Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to help increase the availability of childcare in Aldershot constituency.

Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

Giving children the best start in life is key to the government’s Opportunity Mission. Good parenting and high-quality early education provide the foundation for children to achieve and thrive. This government is determined to ensure that parents have access to high-quality, affordable and flexible early education and childcare.

The department is rolling out more government-funded childcare entitlements to help millions of families, working hand in hand with the early years sector to build a system that works for them, parents and above all, children. This includes delivering 3,000 new and expanded school-based nurseries to make high-quality childcare accessible and available. As a first step, primary schools can now apply for up to £150,000 of £15 million capital funding for nursery places to open from September 2025. High-quality, school-based nursery provision is popular with parents, especially families with multiple children. It can help schools upgrade spare space whilst also providing early support to children and families, supporting their transition into primary school. School-based nursery settings have proportionally higher qualified staff and see lower staff turnover, providing more consistency of care for children. Proportionally, school-based nurseries also look after more children with special educational needs and disabilities and offer a higher proportion of places in the most deprived areas.

In the 2024/2025 financial year, early years providers are set to benefit from over £2 billion extra investment compared to last year, to support the rollout of 30 hours of government-funded early education from next September, rising in 2027/28 to over £4.1 billion. As announced in the Autumn Budget 2024, the department expects to provide over £8 billion for the early years entitlements in 2025/2026, which is around a 30% increase compared to 2024/25, as we continue to deliver the expansion to eligible working parents of children aged from nine months. Departmental hourly funding rates for Hampshire have been confirmed at, for 3 to 4-year-olds: £5.98 for 2-year-olds: £8.32 and for under 2s: £11:30.

The planned September 2025 childcare rollout of 30 funded hours per week will go ahead, but there will be challenges including providers securing enough staff and places to meet demand, with the capacity needed varying across the country. The department is supporting the sector to attract talented staff and childminders to join the workforce by creating conditions for improved recruitment. The department is urging the public to ‘do something BIG’ and start a career working with small children through our national recruitment campaign. Our dedicated website also helps people find out more about gaining qualifications and search for existing job vacancies.

Skills Bootcamps for the early years are available and lead to an accelerated apprenticeship, and we are funding Early Years Initial Teacher Training as a route for new and existing staff to gain Early Years Teacher Status. To support childminders to join and stay in the profession, the department has implemented new flexibilities to work with more people and spend more time working from non-domestic premises.

The department is working closely with local areas and the early years sector to do everything we can to ensure there are enough places and the sector has the workforce it needs to provide those places and to bridge local gaps ahead of September 2025.

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to help (a) farmers and (b) food producers use sustainable farming methods in Aldershot constituency.

Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

This Government’s commitment to farmers and food producers remains steadfast. We will always champion British farming to boost rural economic growth, strengthen food security and improve the environment.

Defra has allocated £5 billion for the farming budget over two years. This will include the largest ever budget directed at sustainable food production and nature’s recovery in our country’s history: £1.8 billion for environmental land management schemes. This enables us to keep momentum on the path to a more resilient and sustainable farming sector, with the Sustainable Farming Incentive, Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier and Landscape Recovery all continuing. This funding will deliver improvements to food security as well as the environment, in the Aldershot constituency and across the country.

Publicly funded research and innovation, including investments under the Farming Innovation Programme, an innovation programme which aims to drive up productivity and enhance environmental sustainability, is enabling us to adapt to climate change more effectively, while improving levels of food security.

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent steps he has taken to help tackle illegal waste in Aldershot constituency.

Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

The Government is committed to tackling waste crime, which is a blight on our local communities and the environment and damages legitimate businesses. My department is considering what further measures to pursue to tackle waste crime, including regulatory reform.

The Environment Agency assesses all reports of suspected waste crime. All information and any intelligence is recorded and used to target resources where the offending poses the greatest risk and harm to people and the environment. The Environment Agency do not currently have any active high risk illegal waste sites recorded in the Aldershot constituency. Due to concerns about ongoing criminal activity in the area, a number of vulnerable landowners in the constituency have been contacted proactively to reduce the risk of thousands of tonnes of waste being illegally deposited on their land. Waste crime is borderless, those carrying waste have been stopped on multi-agency days of action in Hampshire and neighbouring Surrey to ensure they are compliant with the law.

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment her Department has made of the potential implications for her policies of trends in the number of people living in overcrowded housing in Aldershot constituency.

Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)

The Department does not collect data on overcrowding at a constituency level. The government’s Plan for Change milestone of building 1.5 million new homes in this Parliament will help tackle overcrowding across the country.

Found: Watch the meeting Members present: Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Chair); Mr Calvin Bailey; Alex Baker;

Found: Watch the meeting Members present: Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Chair); Mr Calvin Bailey; Alex Baker;

Found: Watch the meeting Members present: Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Chair); Mr Calvin Bailey; Alex Baker;

Found: Watch the meeting Members present: Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Chair); Mr Calvin Bailey; Alex Baker;

Found: Watch the meeting Members present: Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Chair); Mr Calvin Bailey; Alex Baker;

Found: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour; Slough) (Chair) Mr Calvin Bailey (Labour; Leyton and Wanstead) Alex Baker

Found: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour; Slough) (Chair) Mr Calvin Bailey (Labour; Leyton and Wanstead) Alex Baker

Found: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour; Slough) (Chair) Mr Calvin Bailey (Labour; Leyton and Wanstead) Alex Baker

Found: Watch the meeting Members present: Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Chair); Mr Calvin Bailey; Alex Baker;