Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they expect to publish a white paper on special educational needs provision before the Parliamentary summer recess.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Minister for Women and Equalities)
This government’s ambition is that all children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) or in alternative provision receive the right support to succeed and thrive in their education and as they move into adult life.
The department is aware of the challenges in the current SEND system, and the government is urgently considering how it needs to be reformed. However, these are complex issues which need a considered approach to deliver sustainable change.
The department is working closely with experts on reforms, including appointing a strategic advisor for SEND, who is playing a key role in convening and engaging with the sector, including leaders, practitioners, children and families.
The department has also established an expert advisory group for inclusion to improve the mainstream education outcomes and experiences for children and young people with SEND, and a Neurodivergence Task and Finish Group to provide a shared understanding of what provision and support in mainstream educational settings should look like for neurodivergent children and young people within an inclusive system.
The department is working at pace to address these challenges and will be setting out our plans to do so in due course.
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government, with regard to their press release “Government backs SME builders to get Britain building” published on 28 May, whether councillors on local authorities will be able to refer tier A planning applications to a planning application committee for consideration.
Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
Our proposals to introduce a national scheme of delegation through the Planning and Infrastructure Bill would be mandatory for local planning authorities as defined in the Bill.
As set out in the technical consultation on reform of planning committees published on 28 May 2025, all applications in Tier A would be delegated to planning officers.
However, Question 5 asks for views on whether there should be a mechanism to bring a Tier A application to committee in exceptional circumstances and, if so, what would those circumstances be and how would the mechanism operate.
Applications in Tier B would be presumed to be delegated unless the chief planning officer (or equivalent officer in local planning authorities without a chief planning officer) and Chair of Committee agree it should go to Committee based on a gateway test.
The consultation is open for views until 23 July 2025.
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether their plans for a national scheme of delegation as referenced in documents accompanying the Planning and Infrastructure Bill will consist of guidance to local authorities or whether local authorities will be required to follow the scheme.
Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
Our proposals to introduce a national scheme of delegation through the Planning and Infrastructure Bill would be mandatory for local planning authorities as defined in the Bill.
As set out in the technical consultation on reform of planning committees published on 28 May 2025, all applications in Tier A would be delegated to planning officers.
However, Question 5 asks for views on whether there should be a mechanism to bring a Tier A application to committee in exceptional circumstances and, if so, what would those circumstances be and how would the mechanism operate.
Applications in Tier B would be presumed to be delegated unless the chief planning officer (or equivalent officer in local planning authorities without a chief planning officer) and Chair of Committee agree it should go to Committee based on a gateway test.
The consultation is open for views until 23 July 2025.
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government, with regard to their press release “Government backs SME builders to get Britain building” published on 28 May, how they define tier A and tier B planning applications.
Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
Our proposals to introduce a national scheme of delegation through the Planning and Infrastructure Bill would be mandatory for local planning authorities as defined in the Bill.
As set out in the technical consultation on reform of planning committees published on 28 May 2025, all applications in Tier A would be delegated to planning officers.
However, Question 5 asks for views on whether there should be a mechanism to bring a Tier A application to committee in exceptional circumstances and, if so, what would those circumstances be and how would the mechanism operate.
Applications in Tier B would be presumed to be delegated unless the chief planning officer (or equivalent officer in local planning authorities without a chief planning officer) and Chair of Committee agree it should go to Committee based on a gateway test.
The consultation is open for views until 23 July 2025.
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government how much is the 2025–26 council tax on the ministerial residence in Admiralty House.
Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
Admiralty House residences are valued in Council Tax Band H.
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government, with regard to their press release “Government backs SME builders to get Britain building” published on 28 May, how they plan to allocate the £10 million to local authorities to fund more specialists to speed up environmental assessments.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The funding is being allocated to all local planning authorities, county councils and combined authorities in England. The uses to which the funding can be put are broad and there is no definitive list as requirements will differ across authorities. Some of this funding may be used to help expand the capacity of ecologist and planning teams, but ultimately it is for the local authorities to determine how they spend the funding depending on local circumstances.
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what threshold needs to be met by utility companies to start emergency roadworks without a permit under highway authority permit schemes.
Answered by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
Emergency works are defined in legislation as works needed to deal with dangers to life and property and so must be carried out urgently. For these, and other urgent works needed to restore customer connections or deal with leaks, permits must be submitted to the relevant highway authority within two hours of works starting on site. The authority can assess these permits and request works are completed by a particular time.
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies Spending on special educational needs in England: something has to change, published on 10 December 2024, and in particular its findings on special educational needs debt within local authorities.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Minister for Women and Equalities)
The department is providing an increase of £1 billion for high needs budgets in England in the 2025/26 financial year. Total high needs funding for children and young people with complex special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) is over £12 billion in the 2025/26 financial year.
The department is providing the increase in high needs funding to help meet the increase in costs local authorities will be facing this financial year, as they in turn provide support to schools and colleges, and ultimately to children and young people with SEND.
Nevertheless, the government recognises that the rising costs of SEND provision are putting a strain on local government finances, and in particular, the impact of dedicated schools grant deficits on councils’ finances. In the Spending Review on 11 June, we confirmed that the Core Schools Budget, which includes funding for local authorities’ high needs budgets, will rise to £69.5 billion by 2028/29. We intend to set out plans for reforming the SEND system in further detail later this year. Our objective is to ensure that local authorities, schools and colleges can deliver high quality services for children and young people with SEND in a financially sustainable way.
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have, if any, to amend section 81 of the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 so that local authorities can levy fines against utility companies that fail to maintain street apparatus to their reasonable satisfaction.
Answered by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
The Government does not currently have any plans to amend the legislation in this way. Utility companies already have a duty to maintain their apparatus in the street. Where a local authority becomes aware of defective apparatus they should notify the owner of the apparatus. If the apparatus presents a hazard that could result in danger to the public, then the authority should take any appropriate action, which might include an officer remaining on site until the owner of the apparatus attends, or ensuring that suitable actions to make the site safe are carried out. The authority can recover reasonable costs for doing so from the asset owner.
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many local authorities charge an empty homes premium on council tax in England in 2025–26, and what are the percentage rates of those premiums.
Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The government annually publishes data on council taxbases including their use of any council tax premiums. Data for the 2024 snapshot is available here. Data for the 2025 snapshot will be published in November.
This data sets out that 292 billing authorities made use of the long-term empty homes premium in 2024. The data also provides a breakdown for each billing authority and the various percentages of premiums they have applied.
Councils have had the power to charge a council tax premium on second homes since April this year. Data on the number of billing authorities making use of the second home premium will be published in the 2025 council taxbase statistics in November.