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 effectiveness of the Health and Care Professions Council equality impact assessment process for its recent decision to increase registrations fees.

The Government has made no assessment on the effectiveness of the Health and Care Professions Council’s (HCPC) equality impact assessment process for its recent decision to increase registration fees. The HCPC is independent of Government and funded by registrants’ fees on a cost recovery basis.

Following public consultation, the HCPC is planning to raise its annual fees by £16. If adopted, the HCPC’s annual registration fee will rise from £90 to £106 a year from October 2019. The HCPC registration fees will remain the lowest of any of the United Kingdom-wide health and care regulators. Registration fees are tax-deductible and this fee rise will amount to just over £1 a month extra for most of the HCPC’s registrants.