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 implications for his policies of the finding of the report entitled The case for a Disabled Children’s Fund, published by the Disabled Children's Partnership in July 2018, on the funding gap in disabled children’s health and care services; and what estimate he has made of the difference in funding available for those services (a) before and (b) since the start of the covid-19 outbreak.

We have made no specific assessment nor such an estimate. However, as part of COVID-19 recovery planning we are working with the Department for Education and NHS England and NHS Improvement to improve the provision of health and care services to disabled children. We have provided over £6 billion in un-ringfenced funding directly to councils to support them with the immediate and longer-term impacts of COVID-19 spending pressures, including for children’s social care. Since 2019-2020, the Government has provided additional funding for adults’ and children’s social care via the social care grant and is allocated £1.7 billion in 2021-2022.