Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of parents with (a) three and (a) four year old children used their entitlement to 15 hours of free childcare in Sutton Coldfield constituency in 2024.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The government wants all children, regardless of background, to have access to high quality early education and childcare. The Best Start in Life strategy sets out our plan to work with local authorities to increase take-up of the 15 hours of early education and childcare offer for two, three and four year-olds, ensuring low-income families, children with special educational needs and disabilities and children in care receive the early education they are entitled to. We will engage directly with local authorities where take-up is lowest, supporting families through Best Start Family Hubs to take up their funded hours, addressing local variation in performance and tracking data through the new Local Government Outcomes Framework.
Information on the number and proportion of eligible children registered for 15 hours of free childcare is available and published annually in the accredited official statistics release ‘Funded early education and childcare’, which can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/funded-early-education-and-childcare/2025. This has been available since 17 July 2025. Information on the local authority of the child is collected and published, but this information is not available at a constituency level.
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 help reduce the time taken to provide treatment for people with an eating disorder.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
In 2024/25, we provided £106 million in funding to children’s eating disorder services, an increase of £10 million over 2023/24. This increase is helping clinicians to support more young people.
Between April and June 2025, 3,138 children and young people successfully entered treatment in community eating disorder services. This is the highest figure on record since 2021. At the same time, waiting lists to begin routine eating disorder treatment have shortened by 20% from the year before and we are working with NHS England to meet the waiting time standards for eating disorder services for children and young people.
NHS England is currently seeking to expand the capacity of children’s community eating disorder services, to allow for crisis care and intensive home treatment. Improved care in the community will give young people early access to evidence-based treatment involving families and carers, improving outcomes and preventing relapse.
We have also committed to expanding mental health support teams to cover 100% of pupils in England by December 2030, aiding school staff in recognising eating disorders and providing early intervention for children at risk.
Early intervention is also a priority for adults with eating disorders, as set out in the community mental health framework. NHS England has established 15 provider collaboratives focusing on adult eating disorders, which are working to redesign care pathways and focus resources on community services.
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 support schools to recruit qualified Maths teachers in the West Midlands.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
High quality teaching is the most important in-school factor for improving children’s outcomes, which is why the department is committed to recruiting an additional 6,500 new expert teachers in our maintained schools and colleges, over the course of this Parliament.
The department’s measures to encourage talented trainees into mathematics teaching include bursaries worth £29,000 tax-free and scholarships worth £31,000 tax-free. Retaining these teachers is also key and for 2024/25 and 2025/26, we are offering retention payments worth up to £6,000 after tax for mathematics teachers working in disadvantaged schools in the first five years of their careers.
This investment is starting to deliver. In the West Midlands specifically, there has been a 20% increase in candidates accepting offers to teach mathematics compared to last year (4 percentage points higher than the total national mathematics increase) and an increase of 340 teachers (headcount) in secondary schools between 2023/24 and 2024/25.
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 support people with bladder and bowel control conditions in Sutton Coldfield constituency.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
An Adult Bladder and Bowel (Continence) service is delivered via Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (BCHC) offering appointments for all residents in Birmingham, including in Sutton Coldfield, with a clinic facility in North Locality based at Sutton Cottage Hospital. The service offers face-to-face and virtual consultations and supports the community nursing service with patients who meet the housebound criteria with complex needs around continence management, catheter care or bowel management.
The service treats adults who are experiencing bladder problems or bowel dysfunction, with all patients receiving a high-quality clinical assessment and personalised care plan in line with best practice, and national driven guidance.
There are a range of investigations, including vaginal pelvic floor assessment, bladder ultra-sound scan or rectal examination, that are available through the service that helps to determine the best course of treatment, based on individual patient needs. Treatment may include lifestyle advice or interventions, pelvic floor exercises, bladder re-training, medication, specialist care or signposting to other appropriate services. The service also offers specialist clinics for young adults aged between 18 and 19 years old transitioning from Children's Services working in partnership BCHC’s Children's and Families Division. The service can be accessed by referral via a patient’s general practitioner (GP).
Housebound patients, including patients with psychological illness which prevent them from accessing a clinic, or following a treatment programme, will initially need to be referred to a Community Nursing service for assessment and treatment by the patient’s GP.
BCHC is currently scoping the use of containment products and ensuring they align with National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidance recommendations. A consultation and engagement plan, quality impact and equality, human rights assessment will underpin any decisions on the future model.
The average patient waiting times for clinic appointments at Sutton Cottage is 10 weeks, but urgent referrals can be seen within two weeks.
GPs also can access secondary care specialist advice and e-refer a patient to University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust’s (UHB) specialist clinics for adults with incontinence, overactive bladder, stress urinary incontinence, or bladder pain.
As part of the system’s work to transform and standardise care, between October 2026 and March 2027, GPs across Birmingham and Solihull will start to have access to digital tools for clinical decision making and case management via online consulting rooms with UHB urology specialists to speed up and improve access in health and care.
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, when her Department will release funds that the UK committed this year to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization's project entitled The Financing For Shock-Driven Food Crisis Facility; and how much funding will be provided to the project.
Answered by Chris Elmore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The UK is committed to tackling extreme hunger and preventing famine globally. Whilst the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has not made a financial commitment to the Food and Agriculture Organization's new Facility, we have been supportive of its development, since its inception under the Italian 2024 G7 Presidency.
We are supportive of the aims of the Facility to make more finance available for tackling hunger crises and to ensure it reaches the most vulnerable and hardest hit ahead of, or quickly after, a disaster strikes. We finance anticipatory action through the UN, NGOs and others, and are spearheading international efforts to scale up Pre Arranged Finance.
Last year, we provided grants through the African Development Bank which supported 10 African countries to address drought and tropical cyclone insurance costs, protecting 7.5 million people against drought.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many Best Start Family Hubs are planned for the West Midlands.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Ensuring every child has the best start in life and the chance to achieve and to thrive are the foundation stones of the government’s Opportunity Mission.
The department will spend close to £1.5 billion over the next three years on improving family services and early years education to begin the hard work needed to deliver these changes.
We will fund Best Start Family Hubs in every local authority to ensure that children and families who need support the most, especially those from low-income backgrounds or with additional vulnerabilities, can access it. These hubs will be open to all families but will be located in disadvantaged communities where support is most needed.
Local authorities will identify family hub sites and the numbers of hubs and services delivered will vary depending on local needs.
The department will be providing guidance to local authorities in time to support service delivery from April 2026.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what discussions he has had with representatives of the hospitality industry on job losses in the West Midlands since the Autumn Budget 2024.
Answered by Blair McDougall - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Government recognises the vital role hospitality businesses play in driving employment and supporting local economies including in the West Midlands. We also understand the pressures they face. That’s why our Plan for Small Businesses delivers the most comprehensive support package in a generation, cutting red tape and increasing access to finance.
The Government intends to introduce permanently lower tax rates for RHL properties with rateable values below £500,000, from 2026-27. The Department for Business and Trade regularly engages with representatives from the hospitality sector, through the Hospitality Sector Council, to co-create solutions to the issues impacting business performance, including jobs and skills. In addition the Hospitality Fund is backing projects that will include addressing skills gaps in the sector and boosting productivity.
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 access to respite care for unpaid carers in Sutton Coldfield constituency.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government recognises the vital role of unpaid carers and is committed to ensuring they have the support they need.
The Care Act 2014 requires local authorities to deliver a wide range of sustainable, high-quality care and support services, which can include respite support for carers.
To help local authorities fulfil their duties, including to unpaid carers, the 2025 Spending Review allows for an increase of over £4 billion of funding available for adult social care in 2028/29 compared to 2025/26.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 28 July 2025 to Question 69007 on Stop and Search: West Midlands, whether the number of times stop and search powers were used under Serious Violence Reduction Orders in the West Midlands pilot will be published as part of the final independent evaluation of the scheme.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Serious Violence Reduction Orders (SVROs) were piloted for two years throughout Merseyside, Sussex, Thames Valley and West Midlands police force areas. The pilot took place between 19 April 2023 and 18 April 2025.
The SVRO pilot has been independently evaluated. The final evaluation report of the pilot, due shortly, will look at the effectiveness of SVROs overall, including the use of the SVRO stop and search power and the effectiveness of SVROs in reducing reoffending and knife carrying.
Further information on the evaluation report and its findings will be available in due course.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much funding she has allocated to expand (a) vocational and (b) technical training routes in the West Midlands.
Answered by Janet Daby
This government is making a substantial investment in skills, with £3 billion of additional funding across the Spending Review period, including an additional £1.2 billion a year by 2028/29.
This includes continuing to invest in apprenticeships and the growth and skills offer to meet priority skills gaps identified by Skills England and the needs of business.
This builds on previous rounds of 16-19 funding agreed for 2025/26 of over £400 million extra funding and making available additional funding of over £190 million in the 2025/26 financial year for the 2025/26 academic year.
The department will spend over £1.4 billion through the Adult Skills Fund (ASF) in the 2025/26 academic year. West Midlands Combined Authority’s devolved ASF budget for the 2024/25 academic year was £133.7 million.
We have also made £155 million available to support schools, colleges and local authorities with increased National Insurance contributions.
The recent Infrastructure Strategy confirmed almost £3 billion per year by 2034/35, rising from £2.4 billion in 2025/26, to improve the condition of the school and college estate.
This increased funding and investment for skills in England will help to boost the provision of vocational and technical education and training in all areas of the country, including the West Midlands.