The Department has not made a specific assessment. That is because the responsibility for delivery, implementation, and funding decisions for services rests with the appropriate National Health Service commissioner working with NHS providers and other stakeholders. Commissioners are responsible for ensuring that NHS funding is used effectively to improve population health, reduce inequalities, and deliver high-quality, accessible care. All service changes should be based on clear evidence that they will deliver better outcomes for patients.

NHS England’s National Stroke Service Model and the National Service Model for an Integrated Community Stroke Service aim to reduce inequalities by standardising care, enhancing access to acute treatments, and providing comprehensive community rehabilitation.

The Government is committed to achieving a 25% reduction in premature mortality due to cardiovascular disease (CVD) and stroke across England. To accelerate progress and tackle variation across the country, a new CVD Modern Service Framework will be published in 2026. This framework will support improvement, reduce inequalities, and foster innovation where it is needed most.

The Department has not made a specific assessment. That is because the responsibility for delivery, implementation, and funding decisions for services rests with the appropriate National Health Service commissioner working with NHS providers and other stakeholders. Commissioners are responsible for ensuring that NHS funding is used effectively to improve population health, reduce inequalities, and deliver high-quality, accessible care. All service changes should be based on clear evidence that they will deliver better outcomes for patients.

NHS England’s National Stroke Service Model and the National Service Model for an Integrated Community Stroke Service aim to reduce inequalities by standardising care, enhancing access to acute treatments, and providing comprehensive community rehabilitation.

The Government is committed to achieving a 25% reduction in premature mortality due to cardiovascular disease (CVD) and stroke across England. To accelerate progress and tackle variation across the country, a new CVD Modern Service Framework will be published in 2026. This framework will support improvement, reduce inequalities, and foster innovation where it is needed most.

The Department has not made a specific assessment. That is because the responsibility for delivery, implementation, and funding decisions for services rests with the appropriate National Health Service commissioner working with NHS providers and other stakeholders. Commissioners are responsible for ensuring that NHS funding is used effectively to improve population health, reduce inequalities, and deliver high-quality, accessible care. All service changes should be based on clear evidence that they will deliver better outcomes for patients.

NHS England’s National Stroke Service Model and the National Service Model for an Integrated Community Stroke Service aim to reduce inequalities by standardising care, enhancing access to acute treatments, and providing comprehensive community rehabilitation.

The Government is committed to achieving a 25% reduction in premature mortality due to cardiovascular disease (CVD) and stroke across England. To accelerate progress and tackle variation across the country, a new CVD Modern Service Framework will be published in 2026. This framework will support improvement, reduce inequalities, and foster innovation where it is needed most.

The Department has not made a specific assessment. That is because the responsibility for delivery, implementation, and funding decisions for services rests with the appropriate National Health Service commissioner working with NHS providers and other stakeholders. Commissioners are responsible for ensuring that NHS funding is used effectively to improve population health, reduce inequalities, and deliver high-quality, accessible care. All service changes should be based on clear evidence that they will deliver better outcomes for patients.

NHS England’s National Stroke Service Model and the National Service Model for an Integrated Community Stroke Service aim to reduce inequalities by standardising care, enhancing access to acute treatments, and providing comprehensive community rehabilitation.

The Government is committed to achieving a 25% reduction in premature mortality due to cardiovascular disease (CVD) and stroke across England. To accelerate progress and tackle variation across the country, a new CVD Modern Service Framework will be published in 2026. This framework will support improvement, reduce inequalities, and foster innovation where it is needed most.

The Department has not made a specific assessment. That is because the responsibility for delivery, implementation, and funding decisions for services rests with the appropriate National Health Service commissioner working with NHS providers and other stakeholders. Commissioners are responsible for ensuring that NHS funding is used effectively to improve population health, reduce inequalities, and deliver high-quality, accessible care. All service changes should be based on clear evidence that they will deliver better outcomes for patients.

NHS England’s National Stroke Service Model and the National Service Model for an Integrated Community Stroke Service aim to reduce inequalities by standardising care, enhancing access to acute treatments, and providing comprehensive community rehabilitation.

The Government is committed to achieving a 25% reduction in premature mortality due to cardiovascular disease (CVD) and stroke across England. To accelerate progress and tackle variation across the country, a new CVD Modern Service Framework will be published in 2026. This framework will support improvement, reduce inequalities, and foster innovation where it is needed most.

The Department has not made a specific assessment. That is because the responsibility for delivery, implementation, and funding decisions for services rests with the appropriate National Health Service commissioner working with NHS providers and other stakeholders. Commissioners are responsible for ensuring that NHS funding is used effectively to improve population health, reduce inequalities, and deliver high-quality, accessible care. All service changes should be based on clear evidence that they will deliver better outcomes for patients.

NHS England’s National Stroke Service Model and the National Service Model for an Integrated Community Stroke Service aim to reduce inequalities by standardising care, enhancing access to acute treatments, and providing comprehensive community rehabilitation.

The Government is committed to achieving a 25% reduction in premature mortality due to cardiovascular disease (CVD) and stroke across England. To accelerate progress and tackle variation across the country, a new CVD Modern Service Framework will be published in 2026. This framework will support improvement, reduce inequalities, and foster innovation where it is needed most.

The Department has not made a specific assessment. That is because the responsibility for delivery, implementation, and funding decisions for services rests with the appropriate National Health Service commissioner working with NHS providers and other stakeholders. Commissioners are responsible for ensuring that NHS funding is used effectively to improve population health, reduce inequalities, and deliver high-quality, accessible care. All service changes should be based on clear evidence that they will deliver better outcomes for patients.

NHS England’s National Stroke Service Model and the National Service Model for an Integrated Community Stroke Service aim to reduce inequalities by standardising care, enhancing access to acute treatments, and providing comprehensive community rehabilitation.

The Government is committed to achieving a 25% reduction in premature mortality due to cardiovascular disease (CVD) and stroke across England. To accelerate progress and tackle variation across the country, a new CVD Modern Service Framework will be published in 2026. This framework will support improvement, reduce inequalities, and foster innovation where it is needed most.

Local support for community transport operators remains a matter for local authorities in Surrey and Hampshire, or any future local authorities that may be set up following local government reorganisation.

Before a local government reorganisation proposal can be implemented, the Secretary of State must first consult any council affected that has not submitted the proposal, as well as any other persons considered appropriate. This includes local public service providers in the area.

The consultation on local government reform in Surrey closed on 5 August. A decision will now be made on which proposal, if any, to implement.

Hampshire is part of the Devolution Priority Programme and final proposals for local government reform in the county are due to submitted to the Government by 26 September.

The Government recognises that ambulance response times, including in Surrey and Hampshire, are not meeting the high standards patients should expect.

We are determined to turn things around, and our Urgent and Emergency Care Plan for 2025/26, backed by almost £450 million of capital investment, commits to reducing ambulance response times for Category 2 incidents to 30 minutes on average this year.

Our 10-Year Health Plan sets out how we will reform the National Health Service, including urgent and emergency care services, with a key focus on shifting urgent care into the community through new Neighbourhood Health Services.

The statutory duty to provide sufficient school places for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) or who require alternative provision sits with local authorities.

The department provides local authorities with capital funding to support them to meet this duty and has published allocations for £740 million in High Needs Provision Capital Allocations for the 2025/26 financial year.

Of this £740 million, Surrey has been allocated £16.1 million. Hampshire has been allocated £22.8 million.

This funding can be used to adapt schools to be more accessible, to create specialist facilities within mainstream schools that can deliver more intensive support adapted to suit the pupils’ needs and to create special school places for pupils with the most complex needs. This includes utilising spare capacity in mainstream schools where appropriate.

When considering options for the reutilisation of space, local factors should be carefully weighed up, along with considerations of quality, diversity, and accessibility of local provision and the forecast demand for places, to determine the most appropriate approach in each area.

Funding for free school projects is provided at different stages of project development, in line with key delivery milestones.

The department provides capital funding for the acquisition of sites, land and construction. For centrally delivered free school projects, a contractor is appointed from the department’s framework and construction costs are paid directly by the department.

The department recognises the financial pressures on local authorities in providing suitable specialist places and will continue to support Surrey Council to implement its Safety Valve agreement.

Too many people have been left in limbo waiting for National Health Service appointments. The Government has committed to returning to the constitutional standard that 92% of patients wait no longer than 18 weeks from referral to treatment. Performance is currently at 58.9% for cardiology services in the Surrey Heartlands Integrated Care Board (ICB), and 59.3% for cardiology services in the Hampshire and Isle of Wight ICB. As a first step, we have already delivered on our pledge of an additional two million operations, scans, and appointments across elective services, nationally, between July and November 2024, compared to the same period in 2023, seven months ahead of schedule.

Cardiology has been identified as one of five national priority specialties which will undergo clinically driven pathway transformation in the Elective Reform Plan, published in January 2025. Planned reforms to cardiology care will include increasing specialist input earlier in care pathways, in turn reducing the number of unnecessary diagnostics undertaken, by developing standard pathways for common outpatient presentations, such as palpitations, and increasing timely access to cardiac diagnostic tests.

In addition to national efforts, the Department and NHS England are supporting a range of local actions in the South East region to reduce the time patients spend waiting for specialist cardiology care, both for urgent and routine appointments. For example, delays for echocardiography (ECG) are a key challenge in the Hampshire and Isle of Wight ICB. Local action is focussed on improving ECG access by standardising pathways, to remove unwarranted variation for patients, and rolling out wider direct access to diagnostic tests through community diagnostic centre provision, rather than in hospitals. We are also supporting local general practices and trusts, through their ICBs, to increase volumes of Advice and Guidance for cardiology, which significantly reduces the time patients spend waiting for care.

The department has made no separate estimate of the number of pupils in individual local authority areas who have left the independent school system as a result of VAT on school fees.

​The government predicts that, in the long-term steady state, there will be 37,000 fewer pupils in the private sector in the UK as a result of the removal of the VAT exemption applied to school fees. This represents around 6% of the current private school population.

Of the expected 37,000 pupil reduction in the private sector, the government estimates an increase of 35,000 pupils in the state sector in the steady state following the VAT policy taking effect, with the other 2,000 consisting of international pupils who do not move into the UK state system, and domestic pupils moving into homeschooling. This state sector increase represents less than 0.5% of total UK state school pupils, of which there are over 9 million. This movement is expected to take place over several years.

The impact on individual local authorities will interact with other pressures and vary between authorities. Every year many pupils move between schools, including between the private and state-funded sectors.

Local authorities routinely support parents who need a state-funded school place, including where private schools have closed. Where local authorities are experiencing difficulties in ensuring there are enough school places for children that need them, the department will offer support and advice.

​The department provides capital funding through the Basic Need grant to support local authorities to provide school places, based on their own pupil forecasts and school capacity data. They can use this funding to provide places in new schools or through expansions of existing schools.

Surrey County Council has been allocated just below £43 million to support the provision of new mainstream school places needed over the current and next two academic years, up to and including the academic year starting in September 2026.

Hampshire County Council has been allocated just over £22.2 million to support the provision of new mainstream school places needed over the current and next two academic years, up to and including the academic year starting in September 2026.

Buses are of course the most commonly used mode of public transport in Britain, and the lifeblood of our communities. I will be more than happy to meet the hon. Member.

The department is continuing to support and challenge Surrey and Hampshire to improve the delivery of special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) services.

The last local area SEND inspection by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) for Surrey was in September 2023. The department’s regional team has put in place systems to track outcomes against the areas for improvement that were identified by inspectors and to track the progress made by children and young people with SEND. Surrey County Council are committed to working closely with the department to improve services.

Surrey County Council entered into a Safety Valve agreement with the department in March 2022. Safety Valve agreements were established under the previous government with the aim of improving the effectiveness of local authority high needs systems and ensure their long-term financial sustainability.

Hampshire were last inspected under the previous Ofsted and CQC framework in March 2020. As with all local areas, the department has continued to provide support to Hampshire through a regional case lead, who seeks regular assurances on the adequacy of SEND provision. Hampshire will be assessed under the new Ofsted and CQC Area Inspection Framework, with all local authorities due to be inspected by the end of 2027.

Hampshire is taking part in the Delivering Better Value (DBV) in SEND Programme. The DBV in SEND Programme, which is currently under review, was established under the previous government with the aim of helping local authorities provide more effective SEND services by meeting the needs of children and young people at an early stage and with the right level of support.