Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 13 September 2021 to Question 45205 on Hospitals: Waiting Lists, when he plans to publish details of his Department's plans for dealing with fines and charges for late delivery of services; and what assessment he has made of the impact of fines and charges on hospitals' ability to tackle the backlog in healthcare.

We have no plans to do so as we have paused work on dealing with such fines and charges. This is to allow the National Health Service to focus capacity on the recovery of elective services. No formal assessment has been made of the specific impact of the fines and charges.