Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of changes to National Insurance announced at the Autumn Budget 2024 on the expansion of (a) GP practices and (b) other care provision.

We have made the necessary decisions to fix the foundations of the public finances in the Autumn Budget. Resource spending for the Department will be £22.6 billion more in 2025/26 than in 2023/24, as part of the Spending Review settlement. The employers’ National Insurance rise was implemented in April 2025.

General practices (GPs) are valued independent contractors who provide over £13 billion worth of services within the National Health Service. Every year we consult with the profession about what services GPs provide, and the money providers are entitled to in return under their contract, taking account of the cost of delivering services.

We are investing an additional £889 million in GPs to fix the front door of the NHS, bringing total spend on the GP Contract to £13.2 billion in 2025/26. This is the biggest increase in over a decade, and we are pleased that the England General Practitioners Committee of the British Medical Association is supportive of the contract changes.