to support children and young people’s hospices for 2025/26. This is a continuation of the funding which, until recently, was known as the Children’s Hospice Grant.
I can also now confirm the continuation of this vital funding for the three years of the next spending review period, 2026/27 to 2028/29 inclusive. This funding will see circa £26 million, adjusted for inflation, allocated to children’s and young people’s hospices in England each year, via their local ICBs on behalf of NHS England, as happened in 2024/25 and 2025/26. This amounts to approximately £80 million over the next three years.
This revenue funding is intended to be spent by hospices to provide high-quality care and support for the children and the families they care for, either in the hospice or in the community, including in children's homes. They can, for example, use this funding for providing respite care for children who have high health needs, by providing physiotherapy or occupational therapy, or by providing 24/7 nursing support for a child at the end of their life.
We are also supporting the hospice sector with a £100 million capital funding boost for eligible adult and children’s hospices in England to ensure they have the best physical environment for care.
Asked by: Shivani Raja (Conservative - Leicester East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether she has made an assessment of the adequacy of national cultural funding for (a) Leicester and (b) the East Midlands compared with other regions.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Department has carried out internal policy work to ensure there is a clear understanding of the publicly funded arts, culture and heritage sectors, including looking at national and local government funding. This work ensures future policy development is evidence driven.
Ministers also launched a review of Arts Council England who are responsible for the distribution of arts funding across England. The review will examine everything from funding mechanisms to community engagement. Baroness Hodge of Barking is leading the review and will provide government with her report and recommendations in the autumn of 2025. The government will then publish the conclusions of the review along with the government’s response in 2026.
Details of Arts Council England funding, including that for Leicester and the East Midlands, can be found on the Arts Council England website here https://culture.localinsight.org/#/map The Secretary of State has a range of discussions with Arts Council England and the National Lottery Heritage Fund across the whole of her portfolio, and DCMS officials regularly discuss support for arts, culture and heritage with their counterparts at our arms-length bodies.
Asked by: Shivani Raja (Conservative - Leicester East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if she will publish a breakdown of departmental funding allocated to major cultural festivals in the last five years.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) provided funding for some cultural festivals and events. For example, Coventry UK City of Culture 2021 received £18.41 million of support, and Bradford UK City of Culture 2025 received £15 million. Many other cultural festivals have received funding indirectly; through other organisations that have received funding from DCMS, or via Arts Council England (ACE), our arms-length body.
Expenditure by DCMS is published annually on https://www.gov.uk in the DCMS annual report and accounts. Arts and culture in England, including cultural festivals, are funded through a combination of public funding, lottery funding, private investment, and earned income. ACE is the main public body responsible for distributing government and National Lottery funding to the arts. Details of ACE funding is published on the ACE website here: https://culture.localinsight.org/#/map and is available in their annual reports which are also published online.
If you require funding details about a specific cultural festival, you can write directly to the DCMS for that information.
Asked by: Shivani Raja (Conservative - Leicester East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether his Department has made an assessment of the value for money of local authorities pursuing repeated appeals against employment tribunal decisions.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Department does not collect this information. Local authorities are independent employers responsible for the management and organisation of their own workforces, including on whether to appeal against employment tribunals. It is the responsibility of individual councils to ensure that value for money is considered.
Asked by: Shivani Raja (Conservative - Leicester East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to tackle racial discrimination within local authorities.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Local authorities are independent employers responsible for the management of their own workforces. The Government is clear that racial discrimination has no place in our society and remains committed to promoting equality, fairness, and respect for all communities.
Asked by: Shivani Raja (Conservative - Leicester East)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what his policy is on seeking a UK-Mercosur free trade agreement.
Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Mercosur countries are important partners for the UK and I am personally committed to strengthening our bilateral trading relationships to remove barriers to trade and help grow UK exports. I recently visited Brazil, where I signed agreements on customs, regulatory reform and export credit and pushed Brazil to complete the Double Taxation Agreement; and Argentina to further UK interests on whisky, financial services and air services.
The UK is not currently negotiating a Free Trade Agreement with Mercosur. Any decision to seek to negotiate a Free Trade Agreement with Mercosur would be communicated to the House in the usual way.
Asked by: Shivani Raja (Conservative - Leicester East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps (a) his Department and (b) the NHS are taking to counter (i) misinformation and (ii) disinformation about vaccines.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to tackling vaccine misinformation, and we have highlighted our focus on this within the 10-Year Health Plan where we have committed to working with local government, civil society, voluntary organisations and community groups to support public trust in vaccines, particularly in terms of what is needed to restore childhood immunisations rates.
Inaccurate information can spread easily, particularly on online platforms, and it is important that we continue to robustly counteract mis and dis information and point to science. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) closely monitors online activity, including social media and search data, to gather insights about the conversations people are having about vaccinations online, to help inform the information we provide and communications campaigns.
The Department and its partners, take a broad multi-pronged approach to provide authoritative, accurate and transparent information on the benefits and risks of vaccination. For example, UKHSA and NHS England are working to ensure that health care professionals are adequately briefed and trained, with UKHSA recently updating its National Minimum Standards and core curriculum for vaccine training, published in June 2025, which set out expectations for training and competency requirements for all those delivering immunisation services.
Additionally, the Department is working with UKHSA and the National Health Service to ensure that parents and patients have access to up to date and accurate information on all vaccines delivered by the NHS, and to identify and rebut false information. This includes information leaflets and promotional materials available online about different vaccination programmes, covered in a range of translations and accessible formats. Vaccination is also included in the latest Relationships, Sex and Health Education curriculum guidance from July 2025 to ensure that young people learn the facts and scientific evidence relating to vaccination and immunisation.
Furthermore, the Department, UKHSA and NHS England are also delivering national communication campaigns which proactively highlight the value of vaccines and the risks associated with vaccine preventable diseases, and build confidence in vaccine efficacy and safety. Campaign activity includes paid advertising, media, stakeholder engagement and partnerships with a wide range of organisations.
Whilst there is no room for complacency, UKHSA’s latest parental attitudes survey 2025, data shows that vaccine confidence remains high, with 84% of parents saying they trusted vaccines.
We encourage people to speak to a trusted health professional about any vaccine concerns.
Asked by: Shivani Raja (Conservative - Leicester East)
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 readiness of integrated care boards to assume responsibility for commissioning vaccination and immunisation services from April 2026.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government’s 10-Year Health Plan reaffirmed the importance of work to establish integrated care boards (ICBs) as ‘strategic commissioners of local health services, responsible for all but the most specialised commissioning’.
In preparation for this, the NHS Executive commissioned a review of NHS England’s direct commissioning functions to make recommendations on the future arrangements for discharging these functions in light of the planned integration of NHS England into a restructured Department of Health and Social Care.
The review, which has now been agreed, proposes transferring commissioning responsibility for suitable specialised services, vaccination and screening services, and health and justice services to ICBs. It is proposed that this transfer will take place, alongside the implementation of changes to legislation, in April 2027.
Our expectation is that during 2026/27, ICBs will take a more central role in shaping these services. This will be achieved through closer collaboration and partnership with NHS England, as the accountable organisation, and will build on the strong joint working arrangements already in place this year for delegated specialised services. A development programme and safe transfer checklist will, alongside this closer working, help to ensure that ICBs are ready to take on their new responsibilities from April 2027.
Asked by: Shivani Raja (Conservative - Leicester East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment she has made of the level of variation between local authorities in the discretionary provision of free bus passes for carers of disabled people; and what steps she is taking to ensure a consistent approach across England.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department does not have any plans to provide advice on offering a discretionary concession to carers of disabled people, as offering this is a choice for the individual local authority to make.
In the year ending March 2025, 66% of Travel Concession Authorities in England outside London offered a discretionary concession for those travelling with a disabled person. The decision on whether to offer discretionary concessions is for the local authority to make depending on their needs and circumstances.
As part of the Autumn 2024 Budget, the government allocated £955 million to support and improve bus services in 25/26. This includes £712 million for local authorities, of which Leicester City Council was allocated £9.4 million. Funding allocated to local authorities to deliver better bus services can be used in whichever way they wish to improve services for passengers, which could include funding discretionary concessions.