Speeches by Beales.

“That is despite the strategy being in place for three years and us seeing a worsening picture for those three years—the strategy is working. You said it is a local issue. ICSs are going to play a more significant role from April 2026 and have more responsibility for vaccines and vaccine strategies. If it is a local iss…”

“We have heard about that before. Again, I come back to the fact that the NHS England strategy was launched in 2023. We have heard that there is piloting that will take place of health visitors delivering vaccines, with a possible national roll-out in 2026-27. It has been quite a number of years, and we are still talkin…”

“Are you confident that all the things you mentioned will lead to an increase in vaccination rates next year? Will we, as a Committee, be able to speak to you next year having seen an uptick in the 14 key vaccination areas?”

“Are you confident, Minister?”

“I cannot speak for the Committee, but I would personally say that we are in a vaccination crisis in this country among children and pregnant women, which is leading to some of the tragic incidents we are seeing. In the light of this, was it a good idea to remove the WHO 95% vaccine coverage target from NHS planning gui…”

“It is not in the planning guidance.”

“If we see further falls in most vaccine levels next year, would you consider putting it back in NHS planning guidance?”

“Would you agree that the strategy is not working if next year we still see further falls, or no progress in getting towards the 95% target? Is that failure? What is failure? It sounds at the moment that further falls in vaccine levels, further outbreaks, and not making any significant progress towards the 95% target ar…”

“Stopping the further falls is positive, but I think we urgently need to get back not just to the levels we were at but to the 95% target, which is a key target for population coverage.”

“I am going to come on to health visitors. If your reading of the situation is that the strategy is right, and that there is not a problem with the implementation of resources, why are we so far behind and still falling on most if not all of the measures?”

“Do you think the Government should set a target?”

“Thank you.”

“Is there no particular national funding for that?”

“My second question was about access to PrEP, and you have covered it quite well. In your view, digitalised access to PrEP and access to a community pharmacy are needed to address the gender-based differences in uptake and other inequalities—Kat, do you want to come in about the barriers to those changes, or are any oth…”

“Is it realistic for local authorities to deliver national messages to quite small population groups for a national vaccine?”

“Richard, do you have any thoughts about the effectiveness of the current approach from the voluntary and community sector, or what else is needed to reach those groups?”

“First, I am just going to declare for transparency purposes that I used to work with Kat, and I am very close with Richard from when I was at the National AIDS Trust—it is nice to see a number of you again today. Turning to HIV and access to PrEP, first, I have a question for Richard. We have seen persistent inequaliti…”

“Lastly, I will turn to the action plan process. Cathy, and potentially Amanda from an NHS England perspective, what lessons have you taken from the current action plan, or outgoing action plan, in terms of its success—or lack of—in reaching the 2030 goals? Where are we with the updated action plan?”

“What have you heard from that process, from the community and the range of stakeholders? What are the key messages you have heard?”

“When do you expect the plan to be published?”