Asked by: Stuart Andrew (Conservative - Daventry)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to involve cancer charities in the delivery and governance of the forthcoming National Cancer Plan.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Cancer Plan will build on the shift from hospital to community set out by the 10-Year Health Plan and will seek to foster improved collaboration with the voluntary and community sector to deliver this.
Governance mechanisms for monitoring implementation and ensuring accountability for delivery will be established as part of the development of the National Cancer Plan, which will be published in the new year.
Asked by: Al Pinkerton (Liberal Democrat - Surrey Heath)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what guidance her Department provides to local authorities on reviewing care plans where new diagnoses of (a) special educational needs, (b) disabilities or (c) neurodevelopmental conditions are identified after a child has entered foster care.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department has published a comprehensive suite of guidance to ensure that children in care have their needs identified and supported, as part of a dynamic and continuous cycle of care planning. This includes:
As part of this, each child must have a care plan, bringing together information from assessment across the dimensions of their developmental needs, incorporating a health plan and a personal education plan. Reviews must occur within 20 days of entering care, again within three months, and at least every six months thereafter, and can be brought forward if circumstances change significantly, including to account for significant health, medical events, or diagnoses.
Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what support she is providing to local authorities to help ensure they have a sufficient number of foster carers to meet local demand.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Foster care is one of my top priorities as Minister. The department is already investing £25 million of transformation funding for foster care, which is additional to the £15 million announced at the Autumn Budget covering the 2025/26 financial year. We are already working with over 60% of local authorities in England to transform the way they recruit and retain foster carers. The Spending Review also set aside funding for renovating and extending foster care homes.
However, we know we need to go further and faster with recruiting and retaining more carers and we will set out more detail on our planned investments and reforms for fostering in due course.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to provide sustainable funding for grassroots men’s mental health initiatives.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department currently has no plans to provide funding for grassroots men’s mental health initiatives.
More widely, the 10-Year Health Plan sets out ambitious plans to boost mental health support across the country, including for men. This includes transforming mental health services into 24/7 neighbourhood mental health centres, improving assertive outreach, expanding talking therapies, and giving patients better access to 24/7 support directly through the NHS App.
The Suicide Prevention Strategy for England, published in 2023, identifies middle aged men as a priority group for targeted and tailored support at a national level.
On 19 November, to coincide with International Men’s Health Day, we published the Men’s Health Strategy. The strategy includes tangible actions to improve access to healthcare, provide the right support to enable men to make healthier choices, develop healthy living and working conditions, foster strong social, community and family networks, and address societal norms. It also considers how to prevent and tackle the biggest health problems affecting men of all ages, which include mental health and suicide prevention, respiratory illness, prostate cancer, and heart disease.
Through the Men’s Health Strategy, we are launching a groundbreaking partnership with the Premier League to tackle male suicide and improve mental health literacy, by embedding health messaging into the matchday experience.
We also announced the Suicide Prevention Support Pathfinders programme for middle-aged men. This program will invest up to £3.6 million over three years in areas of England where middle-aged men are at most risk taking their own lives and will tackle the barriers that they face in seeking support.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of volunteer-led men’s mental health groups on mental wellbeing and NHS services.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has not made an assessment of the potential impact of volunteer-led men’s mental health groups on mental wellbeing and National Health Services.
More widely, the 10-Year Health Plan sets out ambitious plans to boost mental health support across the country, including for men. This includes transforming mental health services into 24/7 neighbourhood mental health centres, improving assertive outreach, expanding talking therapies, and giving patients better access to 24/7 support directly through the NHS App.
The Suicide Prevention Strategy for England, published in 2023, identifies middle aged men as a priority group for targeted and tailored support at a national level.
On 19 November, to coincide with International Men’s Health Day, we published the Men’s Health Strategy. The strategy includes tangible actions to improve access to healthcare, provide the right support to enable men to make healthier choices, develop healthy living and working conditions, foster strong social, community and family networks, and address societal norms. It also considers how to prevent and tackle the biggest health problems affecting men of all ages, which include mental health and suicide prevention, respiratory illness, prostate cancer, and heart disease.
Through the Men’s Health Strategy, we are launching a groundbreaking partnership with the Premier League to tackle male suicide and improve mental health literacy, by embedding health messaging into the matchday experience.
We also announced the Suicide Prevention Support Pathfinders programme for middle-aged men. This program will invest up to £3.6 million over three years in areas of England where middle-aged men are at most risk taking their own lives and will tackle the barriers that they face in seeking support.
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the policy papers entitled Spending Review 2025, published on 30 June 2025, and Budget 2025, published on 28 November 2025, what their Department’s capital Departmental Expenditure Limit (DEL) will be in each year of the Spending Review period; how much capital funding has been allocated to each of their Department’s programmes; and how much and what proportion of the capital DEL allocation remains unallocated in each year.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The Budget 2025 confirmed capital Departmental Expenditure Limit (DEL) plans for 2025/26 to 2029/30; £6.8 billion in 2025/26, £8.3 billion in 2026/27, and £7.7 billion in 2027/28 to 2029/30.
A proportion is allocated to improving condition of the school and college estate by increasing the annual capital maintenance investment in line with inflation, rising to around £2.6 billion in 2029/30. The settlement also commits around £2.4 billion capital funding per annum over the next four years to continue the School Rebuilding Programme of over 500 schools.
We have committed over £560 million to reform the children’s social care system and support the refurbishment and expansion of children’s homes and foster care placements, and around £370 million for school-based nurseries.
Yearly allocation will be determined through the department’s internal processes to balance these commitments with operational needs. This will be presented to parliament and published annually at Mains Estimates. All capital DEL allocations are fully allocated towards departmental capital priorities.
Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Hinckley and Bosworth)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure that the patterns of social engagement by young men about issues concerning (a) anabolic steroids and (b) image and performance enhancing drugs are captured as part of improving men's health literacy.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
On 19 November 2025, to coincide with International Men’s Health Day, we published the first ever Men’s Health Strategy for England. The strategy includes tangible actions to improve access to healthcare, provide the right support to enable men to make healthier choices, develop healthy living and working conditions, foster strong social, community, and family networks, and address societal norms. It also considers how to prevent and tackle the biggest health problems affecting men of all ages, which include mental health and suicide prevention, respiratory illness, prostate cancer, and heart disease.
We are taking a range of actions to improve men’s health literacy. For example, our landmark partnership with the Premier League will bring together football clubs and the Government to improve health literacy, particularly around mental health and suicide prevention. We are also ensuring health literacy improvements are embedded at the community level, building the evidence base on heath literacy in men, and identifying ways to build media literacy skills in men to help them critically assess health information and protect against misinformation that harms health.
We will consider the impacts on young men in the implementation of the strategy. The strategy sets up a strong foundation for improving how we think and act on men's health and we will learn, iterate, and adapt as new challenges emerge. As a first step, we will work with the Men's Health Academic Network and the voluntary, community, and social enterprise sector to develop and publish a one-year-on report, highlighting the improvements made and where future efforts will need to be targeted.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of increasing the maximum age for post-foster care arrangements to age 25.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government is committed to supporting care leavers as they transition to independence.
Staying Put enables care leavers to prepare for independence more gradually in a stable and secure family setting. It enables young people to continue living with their former foster carer(s) when they turn age 18, potentially up to age 21, if both parties want this.
We are committed to Staying Put arrangements but must prioritise the introduction of the Staying Close duty in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which provides support to those who cannot benefit from Staying Put.
Staying Close offers tailored support for care leavers, including help to find and keep suitable accommodation and access to wraparound services such as health and wellbeing, education, training and employment. This measure ensures that eligible care leavers can receive support up to age 25, helping them to build stability and life skills and reducing the risk of homelessness and poor outcomes. This includes young people who might have previously been in a Staying Put arrangement.
Asked by: Al Pinkerton (Liberal Democrat - Surrey Heath)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of health services for men in Surrey Heath constituency.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We know that we need to do more to improve health outcomes for men across the country, including men in Surrey Heath. On 19 November, to coincide with International Men’s Health Day, we published the Men’s Health Strategy which aims to improve the health of all men and boys in England. The strategy includes tangible actions to improve access to healthcare, provide the right support to enable men to make healthier choices, develop healthy living and working conditions, foster strong social, community and family networks, and address societal norms. It also considers how to prevent and tackle the biggest health problems affecting men of all ages, which include mental health and suicide prevention, respiratory illness, prostate cancer, and heart disease.
This strategy is a crucial first step, laying the foundation from which we can learn, iterate and grow to create a society where all men and boys are supported to live longer, healthier and happier lives. As a first step, we will work with the Men’s Health Academic Network and voluntary, community and social enterprise sector to develop and publish a one-year-on report, highlighting the improvements made and where future efforts will need to be targeted.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of exempting foster carers from Council Tax in whole or in part.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Local authorities are responsible for the administration of council tax and have discretionary powers to apply exemptions or council tax discounts. This could include offering discounts to foster carers where they consider this appropriate.
The Government has recently consulted on modernising and improving the administration of council tax. This included seeking views on the current range of council tax disregards provided in the system. The Government will publish its response to the consultation in due course.