Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate his Department has made of the cost to community pharmacies of the rise in (a) business rates and (b) the National Minimum Wage from 1 April 2025.

We have taken the 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 has considered the increases in 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 National Health Service, at over 19% across 2024/25 and 2025/26.