Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she will take to ensure children with Developmental Language Disorder are adequately supported following upcoming reforms to the SEND system.

Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)

The department’s special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) reforms are ensuring every child gets the right support at the right time. This includes all of those with speech, language and communication needs (SLCN), including Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). We regularly engage with organisations who represent children with SLCN, including DLD, such as Speech and Language UK who are a member of our Complex Needs Group.

​Speech and language therapists (SaLTs) break down communication barriers, but too often, children and young people with SEND wait too long for this support.

​As part of our new £1.8 billion investment, schools will be able to access support from professionals such as SaLTs through the Experts at Hand offer. They will work directly with school staff to equip them with skills and strategies to better meet need.

​We are also investing £15 million to establish new SaLT advanced practitioners in every integrated care board area to support more SaLTs to work with educational settings, upskill speech and language support workers, and promote the SaLT apprenticeship route.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether children with Developmental Language Disorder were considered when writing the policy paper entitled SEND reform: putting children and young people first.

Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)

The department’s special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) reforms are ensuring every child gets the right support at the right time. This includes all of those with speech, language and communication needs (SLCN), including Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). We regularly engage with organisations who represent children with SLCN, including DLD, such as Speech and Language UK who are a member of our Complex Needs Group.

​Speech and language therapists (SaLTs) break down communication barriers, but too often, children and young people with SEND wait too long for this support.

​As part of our new £1.8 billion investment, schools will be able to access support from professionals such as SaLTs through the Experts at Hand offer. They will work directly with school staff to equip them with skills and strategies to better meet need.

​We are also investing £15 million to establish new SaLT advanced practitioners in every integrated care board area to support more SaLTs to work with educational settings, upskill speech and language support workers, and promote the SaLT apprenticeship route.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of the criminal liability framework applicable in cases where (a) autonomous and (b) connected vehicles cause (i) death and (ii) serious injury.

Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

With regard to autonomous vehicles, the Department has undertaken significant work to establish a revised liability framework, as enacted by the Automated Vehicles Act 2024. This Act follows the recommendations of the Law Commissions in 2024 that new legal entities be required to take liability when a vehicle is driving itself. These legal entities and their senior managers will be under a duty of candour requiring honest and transparent disclosures to Government, with failure to comply with this duty constituting a criminal offence (which may be aggravated in the case of death or serious injury).

This approach underpins the regime set out in the Automated Vehicles Act 2024 and consequent regulations. The Department is currently considering responses to the “Developing the Automated Vehicles Regulatory Framework” Call for Evidence, which relates to these regulations.

The facility to communicate beyond the vehicle, as connected vehicles do, does not of itself affect the liability of the driver under existing criminal law.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that all cases of suspected wildlife crimes against birds are fully investigated, in the context of the prevalence of highly pathogenic avian influenza.

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

Defra wants to see as many cases as possible of suspected wildlife crimes against birds fully investigated. The department supports the National Wildlife Crime Unit which helps prevent and detect wildlife crime and directly assists law enforcers in their investigations

Highly pathogenic avian influenza findings in wild birds can bring challenges where the carcase tests positive but where the bird has died in suspicious circumstances. In some cases, further post-mortem examination may not be possible due to the need to handle carcases at high containment facilities to protect public health and prevent spread of the virus.

The Animal and Plant Health Agency’s (APHA) Diseases of Wildlife Scheme (DoWS) works closely with the Wildlife Incident Investigation Scheme (WIIS) which makes enquiries, where possible, into death or illness of wildlife that may have resulted from pesticide and rodenticide poisoning (including cases with suspected wildlife crime). When dead wild birds are submitted to APHA through the wild bird surveillance scheme and poisoning is suspected, where avian influenza has been negated, the case is subsequently investigated by DoWS in collaboration with WIIS, the police and other agencies as appropriate. In all other instances, further investigation is pursued where it is possible to handle carcases or samples at appropriate biocontainment levels.

Mental Health Awareness Week

Redress for people impacted by surgical mesh, sodium valproate and Primodos

Health and Social Care

Meta and YouTube and legal liability for addictive design and online harms

Social media for under-16s

Public inquiry into Epstein links

Torbay Hospital

Found: Q100 Caroline Voaden: I have a question for Esther and Andy; I will go to Andy first.

Found: Q100 Caroline Voaden: I have a question for Esther and Andy; I will go to Andy first.

Found: Q100 Caroline Voaden: I have a question for Esther and Andy; I will go to Andy first.