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 number of residential care home beds in the North East of England.

Local authorities are best placed to understand and plan for the care needs of their populations and to develop and build local market capacity. Under the Care Act 2014, local authorities have the duty to shape their local markets, ensure that people have a range of high-quality, sustainable and person-centred care and support options available to them. This includes adequate provision of care home beds to meet local needs. This Government is supporting local authorities to develop their local markets by providing them with over £1 billion of additional funding for social care in 2021/22.