Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the trend in patients waiting over 4 hours for admission transfer and discharge in emergency departments in the NHS Birmingham And Solihull Integrated Care Board area.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

No such assessment has been made.

NHS England publishes data on the number of patients admitted, transferred, or discharged within four hours in accident and emergency departments on a monthly basis. The information is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/ae-waiting-times-and-activity/ae-attendances-and-emergency-admissions-2025-26/

The following table shows the four-hour performance in each quarter since 2017 for the NHS Birmingham and Solihull Integrated Care Board (ICB):

Note: the provisional data for the financial year 2025/26 is not yet fully available and doesn’t include February and March data.

Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what recent steps his Department has taken to ensure energy security in Sutton Coldfield constituency.

Answered by Michael Shanks - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)

The Government is strengthening energy security by reducing dependency on volatile global fossil fuel markets and delivering a diverse, secure and clean energy system based on renewables and nuclear, backed up by a strategic reserve of gas supply to be used only when essential, which will benefit the country and the Hon. Member’s constituency.

For further detail I refer the Rt hon. Member to the answer I gave on 2 March to Question UIN 113858.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to help ensure eligible men take up prostate cancer screening in Sutton Coldfield constituency.

Answered by Sharon Hodgson - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

There is currently no national prostate cancer screening programme. The UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC) is an independent scientific advisory committee which advises ministers and the National Health Service in all four countries on all aspects of population and targeted screening and supports implementation. They recently closed a consultation on their draft recommendation to:

• offer a targeted national prostate cancer screening programme to men with confirmed BRCA1/2 gene variants every two years, from 45 years old to 61 years old;
• not recommend population screening;
• not recommend targeted screening of black men;
• not recommend targeted screening of men with family history; and
• collaborate with the Transform trial team to answer outstanding questions on screening effectiveness for black men and men with a family history as soon as the trial data becomes available, and to await the results of the study to develop and trial a more accurate test than the prostate specific antigen test alone, to improve the balance of benefit and harm of screening.

The evidence that supports this draft recommendation can be found on the UK NSC prostate cancer recommendation page, at the following link:

https://nationalscreening.blog.gov.uk/2025/11/28/uk-nsc-opens-consultation-on-draft-prostate-cancer-screening-recommendation/

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to increase the number of apprenticeships in the West Midlands.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

This government is transforming the apprenticeships levy into a new growth and skills levy, which will deliver greater flexibility to employers and more opportunities for young people and support the industrial strategy across the country, including in the West Midlands.

In August 2025, we introduced new foundation apprenticeships to give young people a route into careers in critical sectors, enabling them to earn a wage while developing vital skills. They are underpinned by additional funding for employers of up to £2,000 to contribute to the extra costs of supporting someone at the beginning of their career.

We are investing an additional £725 million to deliver the next phase of the growth and skills levy and meet our ambition to support 50,000 more young people into apprenticeships. We will expand foundation apprenticeships into sectors that traditionally recruit young people, launch a pilot with Mayoral Strategic Authorities to better connect young people to local apprenticeship opportunities, and fully fund SME apprenticeships for eligible 16–24-year-olds from the next academic year.

From April 2026, employers will also be able to access short, flexible training courses to help respond quickly to evolving skills needs. The first wave of these courses will be called apprenticeship units and they will be available in critical skills areas such as artificial intelligence, digital and engineering.

The government also facilitates and funds the Apprenticeship Ambassador Network (AAN) which comprises 2,500 employers and apprentices who volunteer to promote the benefits of apprenticeships. It operates across all parts of England, including the West Midlands, through nine regional networks which provide buddying and mentoring support to small businesses to help them recruit and retain apprentices.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to support schools to recruit qualified modern languages teachers in the West Midlands.

Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)

High quality teaching is the in-school factor that has the biggest positive impact on a child’s outcomes. This is why the government’s Plan for Change is committed to recruiting an additional 6,500 new expert teachers across secondary and special schools, and our colleges, over the course of this Parliament.

The department is offering £20,000 tax-free bursaries for modern foreign language (MFL) trainees, including international as well as domestic trainees. In addition, we are continuing to offer a prestigious scholarship worth £22,000 tax-free for French, German and Spanish trainees.

Our future school teacher pipeline is growing. Although this government inherited a system with critical shortages of MFL teachers, with the department achieving only 32% of its postgraduate initial teacher training target in 2023/24, this year we have achieved 94% of the target with 1,378 new trainees beginning their postgraduate training in MFL.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to work with NHS Birmingham and Solihull ICB to help reduce the number of patients that are waiting an extended period for podiatry services.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

We have set a clear target for systems to work to reduce long waits in NHS England’s Medium Term Planning Framework. By 2028/29 at least 80% of community health service activity, including podiatry, should take place within 18 weeks. In addition, in 2025 we published Standardising Community Health Services, which provides an overview of the core community health services, with further detail published in February 2026.

The NHS Birmingham and Solihull Integrated Care Board (ICB) is responsible for commissioning podiatry services across Birmingham and Solihull. Services are provided by the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust and the Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust.

The Birmingham and Solihull ICB is working closely with both providers to address these challenges and reduce waiting times through a coordinated programme of improvements. Key actions across the system include:

- improving access and pathways, by reviewing and refining referral pathways to ensure patients are directed to the most appropriate service first time, reducing unnecessary demand and delays;

- service redesign, by developing more sustainable models of care that better reflect current demand and levels of clinical complexity, including opportunities to deliver care in alternative settings;

- workforce development and productivity, by expanding workforce capacity through apprenticeships and upskilling, optimising skill mix, and improving productivity through better use of support roles and streamlined clinic processes; and

- operational improvements, by reducing non-attendance rates, improving clinic utilisation, and strengthening performance monitoring to support timely intervention where pressures emerge.

Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps she is taking to support tech start-up companies to scale up in the Midlands.

Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)

This Government is committed to removing barriers to growth for scaleups across the UK - ensuring the UK is one of the best places for tech to start, scale and stay.

We are strengthening regional tech ecosystems through the Regional Tech Booster, a programme supporting startups and accelerating tech clusters beyond London. Furthermore, £50 million funding has been earmarked to the West Midlands through the Local Innovation Partnerships Fund – our £500 million programme to grow regional innovation strengths. Regions across the UK, including the other Midlands regions, were able to bid for up to £20 million through the fund’s competition. UKRI are now independently assessing the quality of these bids.

More broadly, we are supporting the sector through venture capital schemes, R&D tax reliefs, targeted visa routes, the AI Opportunities Action Plan and streamlining regulation to support innovation. Through the Budget, we are investing in skills, compute, and designated AI Growth Zones; on R&D, we are committing £38.6bn to UKRI over five years; and powering entrepreneurship with the Entrepreneurship Prospectus, Enterprise Fellowships, and Innovate UK’s £130m Growth Catalyst. We are unlocking finance via pension and capital‑markets reforms, while the British Business Bank increases annual investment to £2.5bn and commits £5bn to growth‑stage funds.

Together, these measures set out a comprehensive, long‑term plan backed by record funding, to support growth across the whole UK.

Found: Draft order in council for the Overseas Territories UK Parliament debate in 2018 In 2018 Andrew Mitchell