Charlotte Cane

Hate crime is truly abhorrent and can have a devastating impact on victims and their communities.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) takes such offending very seriously.

The CPS works closely with the police to build robust cases and secure prosecutions for these offences.

This Government is committed to working with the police and other partners to address the blight of rural crime to ensure the safety of those in all communities.

We are introducing tougher measures to clamp down on anti-social behaviour, strengthening neighbourhood policing, and introducing robust laws to prevent farm theft and fly-tippers.

The National Police Chiefs’ Council Wildlife and Rural Crime Strategy 2022-2025 provides a framework through which policing, and its partners, can work together to tackle the most prevalent threats and emerging issues which predominantly affect rural communities.

Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) prosecutors work closely with local police officers and officers from the National Wildlife Crime Unit to tackle all types of rural crime.

The CPS provides legal guidance on Wildlife, Rural and Heritage Crime, which is available to all its prosecutors, to assist them in dealing with these cases. They also provide specialist training to ensure that its prosecutors have the expert knowledge needed to prosecute these crimes.

I welcome the strong action already taken by the Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor to bring down the outstanding caseload that this Government inherited, and measures introduced to help ensure victims have swift access to justice.

These actions include extending magistrates’ court sentencing powers to 12 months and funding additional Crown Court sitting days, taking them to the highest levels since financial year 2015/16 .

In the longer term,  the Lord Chancellor has commissioned an independent review of the criminal courts, led by Sir Brian Leveson, to consider the merits of wider reforms, as well as assessing the efficiency and timeliness of court processes.

These important issues have been discussed as part of our cross-government approach through the Safer Streets Mission Board.

To support more small businesses' digitisation efforts, we announced at Budget 2024 that we would extend the work of the SME Digital Adoption Taskforce. The Taskforce is made up of industry experts and focuses on addressing the challenge of how to support SMEs to adopt and implement productivity-enhancing technologies, such as customer relationship management, accountancy, and resource planning software. We intend to publish a summary of the Taskforce's draft recommendations shortly and their full report will be published later this year.

Our approach to trade deals will always consider the impacts and opportunities for those working within the agricultural sector, along with those employed within other sectors of the economy and our Growth Mission.

The independent Trade and Agriculture Commission scrutinises new FTAs and assesses whether they are consistent with the maintenance of UK levels of statutory protections in relation to animal and plant life or health, animal welfare, and the environment.

Rural areas offer significant potential for growth and are central to our economy. As with all places, fulfilling the needs of people and businesses in rural areas is at the heart of our policymaking.

The Government has recently announced our intention to launch a Business Growth Service (BGS), a national service with local delivery at its heart. Over time, it will bring a range of existing core services under the BGS banner, working hand in glove with local and devolved governments and the Growth Hubs network.

All businesses can access their Local Growth Hubs, which provide advice and support throughout the business journey, shaping their offer around the unique needs, whether town or country.

There are multiple targeted schemes in place to deliver energy efficiency measures to low income and fuel poor households. The Warm Home Discount provides £150 off bills to over 3 million low-income households.

The Government has kickstarted delivery of the Warm Homes Plan, including an initial £1.8 billion to support fuel poverty schemes over the next 3 years. We are also reviewing the 2021 fuel poverty strategy.

The Government recognises the role community groups play in our efforts to tackle climate change, Great British Energy’s Local Power Plan will also partner with and provide funding and support to community groups, Local Authorities and Mayoral Combined Authorities to develop renewable energy projects and up to 8 GW of cleaner power.

This will build on our existing support for the community energy sector; this includes the £10 million Community Energy Fund, which enables communities across England to access grant funding to develop local renewable energy projects for investment.

My Rt hon Friend the Secretary of State has regular discussions with Ministerial Colleagues on a number of issues.

The latest statistics for the number and proportion of households in fuel poverty in parliamentary constituencies in England can be found in the published sub-regional fuel poverty Official Statistics, in Table 5: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/sub-regional-fuel-poverty-data-2024-2022-data.

There are targeted schemes to deliver energy efficiency measures, and bill support through the Warm Home Discount scheme, available to eligible low-income and fuel poor households. The Warm Homes Plan includes an initial £1.8 billion to support fuel poverty schemes over the next 3 years. The 2021 fuel poverty strategy, which sets out how we will reach our fuel poverty targets, is currently under review.

Government’s priority is the effective implementation of the Online Safety Act 2023 so that children can benefit from its wide-reaching protections. The Act’s illegal content duties and, where relevant, child safety duties, will apply to services of all sizes.

All companies in scope of the Act, regardless of their size, will have duties to prevent users from encountering illegal content and activity. Additionally, all services which are likely to be accessed by children are required to protect children from harmful content. This includes content such as pornography, or content that promote, encourages or provides instructions for self-harm, eating disorders or suicide.

Lifelong learning and adaptability are key to ensuring everyone can prosper in an increasingly technology-driven world. The AI Opportunities Action Plan outlines the steps the UK will take to build a strong, diverse talent pipeline, realising AI benefits across the economy.

Working with DSIT and the Industrial Strategy Council, Skills England will bring together businesses, training partners, and unions with national and local government to assess the country’s skills need – including AI and digital skills – and map pathways to fill them.

The AI Opportunities Action Plan sets out how we will achieve our AI ambitions by laying the foundations for growth, driving adoption and building UK capabilities. We recognise that data centres face sustainability challenges, from energy demands to water use.

Through the AI Energy Council, we will be exploring bold, clean energy solutions from next-generation renewables to small modular reactors to ensure our AI ambitions align with the UK’s net zero goals. This builds on DSIT’s contribution to make Britain a clean energy superpower by investing in relevant research on clean energy and climate change.

Additionally, we recently signed agreements on sustainability at the French AI Action Summit and joined the Coalition for Sustainable AI.

The UK’s immigration offer enables talented scientists, researchers and innovators to come to the UK through a number of visa routes such as the Global Talent visa, the High Potential Individual visa and the Skilled Worker visa, and we continually keep our policies under review.

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology has regular discussions with the Home Office, and with other Government Departments, to ensure that the UK’s world-class science, research, technology and innovation sectors are supported.

UKRI allows researchers coming to the UK who are working at least 50% of their time on a UKRI grant to claim the cost of their visa from the grant. Many other research funders operate a similar policy. Researchers in receipt of Horizon Europe grants are also allowed to claim the cost of their visa from their grant.

The SME Digital Adoption Taskforce led by Phil Smith and reporting to DBT is looking specifically at SMEs adopting technology. They are working towards their interim report. The National Technology Adviser and Government Chief Scientific Adviser are running an official Government review reporting to the Chancellor, DBT SoS and DSIT SoS that identifies barriers that businesses within the Industrial Strategy’s 8 growth sectors face when adopting established and novel technologies. This is then related to productivity and growth of the economy. It is building on existing analysis, industry insights and other government reviews and workstreams. Recommendations will feed directly into Industrial Strategy work.

Sustainability of high-quality local journalism is a priority for this Government.

We are developing a Local Media Strategy, in recognition of the importance of this vital sector. Our vision is a thriving local media that can continue to play an invaluable role as a key channel of trustworthy information at local level. This means reporting on the issues that matter to communities, reflecting their contributions and perspectives, and helping to foster a self-confident nation in which everyone feels that their contribution is part of an inclusive national story.

We are working across Government and with other stakeholders as the Strategy develops and will announce further details in due course.

Local authorities play a vital role in supporting the arts and cultural institutions, but they operate independently of central government. Ministers have no remit to intervene in the day to day affairs and decisions of local authorities, except where specific provision has been made in legislation.

The government is already taking action via the provisional 2025/26 Local Government Finance Settlement to begin addressing the significant challenges facing local government. Over £4 billion in additional funding for local government services was announced at the Autumn Budget 2024, including £1.3 billion which will go through the Settlement.

The government has also provided funding to local authorities to strengthen their arts, cultural, heritage, and visitor economy provision through programmes such as the Cultural Development Fund, the Museum and Estate Development Fund, and High Streets Heritage Action Zones.

High-quality teaching is the biggest in-school factor that makes a difference to a child’s education, so having sufficient expert teachers is critical to the government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and boost the life chances for every child. This government has inherited a system with critical shortages of teachers, with numbers not keeping pace with demographic changes.

Information on the school workforce, including the number of teachers entering and leaving service in state-funded schools, is published in the ‘School workforce in England’ statistical publication which is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england.

Under the previous government, the rates and numbers of entrants to the state-funded teaching profession in England decreased in 2023/24, while the rates and numbers of leavers from to the state-funded teaching profession in England remained stable. While leavers have returned to pre-pandemic levels, entrants have returned to figures similar to the 2021/22 academic year. Each year, the number of teachers entering state-funded schools in England is higher than those leaving.

With regards recruitment of trainee teachers, information on the numbers and characteristics of new entrants to initial teacher training (ITT) in England is published in the ‘ITT census’ statistical publication which is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/initial-teacher-training-census.

In 2024/25, there were 27,836 new entrants to ITT, a 6% increase compared to the revised figure of 26,376 in 2023/24. This reverses a trend of year-on-year decreases since the pandemic period with a high of 40,377 new entrants in 2020/21. Despite the increase in the latest year, numbers of entrants remain below pre-pandemic levels.

Postgraduate ITT targets for 2024/25 were set using analysis from the Teacher Workforce Model which can be viewed here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/postgraduate-initial-teacher-training-targets.

The percentage of the postgraduate ITT target achieved for all subjects (secondary and primary) was 69%. This is an increase of 9 percentage points, up from 60% in 2023/24.

The department is committed to recruiting an additional 6,500 new expert teachers across our schools, both mainstream and specialist, and our colleges over the course of this Parliament, which is why this government accepted the School Teachers’ Review Body’s recommendation of a 5.5% pay award for teachers and leaders in maintained schools from last September. To further boost recruitment, we announced an ITT financial incentives package for the 2025/26 recruitment cycle worth £233 million, a £37 million increase on the last cycle. This includes a range of measures, including bursaries worth £29,000 tax-free and scholarships worth £31,000 tax-free, to encourage talented trainees to train in key subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing.

I refer the hon. Member for Ely and East Cambridgeshire to the answer of 4 March 2025 to Question 33348.

The department wants to ensure that young carers have the best life chances by supporting them in their education. We recognise that absence from school is almost always a symptom of wider needs and barriers that a family is facing. It is often the best early indication of need in a family that may not be in contact with other services.

The department’s expectations of local authorities and schools, as set out in the ‘Working together to improve school attendance’ guidance, were made statutory on 19 August 2024. The ‘support-first’ ethos of the attendance guidance is that pupils and families, including young carers, should receive holistic, whole-family support to help them overcome the barriers to attendance they are facing. This includes holding regular meetings with the families of pupils who the school, and/or local authority, consider to be vulnerable, to discuss attendance and engagement at school. Schools are expected to recognise that absence is a symptom and that improving pupil’s attendance is part of supporting the pupil’s overall welfare.

Young carers are also now part of the school census, which will improve their visibility in the school system and allow schools to better identify and support their young carers. This will provide an annual data collection to establish long term trends. Separately, the department also publishes daily attendance data on a fortnightly basis and will continue to monitor the quality of data on young carers that is collected via the school register for consideration to include in the daily data collection in the future.

Schools can also use pupil premium funding to support other pupils with identified needs, including young carers. Pupil premium funding has increased to over £2.9 billion for the 2024/25 financial year.

It is the department’s ambition that parents have access to high-quality, affordable and flexible early education and childcare.

Next year alone, we plan to provide over £8 billion for the early years entitlements, which is a more than 30% increase compared to 2024/25, as we roll out the expansion of the entitlements, so eligible working parents of children aged from nine months can access 30 hours of funded childcare.

From the start of September 2024, eligible working parents have been entitled to 15 hours a week of early education and care from the term after their child turns nine months. So far, over 320,000 additional parents are now accessing a place. Going further, from September 2025, eligible working parents will be able to access 30 hours of early education and childcare a week, over 38 weeks of the year, from the term after their child turns nine months until they start school.

In September 2024, my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education announced that state-funded primary phase schools could apply for up to £150,000 of £15 million capital funding to create or expand on-site nurseries. Schools could apply between 17 October and 19 December 2024 and will be notified of the outcome in this year. This new funding will complement ongoing work to expand provision across the country, including the £100 million capital funding allocated to local authorities in 2023/24 to increase capacity of early years and wraparound provision in local areas.

Parents may also be eligible for childcare support through Tax-Free Childcare or Universal Credit Childcare.

The department is determined to create change in the approach to early years, focusing on high-quality early education, celebrating and supporting early years careers, and embedding the sector into the wider education system. We are delivering programmes to support the sector to attract talented staff and childminders by creating conditions for improved recruitment, alongside programmes to better utilise the skills of the existing workforce.

The department also wants to ensure that parents are aware of and accessing all government-funded childcare support they are eligible for. We are raising awareness of the government-funded childcare support available via the Childcare Choices website to stimulate increased take-up by eligible families, because this could make a significant financial difference to families.

Under current programmes, 2.1 million disadvantaged pupils are registered to receive benefits-based free school meals (FSM). An additional 1.3 million are eligible for a free meal under universal infant free school meals.

The government is committed to delivering an ambitious strategy to reduce child poverty by tackling the root causes and giving every child the best start in life. To support this, a new Ministerial taskforce has been set up to develop a Child Poverty Strategy. The taskforce will consider a range of policies, assessing what will have the greatest impact in driving down rates of child poverty. As with all policies, the government keeps the approach to FSM under review.

This Government has taken immediate and substantial action to address the performance of water companies who are not delivering for the environment or their customers.

The Water (Special Measures) Bill will provide the most significant increase in enforcement powers for the regulators in a decade, giving them the teeth they need to take tougher action against water companies in the next investment period. The Bill 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.

The regulators will take action if any illegality is identified. The regulators have launched the largest criminal and civil investigations into water company sewage discharges ever. As part of their investigation, Ofwat has proposed fines of £168 million against three water companies. This investigation is a priority for Ofwat, and it will continue to work as quickly as possible on all remaining companies.

On 23 October 2024 the UK and Welsh Governments launched an independent commission, led by Sir Jon Cunliffe and supported by expert advisors, to recommend reforms to reset the water sector regulatory system.

The commission aims to build consensus for a resilient and innovative water sector and a robust wider regulatory framework that will deliver long-term benefits, restore rivers, lakes, and seas to good health, provide a reliable and efficient water supply in a changing climate, and ultimately serve both customers and the environment. Once the commission has made recommendations, both Governments will respond and consult on proposals, including potential legislation.

Following confirmation of foot and mouth disease (FMD) in Germany on the 10 January 2025, the Government took decisive action to protect the UK by suspending the commercial import of susceptible animals from Germany and restricting personal imports of animal products from across the EU.

The UK has contingency plans in place to manage the risk of this disease as set out in the Foot and Mouth Disease Control Strategy for Great Britain supported by the Contingency plan for exotic notifiable diseases of animals in England. This includes a comprehensive veterinary surveillance system to detect new and emerging disease threats. All exotic disease control and prevention measures are kept under regular review as part of the Government’s work to monitor and manage the risks of exotic disease.

Livestock keepers are reminded of the importance of maintaining strict on-farm biosecurity and reporting of all suspicions of notifiable disease promptly.

Defra’s Environmental Land Management schemes provide payments for managing land and water in a way that reduces flood risk. The Sustainable Farming Incentive provides payments for several actions to improve soil health, including herbal leys and multi-species cover crops. Healthy soils have improved resilience to extreme weather and will recover faster from flood events. Sustainable Farming Incentive actions can also be used to slow down the flow of water within catchments, helping to mitigate wider catchment flood risk. We have also recently announced a significant expansion of the flood and drought resilience offer within Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier with new actions to store water, which can be used to protect agricultural land from flooding.

Tree planting along rivers can help slow water flow and temporarily store water as part of natural flood management. The England Woodland Creation Offer provides financial support for tree planting and incentivises woodland creation that reduces flood risk through supplementary payments.

In addition, the floods investment programme delivers a range of schemes, including natural flood management. The Government inherited an outdated funding formula for allocating money to proposed flood defences. Established in 2011, the existing formula slows down the delivery of new flood schemes through a complex application process, and neglects more innovative approaches to flood management such as natural flood management. A consultation will be launched in the coming months which will include a review of the existing formula.

Cleaning up England’s rivers, lakes and seas is a priority for the Government. The Government has taken immediate and substantial action to address the performance of water companies who are not delivering for the environment or their customers.

For example, we are placing water companies under special measures through the Water (Special Measures) Bill. This includes giving Ofwat the power to ban bonuses for executives when companies fail to meet standards on environmental performance, financial resilience, customer outcomes or criminal liability, and enabling severe and automatic fines for wrongdoing. The Bill will also introduce new, statutory reporting requirements for emergency overflows and pollution incidents.

In addition, for Price Review 2024, which runs from 2025 – 2030, water companies will be delivering record levels of investment: £104 billion over the next five years. This gives the sector the opportunity for transformation, delivering better outcomes for customers and the environment

In October 2024, the Secretary of State, in conjunction with the Welsh Government, also launched an Independent Commission on the water sector regulatory system. This is a wide-ranging review to fundamentally transform how our water system works and clean up our rivers, lakes and seas for good.

We are investing a record £2.65 billion over two years in building, maintaining and repairing our flood and coastal defences, protecting 66,500 properties and funding around 1,000 projects. This includes £108 million we are shifting towards maintenance to shore up creaking defences.

Farmers and rural communities across the country will see their resilience to flooding improved thanks to the £50 million funding for Internal Drainage Boards. In addition, £57 million has been paid out to support 12,700 farm businesses through the Farming Recovery Fund.

The department requires its operators to plan services and rail timetables that are designed to meet expected passenger demand. These should be resilient and provide value for money for the taxpayer. Timetables are kept under review and, where appropriate, adjusted to reflect fluctuations in demand.

Individual infrastructure enhancement schemes that may increase capacity will be assessed on their alignment with Government Missions and Transport Priorities, the strength of their business case, and their affordability.

Great British Railways will provide the opportunity to take joined up, whole system decisions that make the best use of the network for passengers and taxpayers.

On 1 January, the government introduced a £3 cap on single bus fares in England outside London until 31 December 2025. The government is investing over £150 million to deliver the £3 cap, which replaced the £2 cap, and will ensure millions of people, including vulnerable people, can continue to access affordable bus fares and better opportunities all over the country.

If the government had not taken action, the bus fare cap would have ended and fares would have jumped back up to their previous levels on 1 January which could have meant fares soaring above £10 on the most expensive routes.

Whilst it is our ambition through public ownership to deliver a more affordable railway, any long-term changes or concessions made to rail fares policy require balancing against the potential impacts on passengers, taxpayers and the railway. Most regulated rail fares will increase by 4.6 per cent on 2 March 2025. This will be the lowest absolute increase in three years and will support the Government’s long-term plans to achieve financial sustainability of the railway.

The Government’s Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Fund is providing local authorities in England with over £380m to support the installation of tens of thousands of public chargepoints.

As well as significant funding, the Government continues to make it easier, quicker and cheaper to install chargepoints. In December, the Government announced that it will make changes to planning legislation to facilitate off-street chargepoint installations and to allow the use of street works permits for quicker charger deployment. The Government also published guidance to help local authorities with cross-pavement charging solutions and the results of a review to address common issues around EV infrastructure and grid connections.

Good local bus services have an essential role to play in keeping rural communities connected. The government introduced the Bus Services (No.2) Bill on 17 December as part of its ambitious plan for bus reform. The Bill puts the power over local bus services back in the hands of local leaders right across England and is intended to ensure bus services reflect the needs of the communities that rely on them, including in rural areas. The government has committed to increasing accountability by including a measure on socially necessary services so that local authorities and bus operators have to have regard for alternatives to changing or cancelling services.

In addition, the government has confirmed £955 million for the 2025 to 2026 financial year to support and improve bus services in England outside London. This includes £243 million for bus operators and £712 million allocated to local authorities across the country. Local authorities can use this funding to introduce new bus routes, make services more frequent and protect crucial bus routes for local communities.