Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answers by Lord Markham on 19 July (HL9282, HL9283 and HL9284), what steps they are taking to protect community pharmacies in Northern Ireland from closure in the continuing absence of a Northern Ireland Executive.

Community pharmacy is a devolved matter. A fully functioning devolved government is essential to the delivery of necessary healthcare reforms, including effective policies to protect community pharmacies. As an interim support, the Secretary of State has introduced appropriate measures to protect the delivery of all public services and has set a budget that protects spending to address the critical health pressures in Northern Ireland. This budget allocation gives the Northern Ireland Department of Health a total allocation of £7.3 billion, an increase of £20 million above 2022-23.