Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to (a) increase recycling rates and (b) reduce littering of containers not included in the Deposit Return Scheme.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Simpler Recycling reforms will make recycling easier and ensure there is a comprehensive, consistent service across England, so that all households and workplaces can recycle plastic, metal, glass, paper & card and food waste, with garden waste for households upon request. Simpler Recycling is estimated to increase the municipal recycling rate from around 42% to around 56% between 2024 and 2035. This project is one of the three core pillars of the Government’s ambitious Collection and Packaging Reforms, alongside the forthcoming Deposit Return Scheme and the Extended Producer Responsibility scheme for packaging.
Littering is a crime that blights communities and the environment. Local authorities are generally best placed to respond to issues such as littering and this Government is considering what further steps are needed to help local authorities reduce litter and keep their streets clean.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
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 ensure the adequacy of access to dental services for children with SEND.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government recognises that certain groups of patients such as people with disabilities may find it difficult to access dental care. We are committed to ensuring National Health Service dental services are available to all who need them.
Community dental services (CDS) are available to people whose additional needs may mean they are not able to be treated at high street dental practices. CDS provide specialised dental services to ensure that everyone can have access to the dental care they need. This may include treatments delivered in hospitals, specialist health centres and mobile clinics, as well as home visits or visits in nursing and care homes.
Integrated care boards are responsible for identifying areas of local need and determining the priorities for investment, including the commissioning of community dental services.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he taking to increase the recycling rates of soft plastics not normally collected at the kerbside.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Recyclable plastic film and flexible packaging is to be collected for recycling from both households and businesses across the UK by 31 March 2027.
Waste is a devolved policy area. This will be implemented as part of Simpler Recycling in England, and the devolved administrations will have similar arrangements.
In the lead up to this requirement, existing kerbside, front of store and postal take back collections of plastic films for recycling will continue and are expected to increase in response to certainty over the timing of the introduction of this new collection requirement. Investment in new UK plastic reprocessing facilities is also expected.
To support our ambitious goals to recycle plastic film, Defra alongside the Flexible Plastic Fund, UK Research and Innovation and Zero Waste Scotland, is funding a multi-million-pound pilot project on flexible plastic kerbside collections.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department plans to take to ensure wraparound childcare is sufficiently funded in areas with high SEND staffing requirements.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department knows that parents of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) need childcare provision that meets their and their children’s needs. This government is determined to help these parents and has funded the national wraparound programme to support working families and improve the availability of before and after school childcare, to ensure that parents have the flexibility they need to care for their children.
Wraparound programme funding includes resource for additional staffing to support inclusive provision, including for pupils with particular needs. Local authority allocations are varied to take account of regional differences in the number of pupils with SEND.
The Childcare Act 2006 places a legal duty on local authorities to ensure there are enough childcare places within its locality for working parents or parents who are studying or training for employment, for children aged 0 to 14, or up to age 18 for disabled children. All local authorities should be able to demonstrate how they have discharged this duty and should include specific reference to how they are ensuring there is sufficient childcare to meet the needs of children with SEND, as per the statutory guidance. This should be available from the local authority.
The wraparound programme is helping local authorities discharge this duty, by distributing funding to ensure that local areas can increase the supply of wraparound places. Local authorities across England can decide how best to use the funding to set up or expand wraparound childcare in their area to meet the needs of their local community, including children with SEND.
The government is also committed to making quick progress to deliver on our commitment to offer breakfast clubs in every primary school. Departmental officials are working closely with schools and sector experts to develop a programme that meets the needs of all children, including those with SEND.
In order to test and learn about how best to support schools in implementing new free universal breakfast clubs, we have selected 750 early adopter schools to deliver from April 2025, ahead of the national roll out to all schools with primary aged children. This includes 50 special schools and alternative provision settings. These settings will receive a higher funding rate, in addition to the fixed termly payments and set up cost funding, in recognition of the need for higher staff to pupil ratios.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has had discussions with the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology on the potential merits of expanding the Online Safety Act 2023 to tackle violence against women ans girls.
Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
I refer the Honourable Member to the Answer I gave on 10 February to Question UN 27910.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the contribution of youth services in preventing and tackling violence against women and girls.
Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
As referenced in my response to the answer I gave to question UIN 28128, the Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Strategy will set out our strategic direction and concrete actions to deliver our ambition to halve VAWG in the next decade.
We are considering a range of policy options across government to prevent these crimes including education for young people around healthy relationships and consent, community interventions and tackling online VAWG. That includes looking at how we can work most effectively with youth services and through the Young Future Hub programme to deliver this ambition.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what role Young Futures Hubs and Young Futures Prevention Partnerships will play in the government's plans to tackle violence against women and girls.
Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Government has committed to the creation of a new Young Futures Programme, which will establish a network of Young Futures Hubs and Young Futures Prevention Partnerships, to intervene earlier to ensure vulnerable and at-risk children and young people are identified and offered support in a more systematic way, as well as creating more opportunities for young people in their communities, through the provision of mental health and careers support.
The new Young Futures Hubs will bring together the support services that tackle the underlying needs of vulnerable children and young people and make them more accessible to those that need them. In doing so, the hubs will promote children and young people’s development, improve their mental health and wellbeing, and prevent them from being drawn into crime.
Prevention Partnerships will drive local multi-agency partnership working, improve evidence-based commissioning via existing and innovative mapping exercises and ensure the right support is available to children at-risk of knife crime, ASB and violence against women and girls.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of removing VAT for all school uniform sold to primary school-aged children irrespective of whether it is labelled for children under 14.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
No VAT is charged on the sale of children’s clothing and footwear designed for children who are less than 14 years of age. This means that school uniform for primary-school aged children is already free from VAT, provided it falls within the tabled measurements of children up to the eve of their 14th birthday, as this is when body dimensions begin to merge with those of the general adult population. The UK is one of only two countries among the 37 OECD member countries to maintain a VAT relief for children’s clothing.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department will conduct a review of surgical menopause care.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government will prioritise women’s health as we reform the National Health Service, ensuring that all women experiencing the menopause can access the care that they need. We have taken urgent action to tackle gynaecology waiting lists through the Elective Reform Plan. In gynaecology, the plan supports innovative models offering patients care closer to home, and the piloting of gynaecology pathways in community diagnostic centres for patients with post-menopausal bleeding.
Women’s health hubs also have a key role in shifting care out of hospitals and improving the care women receive. Menopause assessment and treatment is a core service that all hubs are expected to provide. As of December 2024, 39 out of 42 integrated care boards (ICBs) reported to NHS England that they had at least one operational women’s health hub. We continue to engage with and encourage ICBs to use the learning from the women’s health hubs pilots to improve local delivery of services to women. At present there are no plans to conduct a review of surgical menopause care.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when the Understanding Menopause guidance by Menopause Support UK will be published.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Menopause Support UK is an independent organisation, and the Department cannot advise on when this guidance will be published. NHS England routinely considers how they signpost to other sources of healthcare guidance. For example, the National Health Service’s website page on menopause signposts users to further sources of information.