Lord Farmer

The Queen Elizabeth Committee is in the early stages of its work of developing recommendations for a national memorial to Queen Elizabeth II, including both a permanent memorial and a legacy programme.

As part of its work, the Committee will undertake public engagement and consultation, details of which will be shared in due course, and will consider how best to consult other stakeholders including parliamentarians.

Further information on the Committee can be found on GOV.UK on https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/the-queen-elizabeth-memorial-committee.

The Government is carefully considering the appropriate way to remember, reward and recognise those involved in the COVID-19 response. We will ensure that any recognition takes into account frontline workers and volunteers across all critical sectors, above all the NHS and social care. The profound gratitude the nation feels towards everyone on the frontline, and to those working in health and social care in particular, means it is beholden on the Government to ensure recognition is both timely and appropriate. Further details will be announced in the usual way.

Families are a responsibility for the whole of government and departments undertake the Family Test to assess the impact of policies on family relationships and functioning. However, families are at the heart of this government's agenda, and to reflect this a specific lead Cabinet-level minister will be appointed. This will be announced in due course.

The government is committed to ensuring children are protected from accessing inappropriate content online. The British Board of Film Classification, while designated as the age verification regulator under the Digital Economy Act, commissioned research on children’s access to pornographic content online. The research, published in early 2020, explored young people’s interactions with, and attitudes towards, online pornography and age verification. We will continue to develop our evidence base on online harms ahead of the implementation of the new online harms regulatory framework.

As a result of Covid-19 lockdown measures we expect more people, including children, to be spending more time online. Although it is too early to confidently analyse patterns from this period, there is universal concern about child online safety. We are working closely with technology companies, law enforcement and civil society to monitor trends, and to support users to understand and manage the risks and benefits of being online during this period.

The Government is committed to making the UK the safest place in the world to be online. While adoption of the British Board of Film Classification’s best practice age ratings by online platforms is currently voluntary, we welcome Netflix’s commitment to work towards complete coverage and support the BBFC’s drive to encourage other Video On Demand platforms to follow suit. By doing so, this will provide consumers with well recognised age ratings and consumer advice.

As the government announced on 16 October last year, we will not be commencing Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act 2017 and its provisions on age verification for online pornography. Instead the online harms regime will include provisions to protect children from inappropriate content, including online pornography. The requirement for a report on the impact and effectiveness of the regulatory framework set out in Section 29 of the Digital Economy Act 2017 will therefore not be brought into force.

The Relationship, Sex and Health Education (RSHE) statutory guidance introduced in September 2020 states that secondary pupils should be taught factual knowledge around sex, sexual health, and sexuality, set firmly within the context of relationships. Pupils should learn about contraception, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), developing intimate relationships and resisting pressure to have sex. Further information on this guidance can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/relationships-education-relationships-and-sex-education-rse-and-health-education.

The ‘intimate and sexual relationships, including sexual health’ topic specifies that by the end of secondary school pupils should know how the different STIs are transmitted, how risk can be reduced through safer sex and the importance of and facts about testing. Pupils are also taught about STIs at key stage 4 of the science curriculum.

To support teachers to deliver these topics safely and with confidence the department has produced RSHE teacher training modules. The topic of ‘intimate and sexual relationships, including sexual health’ includes content on STIs and sexual health advice. Further information on these modules can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/teaching-about-relationships-sex-and-health.

From primary education onwards, age-appropriate Relationships Education supports pupils to treat each other with kindness, consideration and respect, including understanding the importance of respectful relationships and the different types of loving and healthy relationships that exist.

The department will be launching a public consultation shortly on revised RSHE guidance, so that interested parties can contribute their comments and ideas, including on sexual health, relationships and STIs. The department will carefully consider responses received and intend to publish final guidance later in 2024.

Family hubs are ‘one stop shops’ that make it easier for families to get the support they need. The hub approach means professionals and partners work together more effectively, with a focus on supporting and strengthening family relationships.

The department is investing in 87 local authorities to develop family hubs in their areas. We have developed guidance and expectations for these participating local authorities, working across government to reflect a range of services to be accessed through their family hubs. This has included working with the Department for Work and Pensions to develop the expectations on family hubs around Reducing Parental Conflict.

Reducing Parental Conflict is embedded within the service expectations for family hubs. This means that staff in the family hub should be able to help identify families who may benefit from reducing parental conflict support and connect them to appropriate support, such as online resources or more intensive support, such as structured support from a trained practitioner.

The expectations for the family hubs funded through the Family Hubs and Start for Life programme are available in the attached file.

The department is clear there is no safe way to take illegal drugs. These drugs can devastate lives, ruin families, and damage communities. The government welcomes activity by universities and other organisations to raise awareness of the harms of illicit drugs and discourage drug misuse. This includes focusing on the health, safety and wellbeing of students, while working with public health and law enforcement agencies.

This government has invested a record £780 million to rebuild the national drug treatment and recovery system, to improve treatment and provide wider support, such as employment and housing, that people need to rebuild their lives.

Universities are autonomous institutions and as such have control over what they publish on their own websites.

Decisions about funding for individual higher education providers are made by the Office for Students, rather than the department.

The department does not hold information centrally on the types of qualifications looked-after children study and complete beyond key stage 4. The department does hold and publish information on pupils who were at the end of key stage 4 in the 2018/2019 academic year and reports on their destinations in the following academic year (2019/2020).

The figures show in the 2019/20 academic year, 5,450 children looked after were in a sustained education destination in the year following the end of key stage 4. Of these, 2,910 were in further education, 860 were in a school sixth form or sixth form college and 1,240 were in some other form of education. The full figures can be accessed here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/d583af1d-ad7d-4f1f-990b-2b27586d6c69.

The department does not hold information on the educational attainment of looked after children beyond key stage 4.

To support our farmers we are bringing forward half of this year's BPS payment as an advance injection of cash to farm businesses and have delayed changes to the use of urea fertiliser until at least spring 2023. Farmers will be further supported through new slurry storage grants as of this year, helping meet the Farming Rules for Water and reducing dependence on artificial fertilisers by improving storage of organic nutrients.

UK cereals are mainly produced for the domestic market, and whilst the UK is 88% self-sufficient in domestically produced cereals, we do also export. It is not for the Government to dictate to famers, who are free to react to market signals, what crops to plant, or where that produce should be sold or exported.

We continue to keep the market situation under review through the UK Agriculture Market Monitoring Group, which monitors UK agricultural markets including price, supply, inputs, trade and recent developments. We have also increased our engagement with industry to supplement our analysis with real-time intelligence and to identify where mitigations are available.

We are looking to take the opportunities which leaving the EU presents to make further simplifications for the 2021 Basic Payment Scheme. This could include removing some or all of the burdensome greening rules which have failed to deliver for the environment such as the 'three crop rule' which tells farmers how many crops they must grow, regardless of the demands of the market. Relevant regulations will be subject to Parliament's approval. We will announce the new rules to farmers in due course.

Oilseed rape is a valuable crop for farmers and there is a greater risk of crop loss due to cabbage stem flea beetle (CSFB) since the restrictions on neonicotinoids came into force in 2014. Some growers have been heavily affected while others have not experienced similar problems. Defra has monitored the incidence of CSFB on untreated oilseed rape through the Crop Pest and Disease Survey. In autumn 2019, average numbers of CSFB were higher than levels before the ban on use of neonicotinoid insecticides. Out of 82 sites assessed, however, only eight had levels that exceeded the recommended threshold for spray application. Six of these eight sites were in the East of England.

The Government supports restrictions on neonicotinoids because the clear advice from scientific experts is that these seed treatments should not be used on flowering crops, such as oilseed rape. There is clear evidence on the toxicity of neonicotinoids to bees and their persistence in the environment. We are not prepared to put our pollinator populations at risk and so we will maintain the current restrictions on use of the three neonicotinoids when the transition period ends. We will only take a different position if the scientific evidence changes.

The Government supports a major, long-term research platform for Crop Genetic Improvement. This includes OREGIN, which is a dedicated programme on oilseed rape breeding to improve the resource use efficiency, sustainability and resilience of the crop. The research is carried out in close partnership with growers and breeders and determines beneficial traits to be included in breeding programmes to offer improved resistance to priority pests and diseases. The work is helping to reduce reliance on agrochemical inputs and also improve the overall resilience of crops.

THINK! is the government’s flagship road safety campaign, playing a vital role in tackling the attitudes and behaviours that lead to road casualties.

A £1M drug drive campaign ran in February 2015 to support the introduction of new legislation and raise awareness of the new laws amongst drivers. The campaign ran again in 2016, with a £1.3M investment, including a reminder to drivers on the presence of roadside testing. Some additional social media communications, focused on festival goers, ran in the summer of 2017.

- The 2016 campaign achieved good levels of recognition (73% awareness), driven by the “Paranoia” film, and overall recognition was higher than in 2015

- The “Paranoia” film communicated a general anti-drug drive message, while the online and print elements complemented this by showing the roadside swab which acted as a deterrent and improved credibility

- Knowledge of drug driving penalties increased over the campaign period, and these practical aspects were deemed more concerning than the emotional repercussions of being caught and convicted of drug driving

- As drug driving is perceived as a niche behaviour (with less of the audience knowing someone who drug drives when compared with other road safety behaviours), the campaign continued to lack relevance among some young male drivers

There are a number of issues and behaviours that warrant communications investment and spend is prioritised according to the following key principles:

- The scale of the issue

- Ability of communications to influence behaviour

- Public priorities

- Value for money

- Policy priorities and changes in supporting legislation

- Wider trends, for example the impact of the pandemic

THINK! communications for the next three -year period are currently being planned and will include a review on the status of drug driving within that planning and prioritisation process.

This phase of the Reducing Parental Conflict (RPC) programme (2022-25) focuses on supporting and funding Local Authorities (LAs) to integrate RPC into their family help offer. As such, the programme does not directly put parents through RPC interventions, these decisions are instead taken at a local level.

LAs receive RPC funding through the RPC Local Grant, which makes up to £19m available from 2022-25. In the first year of grant funding, LAs have directly supported around 18,000 parents, and over 30,000 training places for staff. Further details on LA breakdowns of grant funding have been appended to the end of this PQ.

In the first year of the RPC Local Grant, LAs had spent £159,000 of their Local Grant funding to undertake evaluation activities. As we are at the start of the second year of a three-year grant process, this work is ongoing. There are however positive findings emerging from local evaluation work. For instance, through our partnered working with ‘Foundations’, these have been published on their website.

LAs are not required to provide data on whether those parents are together or separating/separated. The forthcoming Reducing Parental Conflict evaluation reports, announced on 19th July, will provide further detail on the effects of support on the relationships between intact parents and separating/separated parents.

To Note:

The information in this PQ is derived from internal management information and is not quality assured to Official Statistics standards.

As this is ongoing Management Information, derived from 134 LAs, small amounts of additional resource which LAs have committed beyond their Grant Funding has not been disaggregated from the figures, as such totals may slightly exceed overall allocation in some places and the final reported figures will differ.

This phase of the Reducing Parental Conflict (RPC) programme (2022-25) focuses on supporting and funding Local Authorities (LAs) to integrate RPC into their family help offer. As such, the programme does not directly put parents through RPC interventions, these decisions are instead taken at a local level.

LAs receive RPC funding through the RPC Local Grant, which makes up to £19m available from 2022-25. In the first year of grant funding, LAs have directly supported around 18,000 parents, and over 30,000 training places for staff. Further details on LA breakdowns of grant funding have been appended to the end of this PQ.

In the first year of the RPC Local Grant, LAs had spent £159,000 of their Local Grant funding to undertake evaluation activities. As we are at the start of the second year of a three-year grant process, this work is ongoing. There are however positive findings emerging from local evaluation work. For instance, through our partnered working with ‘Foundations’, these have been published on their website.

LAs are not required to provide data on whether those parents are together or separating/separated. The forthcoming Reducing Parental Conflict evaluation reports, announced on 19th July, will provide further detail on the effects of support on the relationships between intact parents and separating/separated parents.

To Note:

The information in this PQ is derived from internal management information and is not quality assured to Official Statistics standards.

As this is ongoing Management Information, derived from 134 LAs, small amounts of additional resource which LAs have committed beyond their Grant Funding has not been disaggregated from the figures, as such totals may slightly exceed overall allocation in some places and the final reported figures will differ.

The latest study by The Office of National Statistics (Working and workless households in the UK: January to March 2023) shows a decrease of 23,000 in the number of people aged 50-64 in workless households against the same period in 2022.

However, the Government recognises the challenges that older jobseekers face which is why we are delivering a comprehensive package of support to help them return to work.

In addition to the help in place for all Universal Credit claimants, eligible older jobseekers can access additional intensive, tailored support in the first 9 months of their Universal Credit claim.

A network of dedicated 50PLUS: Champions are in place in Jobcentre Plus districts across Great Britain, upskilling Work Coaches in supporting over 50s to return to work and engaging with employers to maximise opportunities for recruitment.

The Midlife MOT is delivered in Jobcentres across Great Britain, to help older workers to take stock of their finances, skills and health and, on 5th July 2023, an enhanced digital Midlife MOT went live to provide access to financial, health and career guidance.

The £421m Household Support Fund has been available to Local Authorities in England since 6 October 2021 and runs until 31 March 2022. The Barnett Formula will apply in the usual way, with the devolved administrations receiving almost £80 million (£41m for the Scottish Government, £25m for the Welsh Government and £14m for the NI Executive), for a total of £500 million. The devolved administrations are responsible for making their own plans to spend their funding.

As of the 22^nd July, 50,000 young people have started Kickstart jobs.

As of the 21^st of July, over 155,000 jobs have been made available for young people to apply for through the Kickstart Scheme with over 263,000 jobs approved for funding by the Scheme.

Between 23/06/2021 and 22/07/2021 an average of almost 600 young people started a Kickstart job each working day.

We are currently unable to provide data on the number of approved jobs by location, as at that stage in the process we do not hold information about the exact location of a job, only the head office of the employer.

Below are tables listing the number of Kickstart jobs which have been made available and started by young people to date by geographical area of Great Britain and work sector. The figures used are correct as of the 21^st July and these figures have been rounded according to departmental standards.

Although care is taken when processing and analysing Kickstart applications, referrals and starts, the data collected might be subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale recording system, which has been developed quickly.

The management information presented here has not been subjected to the usual standard of quality assurance associated with official statistics, but is provided in the interests of transparency. Work is ongoing to improve the quality of information available for the programme.

No assessment has been made of the impact of the Abortion Act 1967 on United Kingdom birth rates. Parliament decided the circumstances under which abortion can legally be undertaken. Under the act, women have access to safe, legal, regulated abortion services.

We want to ensure that all children and young people get the mental health support they need, including boys.

By the end of 2023/24 the overall spending on mental health has increased by more than £4.7 billion in cash terms since 2018/19 (before the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions were introduced).

There are now around 400 mental health support teams in place across England, covering 3.4 million children or around 35% of pupils in schools and colleges. We estimate this will increase to 44% by April 2024 and we are working to increase this coverage to 50% of pupils by March 2025.

There are also currently around 65 locally funded early support hubs in England. These hubs are open to those aged 11 to 25 years old and, importantly, they are for anyone who may not meet the threshold to receive National Health Service support. Following a competitive commercial process from hubs across the country, the government is now providing up to £8 million to 24 existing hubs to provide even more support. This means children and young people, including boys, who are experiencing feelings of anxiety or stress will have a physical space to go to in their community when their problems first emerge, without the need for a referral.

No such assessment has been made.

The number of new sexually transmitted infections diagnosed among 15 to 24 years olds has increased by 29.3% from 2021 to 2022, or from 135,045 to 174,592. In particular:

- chlamydia diagnoses have increased 26%, from 88,367 in 2021 to 111,380 in 2022;

- gonorrhoea diagnoses have increased 91.7%, from 16,919 in 2021 to 31,037 in 2022;

- first diagnoses of genital herpes have increased 14.4%, from 8,270 in 2021 to 9,461 in 2022;

- diagnoses of infectious syphilis, including primary, secondary, and early latent, have increased 11.1%, from 968 in 2021 to 1,075 in 2022; and

- first diagnoses of genital warts have decreased 23.3%, from 7,559 in 2021 to 5,801 in 2022.

The data represents the number of diagnoses reported and not the number of people diagnosed. Data reported in 2020 and 2021 is notably lower than previous years due to the disruption to sexual health services during the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which reduced access to face-to-face appointments. Access to services subsequently recovered with the use of remote consultations and online testing expanding rapidly across the country.

We are considering the next steps needed to continue improving the sexual health of the whole population. The UK Health Security Agency is undertaking work with partner organisations to identify best use of existing and emerging interventions to address the increase in sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

The Department for Health and Social Care published the HIV Action Plan in 2021 which sets out the actions that we are taking over the period of 2022 to 2025 to move towards ending HIV transmissions, AIDS, and HIV-related deaths within England by 2030. As part of the plan, we are investing £4.5 million in our National HIV Prevention Programme, which annually runs National HIV Testing Week as well as summer campaigns. Their aim is to raise awareness of ways to prevent the spread of HIV and other STIs among the most affected communities, with a particular focus on young people and other at-risk populations.

The Department for Education is currently reviewing the relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) statutory guidance which includes reference to STI transmission, testing and prevention methods and is expected to soon launch a public consultation on the guidance. Following the consultation, they will make a decision about any new or revised content to be included in the RSHE curriculum, including the use of resources, and whether any further action would be appropriate.