Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the impact of the increase in employers’ National Insurance contributions on hospices.

We have taken necessary decisions to fix the foundations in the public finances at the Autumn Budget, which enabled the Spending Review settlement of a £22.6 billion increase in resource spending for the Department from 2023/24 outturn to 2025/26. The employer National Insurance contributions rise will be implemented in April 2025, and the Department will set out further details on the allocation of funding for next year in due course.