Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what data her Department provides to HM Treasury for the purposes of forecasting future numbers of claims for (a) PIP and (b) the (i) Limited Capability for Work Element and (ii) Limited Capability for Work and Work-Related Activity Element of Universal Credit; and whether her Department is responsible for any of the assumptions underpinning those forecasts.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Forecast number of claims for PIP and health components of Universal Credit are produced by the Department as part of overall expenditure forecasts provided to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) at each fiscal event. DWP provides forecasts of benefit payments based on DWP assumptions agreed by OBR, alongside economic determinants, judgments and assumptions provided by the OBR. These forecasts are shared with HM Treasury in parallel with the Office for Budget Responsibility.
Full details of the relationship between DWP, OBR and HMT can be found within the Memorandum of understanding between the Office for Budget Responsibility, HM Treasury, the Department for Work & Pensions, and HM Revenue & Customs.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, on what date her Department first published a projection of the number of (a) Primary and (b) Secondary school places that would be needed in September 2024.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
Estimates of the primary places needed to meet predicted demand for places in September 2024 were first published on 24 March 2022.
Estimates of the secondary places needed to meet predicted demand for places in September 2024 were first published on 28 March 2019.
The statutory duty to provide sufficient school places sits with local authorities.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what her Department's definition is of expert teachers.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
Recruiting and retaining high quality teachers is critical to the government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and boost the life chances for every child. This is why the government’s Plan for Change has committed to recruiting an additional 6,500 new expert teachers in secondary and special schools, and in our colleges, over the course of this Parliament.
The term ‘expert teacher’ focuses on the qualities and expertise it requires to be a high quality teacher and ensuring that teaching remains a valued profession. Quality teaching is essential to reduce the attainment gap and is the most significant in-school and college determinant of pupil outcomes.
This is why the department has put in place initiatives to ensure teachers are better qualified and better trained. We are introducing legislation to ensure new teachers have or are working towards qualified teacher status, and to help further improve teacher quality from September 2025, we will also introduce the new initial teacher training and early career framework, replacing the current initial teacher training core content framework and the early career framework. We are also reviewing national professional qualification courses to align with the latest evidence and best practice.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 9 June 2025 to Question 54726 on Schools: internet, what steps she is taking to ensure blocks on illegal content are (a) technically enforced and (b) cannot be overridden in all education settings.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Keeping children safe is an absolute priority for this government and schools play a critical role in this.
In England, schools must procure their own technology, including filtering and monitoring systems, and ensure they meet the statutory safeguarding requirements set out in the ‘Keeping children safe in education’ (KCSIE) statutory guidance and in the filtering and monitoring standards, in order to protect students from harmful and/or illegal content. Both are available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/keeping-children-safe-in-education--2 and https://www.gov.uk/guidance/meeting-digital-and-technology-standards-in-schools-and-colleges/filtering-and-monitoring-standards-for-schools-and-colleges.
The standards require filtering systems to effectively block harmful and inappropriate content using regularly updated blocklists from the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) and the Counter-Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU). Schools cannot alter or disable these lists. Additionally, filtering providers must be members of the IWF, signed up to CTIRU, and committed to maintaining updates.
KCSIE signposts to resources to help schools make informed decisions to support safeguarding which, amongst others, includes a tool from South West Grid for Learning that allows schools to check whether their filtering provider is aligned with the necessary blocklists. This resource is available here: https://swgfl.org.uk/services/test-filtering/. We also funded the UK Safer Internet Centre to produce a series of webinars, which are available at: https://saferinternet.org.uk/blog/filtering-and-monitoring-webinars-available. We have also recently launched the plan technology for your school service which helps schools understand how to meet the standards. The guidance is available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/plan-technology-for-your-school.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether the fall in the number of children at independent schools was in line with her Department’s projections.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Pupil numbers remain firmly within expectations and higher than 2021/22. As a percentage of the overall school population, private school pupils have remained the same, at 6.5%. It has been between 6% and 7% for the last two decades.