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 estimate of the cost to community pharmacies of the proposed increase in the National Living Wage from April 2025.

NHS England commissioned Frontier Economics to undertake an independent economic analysis of National Health Service pharmacy funding in 2024. This report was published on 28 March 2025.

We have taken necessary decisions to fix the foundations in the public finances at the Autumn Budget, and this 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 Department considered the increases in National Insurance contributions and the National Living Wage when consulting on the funding arrangements for community pharmacy. We have now agreed with Community Pharmacy England to increase the community pharmacy contractual framework to £3.073 billion from April 2025. This deal represents the largest uplift in funding of any part of the NHS, at over 19% across 2024/25 and 2025/26. This shows a first step in delivering stability for the future, and a commitment to rebuilding the sector.