Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment he has made of trends in the level of unemployment in Sutton Coldfield constituency.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The information requested is published and available at:
https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/default.asp
Guidance for users can be found at:
https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/home/newuser.asp
The estimated unemployment levels can be found by selecting “Query data” on the NOMIS home page and selecting “Annual Population Survey/Labour Force Survey” and then “annual population survey (Dec 2004 to Jun 2025)” in the lists of data sources. The Geography will need to be set for the relevant Westminster constituency from the menu, and the Variable set to “Unemployment rate - aged 16+” from the “Key variables” list.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what support his Department is providing to NHS trusts to increase (a) crisis support services in the local community (b) mental health inpatient beds in the West Midlands.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Local integrated care boards are responsible for commissioning National Health Service mental health crisis services and mental health inpatient beds to meet the needs of people across the West Midlands.
Nationally, progress has been achieved in building more robust crisis care pathways across all ages and in all regions, ensuring that people in a mental health crisis can receive the right care. This includes the introduction of the ‘mental health’ option for NHS 111 and the opening of new mental health crisis centres to provide accessible and responsive care for individuals in a mental health crisis.
The 10-Year Health Plan sets out our ambitions to go further by developing up to 85 dedicated mental health emergency departments so that patients get fast, same-day access to specialist support in an appropriate setting. This expansion builds on a number of early implementer sites that have been established in recent years by local health systems to provide a dedicated therapeutic alternative to emergency departments for individuals in a mental health crisis.
The plan also sets out our plans to transform mental health services to improve access and treatment, and to promote good mental health and wellbeing for the nation. This includes improving assertive outreach, investing in neighbourhood mental health centres, and increasing access to talking therapies and evidence-based digital interventions.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps she is taking to promote (a) Sutton Coldfield (b) the West Midlands as destinations for British holidaymakers.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
DCMS recognises the contribution of the West Midlands, and the constituency of Sutton Coldfield, to the visitor economy. The region's attractions, from Sutton Park to the Black Country Living Museum, and its reputation in hosting major events, including the upcoming 2026 European Athletics Championships, all contribute to local job creation and economic growth.
Screen tourism is also a powerful driver of the West Midlands' visitor economy, with major global hits such as Peaky Blinders providing invaluable global marketing for the destinations. To tap in to screen tourism, and drive more inbound visits across Britain, VisitBritain launched a global screen tourism campaign ‘’Starring Great Britain’’ in January 2025. The campaign uses the country's rich film and television history as a hook to inspire visitors to explore diverse and often rural destinations. The launch was supported by a wider advertising campaign across the UK’s largest and most valuable inbound visitor markets including Australia, the Gulf Co-operation Council countries, France, Germany and the USA.
The West Midlands is also represented in the joint industry and Government-led Visitor Economy Advisory Council, through membership of the Mayor of the West Midlands Combined Authority and the Chief Executive of the West Midlands Growth Company. In this way the views of the West Midlands help to inform and shape Government policy and the forthcoming sector growth plan which will set out a long term plan to increase visitor flows across the UK, boost value, and deliver sustainable growth. I work closely with the Mayor of the West Midlands and recently met with them to discuss tourism.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the value for money of the contract to house asylum seekers in the Ramada hotel in Sutton Coldfield constituency.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
For the safety and security of those we accommodate and our staff, the Home Office does not comment publicly on sites which may or may not be utilised to accommodate asylum seekers.
This Government recognises that hotels are not a sustainable or cost-effective solution for accommodating asylum seekers and remains committed to ending their use, already reducing the number in operation. We do not provide a running commentary on hotel numbers, our objective is to close all asylum hotels by the end of this Parliament, reducing costs to the taxpayer and restoring control to local communities.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether a date has been set for her planned international summit on future of aid; and when she plans to announce her objectives for that summit.
Answered by Chris Elmore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Government continues to work with our partners overseas and international organisations to support sustainable development across the world. We have set out intentions to host a Conference on the Future of Development in collaboration with partners and will set out details in due course.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of nursery availability on parents' ability to return to work in Sutton Coldfield constituency.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
It is our ambition that all families have access to high quality, affordable and flexible early education and care, giving every child the best start in life and delivering on our Plan for Change. In 2025/26, we plan to provide over £8 billion for the early years entitlements, which is an additional £2 billion compared to 2024/25, saving eligible families who use their full entitlement £7,500 a year on average.
The government will provide an additional £1.6 billion per year by 2028/29, compared to 2025/26, to continue the expansion of government-funded childcare for working parents.
We have announced over £400 million of funding to create tens of thousands of places in new and expanded school-based nurseries to help ensure more children can access the quality early education where it is needed and get the best start in life. The first phase of the programme is creating up to 6,000 new nursery places, with schools reporting over 5,000 have been made available in September 2025.
The department has regular contact with each local authority in England about their sufficiency of childcare and any issues they are facing. Where local authorities report sufficiency challenges, we discuss what action they are taking to address those issues and, where needed, support the local authority with any specific requirements through our childcare sufficiency support contract.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
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 improve the health outcomes of veterans in the West Midlands.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
As well as being able to access all National Health Services across the United Kingdom, NHS England has introduced several bespoke services to improve the healthcare support available to veterans. These are: Op RESTORE which supports veterans with service-related physical health problems; Op COURAGE which supports veterans with a mental health pathway; and Op NOVA which supports veterans in the justice system.
In addition, the veteran-aware trust and the veteran-friendly accreditation schemes raise awareness amongst healthcare professionals of the specific needs of veterans. These schemes provide support to ensure appropriate signposting and referrals to relevant veteran and wider services within the NHS. All trusts in the West Midlands have been accredited as veteran aware and all primary care networks in the West Midlands have at least one accredited practice.
In May 2025, a national training and education plan was announced to help veterans benefit from improved and targeted healthcare. NHS staff across England will receive dedicated training to help them identify and support patients with military backgrounds. This will be rolled out across the NHS from November 2025.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to reduce incidences of gun crime in (a) the Birmingham City Council area and (b) Sutton Coldfield.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government recognises the significant and long-lasting impact that incidents of gun crime can have both on victims and within the local community. That is why we are work with the police and the National Crime Agency (NCA) to tackle the trafficking and misuse of firearms by criminals to preserve public safety. The recent shooting in Sutton Coldfield is the subject of an ongoing investigation, but we will not hesitate to take further action if found to be necessary.
We are committed to delivering the Safer Streets mission to create a safer, fairer country for all. Incidents of gun crime are relatively rare in this country. The number of firearms offences has fallen by 16% in the 12 months to June 2025 to 5,053 offences, which is the lowest since 2015. Working with the police and the NCA, we are committed to ensuring that we have the right laws, intelligence, detection and enforcement capabilities to tackle the threat posed by the unlawful possession of firearms.
This includes recent and ongoing multi-agency action to target the importation and supply of imitation firearms that can be readily converted by criminals to fire live ammunition, which has seen significant numbers of these guns removed from circulation, helping to ensure the safety of all of our communities, including in the West Midlands.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help support the retention of (a) primary and (b) secondary school teachers in Sutton Coldfield constituency.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
This government is committed to re-establishing teaching as an attractive profession, which is why the department announced a 4% pay award for teachers and leaders in maintained schools from September 2025, on top of a 5.5% pay award for 2024/25, resulting in a near 10% pay award since this government came to power.
The department also announced targeted retention payments worth up to £6,000, with eligible teachers of chemistry, computing, mathematics and physics in The Royal Sutton School in Sutton Coldfield constituency qualifying for these.
To further boost retention, the department worked with the sector to develop the ‘Improve workload and wellbeing for school staff’ service, which contains a range of supportive resources for schools to review and reduce workload, and improve staff wellbeing.
The education staff wellbeing charter, which sets out commitments from government, schools and colleges to improve staff wellbeing and workload, has over 4,200 signatories, including two schools in Sutton Coldfield.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, pursuant to the Answers of 20 October 2025 to Questions (a) 81257 on Chagos Islands: Sovereignty and (b) 81258 on St Helena: British Nationals Abroad, what steps she is taking to implement (i) the commitment that entitled pensioners residing in St Helena receive unfrozen benefits from April and (ii) other provisions in the British Indian Ocean Territory Partnership Agreement, signed in October 2024.
Answered by Stephen Doughty - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) is working together with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to address the complex considerations concerning the unfreezing of pensions for St Helena. I have recently met ministerial colleagues to discuss this issue again, and look forward to meeting the new Chief Minister soon to update them. We will update on progress in the usual way in due course.