Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
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 28 January 2026 to Question 107667 on Neighbourhood Health Centres and Urgent Treatment Centres: Greater London, which (a) health authorities and (b) related public bodies in North West London will be consulted; and who will have to agree before any neighbourhood health centres are commissioned in North West London by the relevant ICB.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
There will be a Neighbourhood Health Centre in every community. The Government has announced its commitment to deliver 250 Neighbourhood Health Centres, with 120 delivered by 2030, through a mix of public private partnership and public capital. Integrated care boards (ICBs) and local health systems will be responsible for determining the most appropriate locations for Neighbourhood Health Centres.
As noted in the answer on 28 January 2026 to Question 107776, ICBs are responsible for commissioning general practice services within their health systems through delegated responsibility from NHS England. As they are best placed to make such decisions, ICBs also consider how best to provide urgent care, including Urgent Treatment Centres, to ensure patient demand is effectively met.
The process for commissioning Neighbourhood Health Centres is currently being determined, and we anticipate that planning will be carried out collaboratively with local partners.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many attributable deaths there were from fine particulate matter, PM2.5, were there in (a) East Midlands, (b) East of England, (c) Greater London, (d) North East, (e) North West, (f) South East, (g) South West, (h) West Midlands, (i) Yorkshire and the Humber, and (j) England in each year since 2018 using COMEAP's latest methodology.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The number of deaths attributable to fine particulate air pollution (PM2.5) is not annually calculated for each region. The current estimate of attributable deaths in the United Kingdom for 2019 was 29,000 to 43,000 deaths for adults aged 30 years old and over.
The fraction of mortality attributable to particulate air pollution is annually calculated for each region and represents the percentage of annual deaths from all causes in those aged 30 years old and over, attributed to PM2.5. This indicator is calculated using the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants’ updated concentration-response-function, and figures for the years 2018 to 2023 are available at the following link:
Estimates for 2024 will be available later in 2026.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Reform UK - Romford)
Question
To ask the hon. Member for Battersea, representing the Church Commissioners, what assessment the Church of England has made of the potential impact on the decriminalisation of abortion on clergy’s cure of souls.
Answered by Marsha De Cordova
In her capacity as Lead Bishop on Health and Social Care, the Bishop of London made a statement related to the proposed changes to abortion law on 20th June 2025, which can be found in full on the Church of England website at: https://www.churchofengland.org/media/press-releases/abortion-law-changes-comment-bishop-london
It included the following:
“Considering any fundamental reform to this country’s abortion laws should not be done via an amendment to another Bill. There should be public consultation and robust Parliamentary process to ensure that every legal and moral aspect of this debate is carefully considered and scrutinised. We need a path that supports women, not one that puts them and their unborn children in the way of greater harm.”
Assessing the potential impact of such a legal change is a long-term process, and Lords Spiritual continue to engage with the Crime and Policing Bill as it progresses through Parliament.
Asked by: Alex Mayer (Labour - Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent discussions his Department has had with Integrated Care Boards on (a) increasing vaccination rates for and (b) prevention of measles.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) declared a national standard incident response for measles on 10 July 2025 to oversee the risk assessment and public health response to the increase of measles cases in England and coordinate the multi-agency input to the response nationally with the aim of limiting further spread. The Department, UKHSA and the National Health Service are already working with local partners to undertake community and stakeholder engagement to raise awareness that measles is circulating, promote the importance of measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination and target catch-up efforts at key under vaccinated communities and in a range of settings.
NHS England is working with local health teams, including integrated care boards, to monitor reported measle cases, provide advice and support local communities to be aware of action they can take to protect themselves, including getting vaccinated.
Building on the MMR coverage gains achieved in 2023/24, NHS England continues to deliver national and regional improvement plans that include activities to strengthen the routine vaccination offer and to address inequalities by supporting MMR catch up vaccination by school age vaccination services in schools and community settings, for example, summer ‘catch up’ immunisation clinics are being stood up in some of the areas of England with the lowest MMR uptake including Liverpool, Knowsley, Sefton and St Helens. In London, childhood vaccination clinics have been stood up in outbreak areas including targeted community clinics, pharmacies offering MMR and we are working with school immunisation services to deliver some MMR catch up in schools once term starts.
Additional steps are being taken which will strengthen efforts to reduce the risk of future measles outbreaks, including bringing forward MMR vaccination for children so they are protected sooner. There are also plans to explore new ways of delivering vaccinations such as greater use of community pharmacies and during at health visits. Further to this, a new national communications and marketing campaign will kick off in August 2025 with a brand-new programme of always on activity to reach parents, pregnant women and multicultural audiences and encourage uptake of MMR as well as other vaccinations.
It is vitally important that everyone takes up the vaccinations they are entitled to, for themselves, their families, and wider society.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, what further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 27 March (HL5042), what assessment they have made of the impact on individual integrated care board (ICB) areas of the approximately 9 percent reduction in funding for cancer alliances in 2025–26, following the consolidation of Service Development Funding into core allocations; and what is the breakdown of the total cancer alliance allocation for 2025–26 for each ICB area, compared to the allocation for 2024–25.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Funding for Cancer Alliances is set nationally by NHS England. The place-based allocation is calculated on a population basis, and is flexible funding that Alliances use to support the delivery of NHS-wide priorities for cancer in ways that reflect local circumstances.
We have set stretching targets for the National Health Service to improve cancer performance next year and taken tough decisions to fix the foundations in the public finances at the Autumn Budget. These decisions have 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 following tables show information from the NHS Cancer Programme about the funding allocated to Cancer Alliances in 2024/25 and 2025/26, across both place based and targeted allocations; these are inclusive of NHS cost uplift factors which adjusts for inflation and other cost increases:
Funding for 2024/25 | |||
Cancer Alliance | Lead Integrated Care Board | Total place-based allocation (£ ‘000s) | Total targeted allocation (£ ‘000s) |
Cheshire and Merseyside | CHESHIRE AND MERSEYSIDE ICB | 13,417 | 8,457 |
East Midlands | NORTHAMPTONSHIRE ICB | 22,564 | 8,139 |
East of England | CAMBRIDGESHIRE AND PETERBOROUGH ICB | 30,266 | 14,598 |
Greater Manchester | GREATER MANCHESTER INTEGRATED CARE ICB | 14,789 | 17,331 |
Humber Coast and Vale | HUMBER AND NORTH YORKSHIRE ICB | 8,085 | 5,960 |
Kent and Medway | KENT AND MEDWAY ICB | 8,655 | 5.090 |
Lancashire and South Cumbria | LANCASHIRE AND SOUTH CUMBRIA ICB | 8,854 | 4,458 |
North Central London | NORTH CENTRAL LONDON ICB | 7,358 | 5,792 |
North East London | NORTH EAST LONDON ICB | 9,752 | 3,448 |
Northern | NORTH EAST AND NORTH CUMBRIA ICB | 15,465 | 10,631 |
Peninsula | DEVON ICB | 8,724 | 7,787 |
South East London | SOUTH EAST LONDON ICB | 8,845 | 2,959 |
South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw | SOUTH YORKSHIRE ICB | 6,801 | 3,993 |
Surrey and Sussex | SURREY HEARTLANDS ICB | 15,874 | 6,514 |
SWAG | BRISTOL, NORTH SOMERSET AND SOUTH GLOUCESTERSHIRE ICB | 14,404 | 6,390 |
Thames Valley | BUCKINGHAMSHIRE, OXFORDSHIRE AND BERKSHIRE WEST ICB | 7,661 | 3,018 |
Wessex | HAMPSHIRE AND THE ISLE OF WIGHT ICB | 12,188 | 10,798 |
West London | SOUTH WEST LONDON ICB | 17,778 | 9,303 |
West Midlands | BLACK COUNTRY ICB | 29,045 | 10,802 |
West Yorkshire and Harrogate | WEST YORKSHIRE ICB | 11,679 | 2,893 |
Grand Total | 272,203 | 148,363 | |
Source: NHS Cancer Programme
Funding for 2025/26 | |||
Cancer Alliance | Lead Integrated Care Board | Total place-based allocation (£ ‘000s) | Total targeted allocation (£ ‘000s) |
Cheshire and Merseyside | CHESHIRE AND MERSEYSIDE ICB | 10,068 | 12,948 |
East Midlands | NORTHAMPTONSHIRE ICB | 17,027 | 10,366 |
East of England | CAMBRIDGESHIRE AND PETERBOROUGH ICB | 22,619 | 16,683 |
Greater Manchester | GREATER MANCHESTER INTEGRATED CARE ICB | 11,128 | 17,713 |
Humber Coast and Vale | HUMBER AND NORTH YORKSHIRE ICB | 6,015 | 5,278 |
Kent and Medway | KENT AND MEDWAY ICB | 6,451 | 2,256 |
Lancashire and South Cumbria | LANCASHIRE AND SOUTH CUMBRIA ICB | 6,666 | 4,432 |
North Central London | NORTH CENTRAL LONDON ICB | 5,597 | 4,354 |
North East London | NORTH EAST LONDON ICB | 7,481 | 3,267 |
Northern | NORTH EAST AND NORTH CUMBRIA ICB | 11,593 | 16,047 |
Peninsula | DEVON ICB | 6,460 | 11,559 |
South East London | SOUTH EAST LONDON ICB | 6,633 | 4,515 |
South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw | SOUTH YORKSHIRE ICB | 5,147 | 6,379 |
Surrey and Sussex | SURREY HEARTLANDS ICB | 11,765 | 8,336 |
SWAG | BRISTOL, NORTH SOMERSET AND SOUTH GLOUCESTERSHIRE ICB | 10,681 | 8,318 |
Thames Valley | BUCKINGHAMSHIRE, OXFORDSHIRE AND BERKSHIRE WEST ICB | 5,676 | 4,173 |
Wessex | HAMPSHIRE AND THE ISLE OF WIGHT ICB | 9,055 | 8,507 |
West London | SOUTH WEST LONDON ICB | 13,526 | 8,972 |
West Midlands | BLACK COUNTRY ICB | 21,906 | 16,741 |
West Yorkshire and Harrogate | WEST YORKSHIRE ICB | 8,808 | 4,096 |
Grand Total | 204,302 | 174,940 | |
Source: NHS Cancer Programme
Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of the proposal from Slough Borough council to become part of the administrative local government boundaries of Greater London; and what role the Local Government Boundary Commission for England has in such a decision.
Answered by Jim McMahon
No proposal has been received from Slough Borough Council to become part of the administrative local government boundaries of Greater London.
The Local Government Boundary Commission for England (LGBCE) can conduct reviews of administrative boundaries such as the external boundaries of local authorities. This process is referred to as a Principal Area Boundary Review (PABR). Under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 the LGBCE is able to undertake PABR at the request of a local authority, on its own initiative or at the request of the Secretary of State. The LGBCE cannot be required by the Secretary of State to undertake a PABR as the LGBCE is independent of Government and accountable to Parliament through the Speakers Committee.
Asked by: Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the appropriateness of maintaining Household Cavalry horses stabled and deployed in central London in the light of the events of 24 April, and public safety and animal welfare concerns arising from the risks of their environment.
Answered by Earl of Minto - Shadow Minister (Defence)
The British Army takes the health and wellbeing of its military working horses (MWH) extremely seriously. All of our horses are well looked after, exercised daily and have 24/7 direct access to world-class veterinary care.
Before riding in public, Service personnel undertake training to prove their competence and are fully compliant with the Highway Code when exercising horses on public highways. A progressive programme of activity, including exposure to London traffic, military bands and environmental noise, ensures our horses are properly and safely prepared for their ceremonial role.
The Army has three mounted units in London: the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment, the Band of the Household Cavalry and King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery. All undertake State Ceremonial and Public Duties in Central London and Windsor throughout the year.
Steps have already been taken to enhance the environment for our MWHs by creating more loose boxes, which provide greater space and comfort to the horses while stabled. Two to three months per year, the horses are also provided with an alternative environment by being sent out to pasture and the herd often visit Norfolk for two weeks, offering time for daily exercise in the countryside and along local beaches.
Asked by: Ian Byrne (Labour - Liverpool West Derby)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate she has made on the proportion of funding for clinical brain tumour research spent in each region of the UK in the latest period for which data is available.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
The Department funds research through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). NIHR programme spend on brain tumour research for the financial year 2022/23 was £2,028,646, distributed regionally to research organisations as set out in Table 1. It should be noted that NIHR programme funding is typically awarded to a lead researcher at a research organisation who then coordinates the delivery of the research study at a national level as required.
The NIHR also devotes significant resources to supporting patients, the public and health and care organisations across England to participate in high-quality research, thereby advancing knowledge and improving care. However, NIHR does not hold information by region on the delivery of individual research studies.
Table 1: Region of lead institution to which NIHR research programme awards were made
Region | Spend 22_23 |
Merseyside | 23.4% |
Greater London | 18.0% |
Cambridgeshire | 12.1% |
Oxfordshire | 10.8% |
South Yorkshire | 9.8% |
West Yorkshire | 8.9% |
Midlothian | 8.1% |
Nottinghamshire | 4.4% |
West Midland | 2.2% |
Somerset | 1.4% |
North Yorkshire | 1.0% |
Total | 100.0% |
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many stress-related sick day absences were recorded for probation staff in Greater London in (a) 2021, (b) 2022 and (c) 2023.
Answered by Edward Argar
The quarterly HMPPS workforce statistics publication covers staffing information, including the number of working days lost for Probation Service staff by structure/division. The latest publication covers data up to 30th September 2023.
Data for the number of probation staff who were absent due to stress-related sickness in Greater London is provided in table 1 below.
Table 1: Number of working days lost due to stress for all Probation Service staff1 in London, 01 January to 31 December 2021-2022 and 01 January to 30 September 2023
(Based on full time equivalence)
Group | 01 January to 31 Dec 20212 | 01 January to 31 Dec 2022 | 01 January to 30 Sep 20233 |
Approved Premises - London | 418 | 550 | 320 |
London Probation Service | 5,450 | 7,101 | 6,078 |
Total | 5,868 | 7,651 | 6,399 |
Notes:
1. Includes all staff employed in the Probation Service. A small number of staff in the Probation Service do not have probation grades.
2. In late June 2021, more than 7,000 staff from private sector Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRC) came together with probation staff already in the public sector in the new Probation Service
3. Latest published data is up to 30 September 2023 and so 2023 is not a full calendar year.
(p) Figures relating to current financial year are provisional and may be subject to change in future iterations of this publication.
We are focused on ensuring our staff have the support they need to manage workplace stress, including support for staff and managers such as Occupational Health and the Employee Assistance Programme. Staff are also able to access additional support through staff networks, staff support leads and the HMPPS network of Mental Health Allies.
Recruitment and retention remain a priority across the Probation Service. We have accelerated recruitment of trainee Probation Officers (PQiPs) to increase staffing levels, particularly in Probation Delivery Units (PDUs) with the most significant staffing challenges. As a result, over 4,000 PQiPs joined the service between 2020/21 and 2022/23 which we anticipate will start to directly impact reduction of caseloads. We continue to run centralised recruitment campaigns in priority regions to help bolster the number of applications and improve time to hire for key operational roles.
The Probation Service is in its second year of a multi-year pay deal for staff. Salary values of all pay bands will increase each year, targeted at key operational grades to improve a challenging recruitment and retention position.
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Answer of 11 May 2023 to Question 183644 on Air Pollution: Greater London, whether the fraction of mortality attributable to particulate air pollution measured as PM2.5 should be multiplied by the (a) number of deaths from all causes aged 30 years and older and (b) total number of deaths to calculate the number of deaths attributable to PM2.5.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
The fraction of mortality attributable to particulate air pollution, measured as PM2.5, for Greater London in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 was provided in the answer of 11 May 2023 to Question 183644. The provided values represented the percentage of annual deaths from all causes in those aged 30 and older attributed to PM2.5.
In estimating the burden of long-term exposure to air pollution mixture in 2019 in the United Kingdom, namely 29,000 to 43,000 deaths for adults aged 30 years old and over, the total number of deaths for that age group was used. A report detailing a methodology that local authorities can use to estimate local mortality burdens associated with particulate air pollution within their area was published by the former Public Health England, now the UK Health Security Agency, in 2014.