Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps his Department has taken to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies to lower the unit cost of the drug Enhertu.
Answered by Preet Kaur Gill - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Ministers met with the manufacturers of Enhertu, AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo, in November 2024 to encourage them to engage constructively with NHS England and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) to reach a commercial agreement that would enable patient access for patients with HER2-low metastatic breast cancer.
Enhertu for HER-2 low metastatic breast cancer remains the only breast cancer treatment that NICE has been unable to recommend for patients in the last eight years. This was because, at the price offered by the company in 2024, the treatment was too expensive for the benefits it provided and NICE concluded it was not cost effective. Despite NICE and NHS England offering unprecedented flexibilities, the companies were unable to offer Enhertu at a cost-effective price.
As part of the US-UK trade arrangement, announced in December 2025, NICE is now using a new higher cost-effectiveness threshold. Given these new circumstances, discussions involving NICE, the manufacturers and NHS England have resumed to try to seek agreement on a commercial offer that would make Enhertu cost effective. NICE stands ready to consider reviewing the guidance if new evidence, including a new commercial offer, were to be put forward by the company.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent steps his Department has taken to help those migrating from legacy benefits to universal credit.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
All customers have access to support throughout the process, including the Move to Universal Credit Helpline and independent Help to Claim support provided by Citizens Advice, which offers tailored assistance to help people make and manage their claim.
We also provide eligible customers with Transitional Protection where their Universal Credit entitlement would otherwise be lower than their previous legacy benefit award, ensuring their entitlement is protected at the point of migration.
We recognise that some groups, including Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) customers may be more vulnerable. For these customers, enhanced support is in place from the point they receive their Migration Notice. This includes the Enhanced Support Journey, which offers tailored contact and visiting officer support where appropriate for those who have not yet engaged.
In addition, we have identified that some customers require a personal or corporate appointee but may not have arrangements in place ahead of the ESA closure date. In such cases, we will exempt these customers from the closure date to ensure they are not disadvantaged. This does not mean ESA will remain in payment indefinitely and a final closure date for these customers will be determined in due course.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps she is taking to help ensure that regulators hold banks to account for financial misconduct.
Answered by Lucy Rigby - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
This country is a world leader in financial services because we adhere to high standards. Both the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority have powers to enforce regulation, the ability to apply a range of sanctions to firms and individuals who breach their rules, and to prosecute offences in the criminal courts.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to help tackle excessive household water bills based on rateable values.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government has set out in the Water White Paper a commitment to accelerate the smart meter rollout. This includes maximising cost savings to customers by moving customers away from a ratable value to a smart metered charge. Smart meters also provide data to increase leakage identification and reduction and provide customers with insights into their water usage.
Ofwat has also announced a competition, closing in March, as part of its £25 million Water Efficiency Lab to enable better data insights on water usage for customers, this includes those customers who cannot have a meter fitted and are reliant on ratable values.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to help improve safeguarding practices in nurseries and early years settings.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The safety and wellbeing of children in nurseries and early years settings is our priority and we continually monitor and review safeguarding requirements for early years settings to ensure children are kept as safe as possible. Where evidence shows that changes are needed, we take action to strengthen requirements and provide clearer expectations for providers.
In September 2025, the government introduced changes to the safeguarding requirements within the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) statutory framework. These changes were informed by evidence and engagement with the early years sector and were designed to strengthen safeguarding practice across settings, including clearer and more robust expectations around safer recruitment, whistleblowing and staff training.
The department is developing free, online safeguarding training in collaboration with the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. The training will support providers to meet statutory requirements and promote a strong and open safeguarding culture across early years settings.
In December, my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, announced that she will be appointing an expert panel to inform guidance for the sector on the effective and safe use of digital devices and CCTV in relation to safeguarding. The panel will consider the question of whether CCTV should be mandated and will set out best practice, technical information and clear expectations on CCTV and digital device usage. No decisions have been taken in advance of this work.
The safety of the youngest children is our utmost priority, which is why the EYFS statutory framework includes clear requirements on safe sleep. The framework requires that babies are placed down to sleep safely and in line with the latest government guidance and that sleeping children are frequently checked. To make the existing requirements clearer for all, we plan to add in more detail to the EYFS frameworks. We have worked with safe sleep experts, including the Lullaby Trust, on proposed new wording.
Ofsted inspects early years providers against the safeguarding and welfare requirements of the EYFS statutory framework. Through our Best Start in Life strategy, we are investing in raising the quality, frequency and consistency of inspections, including work to strengthen oversight of larger nursery chains.
The government is also strengthening multi-agency safeguarding arrangements through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. These measures place duties on safeguarding partners to ensure education providers and childcare settings are appropriately involved in local safeguarding arrangements, while not changing any existing duties on providers.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
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 help protect social tenants not in receipt of housing benefit from increases in service charges.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Registered Providers of social housing are expected to set reasonable and transparent service charges for tenants that reflect the service being provided. Tenants should be supplied with clear information about how service charges are set.
The government’s policy statement on rents for social housing makes clear out that Registered Providers should endeavour to keep increases for service charges within the limit on rent increases, which is CPI (as at September in the previous year) +1 percentage point, to help keep charges affordable.
On 4 July, the government published a consultation on strengthening leaseholder protections over charges and services. The proposals will apply to tenants of local authorities and private registered providers who pay both fixed and variable service charges.It can be found on gov.uk here.
For an overview of the proposals set out in the consultation, I refer the hon. Member to the associated Written Ministerial Statement made on 4 July 2025 (HCWS780). This consultation closed on 26 September and we are analysing responses.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question
To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, what steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help protect female whistle-blowers in male-dominated industries.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Government is taking a range of actions to strengthen whistleblowing protections for workers, including female workers.
Through the Employment Rights Bill, we are amending the Employment Rights Act 1996 to clarify that workers are protected from detriment or dismissal by their employer if they ‘blow the whistle’ on sexual harassment, as long as the conditions in the legislation are met. This is an important reform that may encourage more workers to speak up about sexual harassment.
In addition, the Government will introduce legislation in this Parliament to disbar senior NHS leaders who have been dishonest or covered up unsafe practice from working in leadership roles in the NHS again.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether he has held discussions with the EU on waiving the need for passports for school groups visiting the UK as part of his negotiations on a youth experience scheme.
Answered by Nick Thomas-Symonds - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
We recognise the importance of cultural and educational exchanges between UK and other nations. Any decisions relating to our policy on school trip travel must be made with due regard to the proper functioning of our immigration system. The UK and France agreed measures in 2023 which made UK-France school trip travel easier. These arrangements were agreed as part of a wider package of measures. A similar agreement with Germany has also been reached, as part of the wider UK-Germany Friendship and Bilateral Cooperation Treaty, which was signed by the Prime Minister in London on 17 July.
These arrangements are separate from our discussions with the EU regarding a youth experience scheme.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department plans to make an assessment of the potential merits of statutory codification of the duty of care to students in higher education.
Answered by Janet Daby
I refer my hon. Friend, the Member for Hampstead and Highgate to the answer of 8 January 2025 to Question 21514.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of abolishing NHS England on the NHS’s statutory duty to safeguarding.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
It is only right that with such significant reform, we commit to carefully assessing and understanding the potential impacts. Evidence from these ongoing assessments will inform our programme as appropriate.
NHS England will continue to carry out its statutory duties until Parliamentary time allows for legislation to be brought forward to amend the Department’s responsibilities.
We will ensure our decisions are guided by evidence, and above all, focused on improving outcomes for people.