The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Livermore) (Lab)

My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. I will address the amendments tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Barker and Lady Kramer, seeking to maintain the rates and thresholds at their current level for NHS commissioned services including GPs, dentists, social care providers and pharmacists. As noble Lords will know, as a result of the measures in this Bill and wider Budget measures, the NHS will receive an extra £22.6 billion over two years, helping to deliver an additional 40,000 elective appointments every week. Primary care providers, general practice, dentistry, pharmacy and eyecare are important independent contractors who provide nearly £20 billion-worth of NHS services. Every year, the Government consult with these primary care sectors about what services they provide and what money they are entitled to in return under their contract; this continues to be the case this year. The Government have announced an extra £899 million for general practice in 2025-26 and have set out the proposed areas of reform which will help to deliver on our manifesto commitments. This is the largest uplift in GP funding since the beginning of the five-year framework and reverses the recent declining trend in funding. As a result, a rising share of total NHS resources will now go to general practice. The Department of Health and Social Care is consulting with the General Practitioners Committee in England of the British Medical Association on the 2025-26 GP contract and will consider a range of proposed policy changes. These will be announced in the usual way following the close of the consultation later this year. The Department of Health and Social Care has also entered into consultation with Community Pharmacy England regarding the 2024-25 and 2025-26 community pharmacy contractual framework, and the final funding settlement will be announced in the usual way following this consultation. The NHS in England invests around £3 billion in dentistry every year. NHS pharmaceutical, ophthalmic and dental allocations for integrated care systems 2025-26 were published alongside NHS planned guidance. The noble Lords, Lord Howard and Lord Leigh, spoke about hospices. The Government recognise the vital role that hospices play in supporting people at the end of life and their families, and we recognise the range of cost pressures that the hospices sector has been facing over a number of years. As the noble Lords mentioned, we are supporting the hospice sector with a £100 million increase for adult and children’s hospices to ensure they have the best physical environment for care. We have also allocated an additional £26 million in revenue to support children and young people’s hospices. The £100 million investment will go towards helping hospices improve their buildings, equipment and accommodation, to ensure that patients continue to receive the best care possible. Regarding social care, the Government have provided a real-terms increase in core local government spending power of 3.5% in 2025-26, including £880 million of new grant funding provided to social care. This funding can be used to address the range of pressures facing the adult social care sector. To answer the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, all charities can benefit from the employment allowance. As a result of this Bill, from April 2025 the threshold of £100,000 or less will be removed.