Andrew Gwynne

Threatening or abusive behaviour can amount to an offence under the Public Order Act 1986. To establish whether defendants charged with Public Order Act offences committed these offences against the foster carers of their children would require a manual review of case files and this would be at disproportionate cost.

Management information is held showing the number of offences charged by way of Section 4 (fear or provocation of violence), Section 4A (intentional harassment, alarm or distress) and Section 5 (harassment, alarm or distress) in which a prosecution commenced during the period from 1st May 2024 to 31st December 2024. The table below shows the number of these offences during that period.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) does not hold any data which shows the number of defendants prosecuted and convicted for offences created by the Public Order Act 1986.

The figures relate to the number of offences and not the number of individual defendants. It can be the case that an individual defendant is charged with more than one offence against the same complainant. No data is held showing the final outcome or if the charged offence was the substantive charge at finalisation.

There is no offence of inappropriate behaviour.

I recognise the vital role that Kinship Carers play in caring for vulnerable children, and the need to support Kinship Carers in the workplace.

As part of our broader commitment to working families, we are conducting a comprehensive review of the parental leave system. Planning work is underway.

The Employment Rights Bill is also making Parental Leave a day one right. This will help kinship carers who have parental responsibility, for example, through a legal guardianship order.

On 24^th of April 2025, the HyNet Carbon Capture and Storage transport and storage network (Liverpool Bay CCS) which spans Northwest England and Wales, announced financial close, with a substantial pipeline of projects lining up to join the network. Along with the East Coast Cluster, these networks of green industry, backed by £21.7 billion in funding, will deliver thousands of jobs, billions of investment, and enable clean homegrown energy for years to come. Equally in 2024, the Stakehill Industrial Estate was granted £612,376 in support under the Local Industrial Decarbonisation Plan (LIDP) scheme, to develop a decarbonisation plan that includes the adoption of green technologies, energy efficiency upgrades and infrastructure solutions.

The North West has unique industrial and scientific strengths that the government is committed to continue to grow as part of our ambition to drive the development of high-potential science and technology clusters across the UK.

Between the financial years 2021/22 and 2023/24 UK Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) annual investment in the North West rose from £671 million to £903 million. UKRI’s investments have supported key industrial research projects in the region including the Medicine Discovery Catapult, pioneering the next generation of complex medicines through the development of cutting-edge technologies and assay.

The government is committed to protecting record levels of R&D investment, having allocated £20.4 billion for the 2025/26 financial year. This substantial funding underpins a broad spectrum of scientific research and innovation, supporting areas such as energy, life sciences, and advanced materials.

In April 2025, DSIT confirmed UKRI’s allocation for 2025-26 of £8.8bn, this will support investments in the North West across these important scientific fields including the Henry Royce Institute – the UK National Institute for advanced materials research and innovation. The hub for the institute is at The University of Manchester, with University of Liverpool also a partner.

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology coordinates media literacy activity across government, aiming to embed media literacy in cross-cutting strategies.

Government is adopting a holistic approach to digital inclusion, integrating related policy on digital skills and media literacy. The Digital Inclusion Action Plan outlines steps towards delivering digital inclusion for everyone in the UK, including supporting community initiatives to boost digital skills and media literacy.

Under updated media literacy duties, Ofcom is also developing a ‘place-based’ model to embed media literacy into community digital strategies, working with the Good Things Foundation to support Digital Inclusion Hubs with media literacy.

Under the Online Safety Act, companies must remove illegal health mis- and disinformation content if they become aware of it on their services. This includes content amounting to the False Communications offence, capturing communications where the sender knows information to be false but sends it intending to cause significant harm: such as encouraging drinking bleach to cure flu. If a service is likely to be accessed by children, it will have to protect them from encountering harmful health mis- and disinformation.

The Act will also require large platforms to remove health misinformation if it’s prohibited in their terms of service.

The government announced a £40 million package to trial a new kinship allowance, which will begin in autumn 2025. We will evaluate the pilot to build an evidence base on how best to deliver financial support for kinship families.

Through the Children’s Wellbeing and School’s Bill, we are enshrining the first definition of kinship care in law and mandating local authorities to publish their kinship local offer, increasing their accountability for ensuring all kinship families are getting the information they need.

As set out in statutory guidance, local authorities must publish the support and services available to kinship families in a clear, accessible way. This includes the legal support that may be available to kinship carers and potential kinship carers, including the eligibility and extent of that support.

The government also created the National Kinship Care Ambassador role to advocate for kinship families. The appointee, Jahnine Davis, works with local authorities to help them improve their kinship practice and local policies and ensure they are following national guidance.

The department funds the charity ‘Kinship’ to deliver over 140 peer support groups and a training package that all kinship carers across England can access for free.

This government is committed to breaking down barriers to opportunity and tackling child poverty. We have now announced that we are extending free school meals to all children from households in receipt of Universal Credit from September 2026. It will lift 100,000 children across England out of poverty and put £500 back in families’ pockets, supporting parents in decisive action to improve lives ahead of the Child Poverty Strategy coming later this year.

Providing over half a million additional children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds with a free, nutritious lunchtime meal every school day will also lead to higher attainment, improved behaviour and better outcomes, meaning children get the best possible education and chance to succeed in work and life.

It is important that these meals follow the latest nutritional guidance. We are currently engaging with stakeholders on revising the School Food Standards, to ensure they support our work to create the healthiest generation of children in history.

Since its launch, 903 users have engaged with the ‘A whole-school approach to food’ e-learning module.

The department receives evaluation data of the training from post-completion user-assessments. 99% of users said they were satisfied with the module and 87% of users felt their knowledge had increased as a result of completing the training.

The government’s Plan for Change sets out a commitment to give children the best start in life. Low income families, children with education, health and care plans and looked after children are eligible for 15 hours funded early education from age 2. In addition, eligible disadvantaged children can get early years pupil premium (EYPP). This additional funding supports the delivery of high-quality early education improving disadvantaged children’s outcomes. In December 2024, we announced an unprecedented 45% increase to EYPP.

School-based nurseries are a key part of this government’s Opportunity Mission. We have awarded 300 primary schools £37 million to repurpose spare space for new or expanded nursery provision, which will be opening from September 2025.

In addition, from September 2026, every pupil whose household is in receipt of Universal Credit will be entitled to free school meals.

This means that over half a million children from the most disadvantaged households will become eligible for a free nutritious lunchtime meal every school day. This will lift 100,000 children across England out of poverty and put £500 a year per child back in parents’ pockets to support parents in decisive action to improve lives ahead of the Child Poverty Strategy coming later this year.

We are also investing an additional £126 million in 2025/26 to build up the Family Hubs and Start for Life programme. The 75 local authorities on the programme have already opened more than 400 family hubs in some of the most deprived areas in the country.

Tackling child poverty is at the heart of the government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and improve the life chances for every child. For too many children, living in poverty robs them of the opportunity to learn and prosper.

The Child Poverty Taskforce, which is co-chaired by my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, and my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, is exploring all available levers to drive forward action across government to reduce child poverty. More detail on the approach and priorities for the strategy is set out in the publication ‘Tackling Child Poverty: Developing our Strategy’, which was published on 23 October and can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/tackling-child-poverty-developing-our-strategy.

The department is already taking steps to reduce the cost of living through action on the high cost of branded school uniforms and commitment to roll out free breakfast clubs for primary school-aged children from the start of this summer term. The government has also extended the Household Support Fund.

In his first week, the Secretary of State announced a series of initial steps, which will improve environmental management and protections, also introducing the Water Act 2025 and launching the Independent Water Commision already producing its interim findings to help restore our rivers, lakes and seas to good health.

Within the Gorton and Denton constituency there are five surface water bodies. The main pressures to achieving good status are urbanisation, sewage discharge, industrial or transport discharge, and physical modification of the channel. Specific chemical pollutants such as mercury, PBDEs and the “forever chemical” PFOS are also key concerns.

In accordance with the Water Framework Directive, all five water bodies have mitigation measures to improve their ecological and chemical status and address specific chemical pollutants.

Since 1 January 2025, water companies are required to publish data related to discharges from all storm overflows within one hour of the discharge beginning. The Secretary of State has authorised Ofwat to carry out enforcement action for this duty, in accordance with the powers conferred under sections 18 and 141DA (4) of the Water Industry Act 1991.

Ofwat is currently developing guidance, which it will publish in due course, to ensure water companies are meeting this duty. In addition to this, the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025 will introduce a matching duty for water companies to publish data related to discharges from all emergency overflows within one hour of the discharge beginning. Once commenced, this duty will be enforced in the same way, further enhancing our monitoring of the storm overflow network and increasing transparency.

Furthermore, the Water (Special Measures) Act will drive meaningful improvements in the performance and culture of the water industry as a first important step in enabling wider, transformative change across the water sector. This includes powers for Ofwat to set rules on remuneration and governance, and financial reporting, and new powers for the Environment Agency (EA) to impose automatic penalties, and penalties to the lower, civil standard of proof.

Tackling marine litter and plastic pollution is a priority for the UK Government, which is why we are working domestically and internationally to implement measures that will prevent macro-sized plastic litter which are sources of microplastics from reaching rivers, seas and the ocean in the first place.

As part of a historic £104 billion of investment by water companies in England and Wales in Price Review 2024 (PR24), which runs from 2025–2030, United Utilities is required to improve sewage discharges within the Lake Windermere catchment. This includes reducing how often storm overflows discharge from Ambleside Waste water Treatment Works (WwTW), Elterwater Pumping Station (PS), Hawkshead PS and Near Sawrey WwTW. United Utilities will also be improving over 100 storm overflows across the river catchments of the Tame, Mersey, Roch, Croal, Irwell, Glaze and Douglas within Greater Manchester as progress towards meeting environmental targets, including those of the Environment Act 2021.

These improvements will help to reduce discharges of raw sewage which can contain organic pollutants, microplastics, pharmaceuticals, nutrients, and heavy metals, as well as visible litter that is flushed down toilets.

We are also taking forward investigations through the water industry’s Chemical Investigations Programme, to understand how we can reduce the levels of microplastics entering the water environment through treated wastewater. Microplastics have been recognised as a significant standalone issue and the water industry are funding six further investigations between 2025 and 2030.

The Department has no plans currently to make an assessment of the potential impact of improving infrastructure surrounding Manchester Airport and the Port of Liverpool on levels of trade through recent international trade deals and foreign direct investment in those areas.

The Department for Transport welcomes recent investment into Manchester Airport’s terminals and the Port of Liverpool.

The Government is actively considering improvements between Liverpool and Manchester, starting with options to lengthen trains in the near term, modernise the route via Warrington and the potential provision of new trains as part of the Transpennine Route Upgrade.

As announced in the Autumn 2024 budget, we are maintaining momentum on Northern Powerhouse Rail by progressing planning and design works to support future delivery. We intend to set out more details in due course.

The Department has made no assessment of the potential impact of the capacity and adequacy of infrastructure supporting Manchester Airport, the Port of Liverpool, and the rail connections between them on the negotiation of recent trade deals.

The Department welcomes recent investment into Manchester Airport’s terminals and the Port of Liverpool. We would welcome further infrastructure that supports connectivity between the two sites, in as far as any scheme is delivered in line with the UK’s legal, climate and environmental obligations.

The Government recommends that masterplans and surface access strategies are updated every five years, and we work closely with all airports, including Manchester Airport, as they develop and update their plans.

It is the responsibility of airports to work closely with local stakeholders to develop masterplans and surface access strategies to improve airport access, noting that improvements to airport surface access are generally funded by the airport themselves.

The Government is actively considering improvements between Liverpool and Manchester, starting with options to lengthen trains in the near term, modernise the route via Warrington and the potential provision of new trains as part of the Transpennine Route Upgrade.

As announced in the Autumn 2024 budget, we are maintaining momentum on Northern Powerhouse Rail by progressing planning and design works to support future delivery. We intend to set out more details in due course.

The Get Britain Working White Paper set out the biggest reforms to employment support for a generation to support our ambition to achieve an 80% employment rate and reduce regional disparities. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will shift from being a department for employment support and welfare to being a department for work. This means introducing reforms to achieve a new, locally led system of work and health support being available for those who are unemployed and economically inactive, no matter where they live.

To support this, we have asked every area in England to develop a local Get Britain Working plan. These plans will help to join up new support and enable local areas to develop a system wide approach to tackling their needs in partnership with key local stakeholders including Integrated Care Boards and Jobcentre Plus.

At a national level our policies will be assessed against our Get Britain Working outcomes which includes local variation in employment rates. DWP will provide an annual update outlining recent trends in these metrics, with the first update coming later this year.

The long-term evaluations of Sure Start show large-scale, holistic interventions can be effective in improving children’s health, reducing hospitalisations, and delivering positive impacts on long-term health and development outcomes.

The Family Hubs and Start for Life programme builds on lessons learned from Sure Start about the benefits of integrated, multi-agency workforce and place-based support to improve baby and child health outcomes. The programme places health services at the heart of support for families, particularly for babies, from conception to the age of two years old.

The Family Hubs and Start for Life programme is being extended in 2025/26, with £126 million being made available for families to deliver on the Plan for Change and to give every child the best start in life.

The Government does not hold the data requested. It is a legal and ethical principle that valid consent must be obtained before starting personal care, treatment, or investigations. This reflects the rights of individuals to decide what happens to their own bodies, as consent is a fundamental principle of good healthcare and professional practice. For infants and young children not competent to give or withhold consent, consent can be given by a person with parental responsibility. By law, healthcare professionals only need one person with parental responsibility to give consent for them to provide treatment. We do, however, recognise that too many babies, children, and young people are not receiving the support and care they deserve. We know that waiting times for services are far too long and we are determined to change that. The Government is committed to creating the healthiest generation of children ever, including children in care. The Government is adopting a mission-based approach and will deliver this ambition through the Health and Opportunity Missions, and through the 10-Year Plan for the National Health Service.

The core and specialist training for children living with kinship carers is the same as for all children in care. The Government does not have plans to implement specialised training at present.

The Government recognises the important role that kinship carers play in caring for some of the most vulnerable children. We are determined to give every child the opportunities they deserve, and kinship carers have a crucial role to play. The Government knows that many children who receive care from relatives and friends need extra support in the health system. Kinship carers often take on this role at a time when they were least expecting to raise a family, and we recognise the challenges they face.

Life expectancy differs dramatically between and within communities, and people living in the most deprived areas are more likely to die earlier and spend more years in ill health than those living in the least deprived areas.

Tackling health inequalities is central to our Health Mission, which is why the Government has committed to halving the healthy life expectancy gap between the richest and poorest regions. We are taking a cross-Government mission-led approach to tackle the root causes of health inequalities, addressing the adverse social determinants of health which contribute to poorer outcomes.

Addressing healthcare inequity is a core focus of the Government’s 10-Year Health Plan, to ensure the National Health Service is there for anyone who needs it, whenever they need it. We have established 11 working groups to take forward policy development that will feed into the plan. This includes working groups focused on how care should be designed and delivered to improve healthcare equity, alongside ensuring that access to healthcare services is effective and responsive.

We are committed to improving care and support for people with myalgic encephalomyelitis, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). We recognise how devastating the symptoms can be, and the significant impact they can have on patients and their families.

As such, the ME/CFS final delivery plan focuses on ME/CFS only, and will not cover advice or the provision of services for related conditions, although some of the content may be applicable or relevant to other conditions that cause fatigue.