We recognise and value the vital contribution of regulated professions, including social workers in adult social care, and are committed to developing the skills of the workforce. That is why we announced a new fund on 10 January 2024 to support recruitment of social work apprentices into adult social care over the next three years.

The new funding will allow local authorities to apply for a contribution towards the costs of training and supervising new social work apprenticeships. Details on what the funding can be used for, how to access the funding, and employer eligibility will be set out in guidance to be published on GOV.UK shortly.

Under the Care Act 2014, local authorities are required to undertake a Carer’s Assessment for any unpaid carer who appears to have need for support, and to meet their eligible needs upon request from the carer.

On 24 October 2023, the adult social care’s Innovation and Improvement Unit launched the Accelerating Reform Fund which provides a total of £42.6 million over 2023/24 and 2024/25 to support innovation and scaling in adult social care, and to kick start a change in services to support unpaid carers. The list of priorities for innovation and scaling includes focussing on identifying unpaid carers in local areas, encouraging people to recognise themselves as carers, and promoting access to carer services.

The adult social care reform white paper, People at the Heart of Care, published on 1 December 2021, highlighted the potential to increase the voluntary use of unpaid carer markers in National Health Service electronic health records. In 2022, NHS England wrote to all general practices about the importance of identifying carers and advising how caring status should be recorded on patient records.

The Government wants all communities to benefit from hosting energy technologies in their local areas. However, Government does not have a formal role with regards to community benefits for low-carbon energy projects. These are best agreed at a local level between the operators and the local community.

Many low-carbon energy developers already offer a range of community benefit schemes, including providing funding for environmental enhancements, job schemes, energy discounts, and investment in local infrastructure.

The Government will seek alignment and consistency between energy technologies where appropriate, but believes it is important that the approach to community benefits for each technology reflects their unique impacts.

HMG is backing new Nuclear with £1.2bn committed to support Sizewell C, completed the SMR competition initial down-selection, thanks to the newly established Great British Nuclear, and investing up to £75m in our Nuclear Fuel fund, in addition to the £385m already provided through our Advanced Nuclear Fund.

The information requested is provided in the attached table.

The Department for Transport is considering next steps on this matter in the light of the Prime Minister’s Network North announcement, which represents a significant change in the Government’s funding of local transport schemes, and will make an announcement in due course.

The following table shows a breakdown of technologies with designated orphan status appraised through the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence resulted single technology appraisal process by financial year from 2018/19:

Medicines with an orphan designation are for the diagnosis, prevention or treatment of a life-threatening or chronically debilitating condition that is rare, namely affecting not more than five in 10,000 people in Great Britain, or where the medicine is unlikely to generate sufficient profit to justify research and development costs.

The following table shows a breakdown of technologies appraised through the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s highly specialised technology process by financial year from 2018/19:

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has no current plans to undertake a modular update of its methods and processes related specifically to rare diseases. NICE specifically considered treatments for rare diseases during its methods review, and many of the changes introduced in NICE’s updated health technology evaluation manual in January 2022 will benefit treatments for rare diseases. These include the severity modifier, flexibility in uncertainty considerations and the emphasis on a comprehensive evidence base including real-world, qualitative, surrogate, and expert evidence. These updates mitigate the barriers faced by rare disease technologies while maintaining an evidence-based, robust, and proportionate evaluation approach.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation regularly discuss with the vaccine manufacturing industry issues such as the availability of new and existing vaccines, and manufacturing lead in times. Their advice about which flu vaccines are to be used for the coming season is informed by these discussions. An effective programme depends on a reliable supply of vaccine. It takes approximately five to six months for the first supplies of approved vaccine to become available once a new strain of influenza virus is identified and isolated.

National Health Service providers determine how many seasonal flu vaccines to buy for eligible cohorts each year based on their local populations, as outlined in the annual flu system letter. The letter, published on 25 May 2023, is based on the advice of the JCVI, which reviews the latest evidence on flu vaccines and advises on the type of vaccine to be offered to different age groups and on which vaccines should be prioritised for various at-risk groups.

General practitioners and community pharmacists are responsible for ordering their own flu vaccines for the adult population from suppliers. These are then used to deliver the national flu vaccination programme, with deliveries phased through the season to help mitigate against risks of wastage, cold chain failure and to adequately cover the peaks and flows of local demand.

NHS England encourages their contractors to purchase vaccines from more than one manufacturer to mitigate against the risk of supply issues. Regional NHS England commissioners, in partnership with their local systems, also make assessments of the amount of vaccine available in their area to ensure there is enough supply to meet public demand.

The UK Health Security Agency secures and supplies a sufficient volume of flu vaccines used in the children’s flu programme to ensure that eligible children aged less than 18 years old who present for vaccination can be offered an appropriate vaccine.

The reduction in the estimated value of inward life sciences foreign direct investment and in equity finance raised in 2022 was not unique to the UK. Other global business environments, such as the USA, also saw falls in investment and equity raised. This was in large part due to changes in the life sciences investment environment following the COVID-19 pandemic and broader economic factors. Regardless, the department is acting in the face of fierce global competition. DSIT, DHSC and the Treasury announced a package of measures in May 2023, backed by over £650 million in funding, to reverse this decline.

The Government has considered in broad terms the link between volume-based rebate payments in our medicine pricing schemes and various kinds of investment in our Impact Assessment of updates to the Statutory Scheme for branded medicines pricing, which operates alongside voluntary scheme for branded medicines pricing and access (VPAS). The Government’s 2023 Impact Assessment of updates to the Statutory Scheme can be found here: www.gov.uk/government/consultations/review-of-the-scheme-to-control-the-cost-of-branded-health-service-medicines.

We are in close discussions with the Department of Health and Social Care and Department for Business and Trade about the business environment for life sciences and its impact on investment.

As of 5 September 2023, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has made positive recommendations on eight out of the nine gene therapy medicinal products it has evaluated using its single technology appraisal process.

For the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation to formally revisit the cost-effectiveness of vaccinating specific age cohorts against seasonal influenza, an up-to-date impact and cost effectiveness analysis would be required, and the UK Health Security Agency is in the process of updating the influenza model using more recent data, including accounting for changes due to the pandemic.

There is currently uncertainty on any longer-term changes because of the pandemic to social contact patterns and the activity of flu in the population for a fully robust update to cost effectiveness analysis in the short term.

The Government publishes new impact assessments each time the statutory scheme is updated. Further impact assessments were published in respect of updates made to the statutory scheme in 2022 and 2023.

The Government is currently consulting on updates to the statutory scheme to make sure that the scheme can continue to meet its objectives from 2024 onwards. A consultation stage impact assessment of the proposed updates has been published, and is available at the following link:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1179564/impact-assessment-review-scheme-cost-branded-medicines-updated-21-august-2023.pdf

An updated impact assessment will be published alongside the response to the consultation and will include the updated Competitiveness Indicators in the evidence base.

No assessment has been made of the implications for policies on the provision of abortion pills to a woman beyond the legal time limit for abortion.

The law on abortion and required standards of medical care are clear. The Department continues to work closely with NHS England, the Care Quality Commission and abortion providers to ensure that abortions in England are performed in accordance with the Abortion Act 1967.

There are no plans to review Section 3(D) of the Abortion Act 1967. Parliament decided the circumstances under which abortion can legally be undertaken. It would be for Parliament to decide whether to make any changes to the law on abortion. As with other matters of conscience, abortion is an issue on which the Government adopts a neutral stance and allows hon. Members to vote according to their moral, ethical or religious beliefs.

No assessment has been made of the implications for policies on the provision of abortion pills to a woman beyond the legal time limit for abortion.

The law on abortion and required standards of medical care are clear. The Department continues to work closely with NHS England, the Care Quality Commission and abortion providers to ensure that abortions in England are performed in accordance with the Abortion Act 1967.

There are no plans to review Section 3(D) of the Abortion Act 1967. Parliament decided the circumstances under which abortion can legally be undertaken. It would be for Parliament to decide whether to make any changes to the law on abortion. As with other matters of conscience, abortion is an issue on which the Government adopts a neutral stance and allows hon. Members to vote according to their moral, ethical or religious beliefs.

No assessment has been made.

The Budget Impact Test is an integral part of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) evaluation process for new interventions, including gene therapies. It assesses the financial implications of introducing a new therapy by considering factors such as patient eligibility, treatment costs, and the impact on National Health Service resources. NICE undertakes a Budget Impact Test for each individual single-dose gene therapy as part of standard NICE process.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is an independent body and is responsible for the methods and processes that it uses in the development of its guidance. NICE made a number of changes to its health technology evaluation manual in January 2022 following a comprehensive review of its methods and processes, including to clarify its committees’ additional flexibility in considering uncertainty when evidence generation is difficult. NICE’s technology appraisal and highly specialised technology committees are now using the updated health technology evaluation manual for all new evaluations which began after 1 February 2022, including evaluations of cell and gene therapies.