Stephen Kinnock MP: speeches 2026

Speeches

• 14 Apr 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for his question; he is a strong voice for palliative care and for Pembridge hospice in his constituency. Palliative care is vital in our communities, and I completely agree that ICBs, like West London, should engage with their local communities to ensure that they can meet their palliative care needs.

• 14 Apr 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  As I said to the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan), we are looking at the way that section 106 and CIL are used. I certainly look forward to working with councils across the country, but as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said, when people go to the ballot box on 7 May, they should think very carefully about how much more effective it is when councils work in partnership with this Labour Government.

• 14 Apr 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  There is absolutely an issue with developers not delivering what they say they are going to deliver either through section 106 or through CIL. We are working closely with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to address this issue. I would be more than happy to hear more about the hon. Lady’s specific proposal. We want to work pragmatically and constructively to resolve this issue.

• 14 Apr 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  We are working closely with the BDA on long-term contract reform. It has to be about getting the balance right, so that dentists are incentivised to do NHS dentistry and we maximise access. A public consultation on fundamental contract reform is coming before the summer, and I am sure the hon. Member will want to take part in it.

• 14 Apr 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I know that the local town and county council have been working in partnership with Dorset ICB over many years to support GP partnerships in the Chickerell area in developing a business case for NHS capital or revenue funding. I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend, and to continue to make plans for applying pressure to ensure that this is delivered.

• 14 Apr 2026 · Access to GPs: Bracknell Forest · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is a doughty champion for his constituents. I can absolutely give him that assurance. The GP contract is clear that patients must have the option of telephoning or visiting their practice in person, and online tools must be an addition to, rather than a replacement for, other contact methods. However, we have found that by expanding online access, we have significantly reduced pressure on phone lines, and we are ending the 8 am scramble.

• 14 Apr 2026 · Access to GPs: Bracknell Forest · Hansard source

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  We promised to improve GP access, and we are delivering. There are 2,000 more GPs than in July 2024—double our manifesto commitment of 1,000. The previous Government planned to increase GP numbers. Between 2019 and 2024, the number of fully qualified full-time equivalent GPs actually fell by 900. We have delivered 8 million more appointments, and we have seen satisfaction go up from 61%, where it was languishing in July 2024, to 74% today.

• 14 Apr 2026 · Access to GPs: Bracknell Forest · Hansard source

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  I have honestly never heard so much nonsense in my entire life. We invested £80 million in Advice and Guidance. Some 1.1 million Advice and Guidance requests were diverted from the waiting list, so that care is being delivered in the right place. We have embedded A&G into the core contract, recognising it as routine practice, removing annual sign-ups and providing more predictable funding. The shadow Minister seems to be saying that patients who do not need to be treated in hospital should be treated in hospital. That runs completely counter to the entire strategy, which is about moving care from hospital into the community. The Conservative party needs to get with the programme.

• 14 Apr 2026 · Access to GPs: Bracknell Forest · Hansard source

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  I am astonished that the Conservatives seem to be teaming up with the British Medical Association in opposition to our reforms. They ought to listen to their voters and their members, who are crying out for change. We are getting the NHS to do things differently because that is the only way we are going to turn it around. Advice and Guidance is seeing more investment in GPs and getting patients cared for in the right place at the right time.

• 14 Apr 2026 · Access to GPs: Bracknell Forest · Hansard source

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  I am very pleased that we have our £102 million primary care utilisation and modernisation fund, the precise purpose of which is to develop more estate capacity in general practice, and of course we have our substantial commitment to neighbourhood health centres, with 120 to be delivered by the end of this Parliament and 250 by 2035. The hon. Member should certainly be talking to his ICB about its estate strategy. Now is the right time to intervene and ensure that the issue he raised is being addressed.

• 25 Mar 2026 · NHS Continuing Healthcare · Hansard source

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  It is truly a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Harris—for now, anyway. I thank the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr (Ayoub Khan) for securing this important debate, and I express my gratitude to other Members who have contributed to it. By working together, we can improve the lives of people living with some of the highest needs. I also want to acknowledge and thank families, loved ones and other unpaid carers, and of course the health and social care staff who provide committed and compassionate care every day. Every one of us has constituents living with highly complex needs that arise from a wide variety of illnesses, disabilities or accidents. It is of course great news that significant medical advances have led to increases in the average life expectancy in the UK both for the general population and for those with significant health challenges, but we need to recognise that that has placed additional pressure on our health and care system, and there is no doubt that it can create challenges in accessing the right care and support in the right place at the right time. We value the opportunity to hear about personal experiences from everyone who is here today, so that we can continue to improve services for the people who need them most. A key ambition of the Government’s 10-year health plan is to support people to live independent and dignified lives in their communities. NHS continuing healthcare provides critical support to some individuals with the highest needs, offering a fully funded package of health and social care to meet their needs. This supports our 10-year health plan ambition by helping individuals to live more independently outside hospital and to be closer to home and to loved ones. The last Labour Government introduced NHS continuing healthcare, which, despite the challenges set out today, is supporting thousands of people across the country with their care needs. We also set out our statutory guidance, the first national framework to ensure a consistent approach. In the year ending March 2025, over 164,000 people across England were found to be eligible for NHS continuing healthcare—an increase from the 160,000 eligible individuals in 2017. Every one of those individuals should receive an appropriate package of care that meets their assessed health and care needs. Our statutory guidance is designed to support integrated care boards to provide the most appropriate care for every eligible individual, ensuring that they are placed at the centre of the assessment and care planning process. NHS England oversees integrated care boards in delivering their functions and undertakes regular and ongoing assurance work, including commissioning work, to promote effective implementation of NHS continuing healthcare. I know that integrated care boards across the country are working hard to streamline administrative processes and find efficiencies so that more people can access the care they need sooner.

• 25 Mar 2026 · NHS Continuing Healthcare · Hansard source

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  Of course, we want to see consistency and quality right across the board, regardless of who is actually delivering the work. If there are specific issues around private contractors that the hon. Gentleman can flag to me, perhaps he could write to me; we would be very happy to look into them. We have committed to reduce the running costs of integrated care boards and to redirect that funding to frontline services. To deliver that, our 10-year health plan sets out that integrated care boards must focus on their role as strategic commissioners, ensuring the best possible value in securing local services that improve population health and reduce inequalities. However, NHS England has been clear that, although transformation is required, it must be carried out with clear safeguards in place to protect frontline responsibilities. Legal duties in relation to NHS continuing healthcare must continue to be met. This means that running-cost reductions should aim to make administrative and corporate functions more efficient. They are not there to change funding for direct care or statutory duties. I acknowledge that integrated care boards have worked intensively to strengthen their plans for 2025-26, focusing on areas where efficiencies and savings can be made. I thank NHS England for working with integrated care boards to monitor spend against these plans. The Department is working closely with NHS England on how responsibilities will be delivered from April 2027 onwards, when—subject to the will of Parliament—NHS England will be abolished. Until those changes are made, the Department and NHS England will continue to carry out their respective statutory functions. In the interim, teams are increasingly working together closely under an interim joint leadership team, including on NHS continuing healthcare. Fundamentally, addressing some of the issues that hon. Members have discussed today will require wider reform of the social care system. That is why Baroness Casey is chairing an independent commission into adult social care. The commission has a clear mandate to undertake the most comprehensive review of adult social care in a generation. With Baroness Casey as its chair, it will cut through the political stalemate, identify what the country needs and wants from adult social care, and support the Government in establishing a system that works. Baroness Casey has made it clear that she will not wait until the end of the commission to recommend action where she sees fit to do so. Hon. Members may have seen her speech at the Nuffield Trust summit on 5 March. I thank her for setting out recommendations for immediate action on adult social care, which focused on three key areas: safeguarding, dementia and motor neurone disease. We will not waste time in taking those recommendations forward. We look forward to reviewing Baroness Casey’s phase 1 report, which is due later this year and will set out further recommendations to address immediate priorities for adult social care in this Parliament, laying the groundwork for long-term reform and setting us on the path to delivering a national care service. In her recent speech, Baroness Casey rightly raised challenges with NHS continuing healthcare. We are carefully considering her reflections. I acknowledge existing tensions between integrated care boards and local authorities regarding NHS continuing healthcare eligibility decisions. Those decisions hinge on whether the support required by an individual is above the limits of what the local authority can provide. Integrated care boards must consult with the relevant local authority before making any decision about an individual’s eligibility for NHS continuing healthcare, putting individuals at the heart of the decision-making process. However, I acknowledge that, in practice, it is not always straightforward to determine clearly who is responsible for meeting an individual’s needs, so we are working with NHS England to better join up support between the NHS and local authorities, exploring areas where good joint working is helping to improve outcomes for people accessing NHS continuing healthcare. Through the development of our neighbourhood health services, local authorities and integrated care boards are encouraged to consider how services can be reconfigured to focus more on prevention and early intervention, embedding new ways of working to set the direction of travel for future years. I want all individuals who are eligible for NHS continuing healthcare to receive support in a timely manner, and I want the assessment process to be as smooth, clear and transparent as it possibly can be. We know that eligibility rates can vary from year to year, and across regions and integrated care boards. That variation often exists for good reasons, including differences or changes in the health needs of local populations or individuals over time. To check that the variation is warranted and justified, NHS England continues to monitor eligibility rates by undertaking detailed work to compare eligibility and referral rates between integrated care boards. When it identifies unwarranted variation between integrated care boards with similar demographics, it follows up and seeks to ensure coherence and consistency. My Department is also engaging with local areas to explore current work on eligibility disputes, and how they address those challenges. There are no quick fixes, but we remain committed to supporting the sector to improve outcomes for individuals. I want to stress that while disputes between organisations are being resolved, individuals must never be left without the appropriate care and support. There is a robust dispute resolution process in place for when a full assessment for NHS continuing healthcare has been undertaken and the person or people concerned disagree with the outcome. First, an individual or their representative can ask for a local review from the relevant integrated care board. All integrated care boards should have developed a local resolution process that is fair, transparent and includes timescales. Where it has not been possible to resolve the matter locally, an individual may apply to NHS England for an independent review panel to review the decision. Finally, if the original decision is upheld and there is still a challenge, the individual can make a complaint to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. I was very sorry to hear from the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr of the difficulties that his constituents are experiencing, and I thank him for sharing the details of Daniel’s case. I would of course be happy to receive further representations from the hon. Member. Perhaps he could start by setting out in a letter what the issues are, and then we can make sure that appropriate action is taken. I also know that concerns have been raised about the relatively low number of individuals who are ultimately found eligible for NHS continuing healthcare after they have been referred for full assessment. The threshold for initial referral by GPs, social workers and others is deliberately set low to ensure that anyone who may be eligible is fully assessed. For that reason, many individuals will not go on to receive NHS continuing healthcare. However, an assessment is also a gateway to other forms of NHS-funded support, such as NHS-funded nursing care and joint packages of care between local authorities and integrated care boards. My Department and NHS England continue to work with partners, including the CHC Alliance, Dementia UK, the Nuffield Trust and other sector bodies. We want to support integrated care boards in delivering national policy and guidance, including on how we can achieve better join-up between the NHS and local authorities. I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr again on securing this important debate—and I thank all those who intervened in it—so that we can continue to focus on improving services for the people who need them most. I know that this is a very challenging and emotive topic for many families who are going through extremely difficult times, and I absolutely accept that sometimes controversial decisions are made. We need to ensure that in every one of those controversial cases there is transparency, clarity and coherence. I look forward to working with the hon. Gentleman and with Members across the House to ensure that, collectively, we achieve that goal. Question put and agreed to.

• 16 Mar 2026 · GP Contract · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question. It would be deeply troubling if such an important service to the community were to be removed, so I would certainly be happy to speak to him. Perhaps he would like to write to me to provide more details. Looking to the medium to longer term, the review of the Carr-Hill formula could well end up benefiting communities such as the one he has mentioned, because remoteness and rurality will be an important factor in the Carr-Hill review, but I accept that that might be a bit too far off for what sounds like a more urgent issue. If he would like to write to me, I am sure we can look into that.

• 16 Mar 2026 · GP Contract · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for that question and ask him to please pass on my best wishes to his father and thank him for the outstanding service he provided over many years. The Carr-Hill formula review is an important piece of work. It will have a complex range of drivers in it, based on remoteness and coastal areas, but socioeconomic indicators will be very much at its heart. Those are the clear terms of reference that we gave to the National Institute for Health and Care Research, and that is the basis of the review. I expect those documents from officials very soon, and we will update the House accordingly. Some of the process was set out in a “Dear Colleague” letter a little while back, but we are also keen to have feedback from MPs in that process.

• 16 Mar 2026 · GP Contract · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The £292 million we have made available for advice and guidance is repurposed funding from the capacity and access improvement payments, so it is part of incentivising improved access and better patient outcomes. I can absolutely assure him that Jess’s rule remains fixed as a really important part of ensuring that it is three strikes and a referral. Whatever happens, that will be a top priority throughout the embedding of this contract.

• 16 Mar 2026 · GP Contract · Hansard source

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  The very significant uplift we have made to the contract—the £1.1 billion last year and the £485 million additional investment we are making this year—will go some way to address the hon. Gentleman’s question, but there is, of course, always more we can do. We have to deal with very many competing priorities across the Department of Health and Social Care, but general practice is right at the top of the list. That is demonstrated by the fact that we have invested in more GPs, better online access and more physical infrastructure for general practice.

• 16 Mar 2026 · GP Contract · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right: avoiding preventable admissions is right at the heart of what we are trying to achieve. Of course, we have challenges with delayed discharge—something like 14% of patients in hospital beds are medically fit for discharge—and if we look at the flow of patients through hospital, we see that we can address a lot of the problems at that end of the process by preventing avoidable admissions in the first place. The advice and guidance element of the contract is therefore very important, because it is by improving co-ordination and teamwork between primary care and secondary care that we will ensure that the 1.3 million people who would have ended up on the electives waiting list or going into outpatient clinics no longer need to be there—they will be dealt with by the teamwork between consultant specialists and GPs. They will be helped, supported and cared for close to home, without having to go into hospital, which will have a positive knock-on effect right through the system.

• 16 Mar 2026 · GP Contract · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for that question; I can feel the passion with which he asks it, particularly because of his family connection. It is vital that clinically urgent patients get treatment on day one. We are confident that that is happening in many cases, but embedding it in the contract means an additional level of transparency and commitment from all sides of the equation. That is really important, because it recognises the good performance that is already happening in many cases but will also drive up performance in areas where it is not at the level at which it should be.

• 16 Mar 2026 · GP Contract · Hansard source

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  The Carr-Hill review is happening as we speak, and I expect to get a submission from officials on the first round of analysis that is being conducted by the National Institute for Health and Care Research. That will be the first step towards agreeing on how we make the formula work, with a view to implementing the new Carr-Hill formula from 1 April 2027.

• 16 Mar 2026 · GP Contract · Hansard source

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  On buildings, we have the £102 million primary care utilisation fund, which will be very important in refurbishing GP practices. We are committed to delivering 120 new neighbourhood health centres by the end of this Parliament, and 250 by 2035. The hon. Lady asks about GP numbers. In our manifesto, we pledged to bring back the family doctor, and that is precisely what we are doing. We said that we would deliver 1,000 new GPs to the frontline, but we are delivering 2,000, so we have smashed through our manifesto pledge. There will be more to come, because we are making the practice-level reimbursement scheme more flexible so that it does not apply only to GPs who have just come out of training; we are now enabling practices to hire more experienced GPs. That will also help with under-employment. Many GPs across the country practise only three days a week, and this is an opportunity to boost that to four or even five days a week.

• 16 Mar 2026 · GP Contract · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member raises an important point. It is important that we at the Department of Health and Social Care work closely with the NHS regions and the ICBs to keep a close eye on that issue. It is vital that GPs are aligned with the highest professional standards. If we see those standards not being observed in any case, action must be taken. If she has specific evidence to suggest that such practices are going on, she is more than welcome to share it with me.

• 16 Mar 2026 · GP Contract · Hansard source

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  Hon. Members raise this issue with me regularly. There seems to be something of a disconnect when new developments are being built, whereby the section 106 agreement or the community infrastructure levy just do not seem to be delivering the social infrastructure that they should be delivering. I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss that in relation to the specific case he raises. Then, of course, we could discuss the possibility of a visit.

• 16 Mar 2026 · GP Contract · Hansard source

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  Thanks to the decisions that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has made, significant additional funding has been made available for capital investment in our NHS, and a big part of that is about driving the shift from analogue to digital. The other shifts—hospital to community, sickness to prevention—are not going to work otherwise; they all rely on this pivotal shift from the analogue age to the digital age. It is disappointing to hear the specific feedback that my hon. Friend has heard from the practices in her constituency. If she would like to write to me, or grab me in the Division Lobby, we can talk about the specifics of those cases. But overall the capital budget has been significantly boosted by the decisions that our Chancellor of the Exchequer has made.

• 16 Mar 2026 · GP Contract · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right that it is vital that ICBs have a clear understanding of their population health needs and their demographics. It is important that the ICB is ahead of that curve and taking decisions well in advance of a practice closing down so that a commensurate service is provided; that is a really important part of the ICB’s responsibilities. If he has specific examples where he feels that his ICB has not been delivering on that basis, he is welcome to share those with me.

• 16 Mar 2026 · GP Contract · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for his question, but it is pretty clear to us, based on the experience of advice and guidance—I think it is advice and guidance that he is referring to specifically—that the £80 million we invested in advice and guidance under the last contract has been extraordinarily successful, with very high take-up right across the country. As a result, we have kept 1.3 million people out of electives who did not need to go to those out-patient appointments. What we are doing now is embedding that in the contract, because it has been such a success. By embedding it in the contract, we are giving more flexibility and less bureaucracy, because there will be a single point of access in the trust. GPs will be able to access the high-level consultant expertise and specialism that they need in order to assess whether or not a particular patient needs to go to an out-patient appointment. It will mean more flexibility, high-level triage and much better outcomes for patients.