Asked by: Darren Paffey (Labour - Southampton Itchen)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many students are expected to complete approved paramedic training courses in England in (a) 2026 and (b) 2027; how many Band 5 newly qualified paramedic posts NHS ambulance trusts plan to recruit to in each of those years; and what steps he is taking to ensure that the number of funded posts is aligned with the number of students completing paramedic training.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Higher Education Statistics Agency publishes annual figures for entrants and qualifiers for paramedic training courses which are available at the following two links:
https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/students/what-study
https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/students/outcomes#qualifiers
The latest available data for qualifiers shows 3,325 across England in 2024/25.
Training places for paramedics are not centrally commissioned by the Government, instead, they are determined by local employers and education providers who decide the number of learners they admit based on learner demand and provider capacity.
Asked by: Darren Paffey (Labour - Southampton Itchen)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, (a) what assessment he has made of the extent of barriers faced by disabled leaseholders seeking reasonable adaptions of their homes and communal areas and (b) what steps is he taking to reduce these barriers.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The government recognises how important home adaptations are in enabling older and disabled people to live as independently as possible in a safe and suitable environment.
The Disabled Facilities Grants funds adaptations to improve access to homes, including in respect of communal areas, where applicants satisfy a needs assessment, eligibility criteria and a means test.
The Equality Act 2010 imposes a duty on landlords to allow and make reasonable adjustments to private homes on request from disabled leaseholders. The government keeps under review the commencement of the remaining parts of section 36 of the Equality Act 2010, which would impose a duty on those responsible for common parts of leasehold properties, such as landlords, to make reasonable adjustments to those parts if asked to do so by a disabled leaseholder.
Asked by: Darren Paffey (Labour - Southampton Itchen)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what guidance her Department provides to local authorities on ensuring value for money in contracts for the treatment of separately collected household food waste, including where private contractors receive revenue from biomethane and digestate produced from that waste.
Answered by Mary Creagh
Defra does not provide direct guidance to local authorities for the procurement of food waste treatment contracts.
However, Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), funded by Defra have provided guidance for local authorities to support the implementation of Simpler Recycling. This includes Good Practice Guidance on Waste and Recycling Collections, including on building in contract flexibility, and more detailed guidance on providing household food waste collections, which also covers food waste treatment.
Furthermore, Local Partnerships has developed a standard Anaerobic Digestion contract, developed with Defra support, and available free on request to local authorities, which includes provisions for revenue sharing.
Asked by: Darren Paffey (Labour - Southampton Itchen)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, (a) what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of the inclusion of weekends and bank holidays in the 5 day legal requirement to register a death on the timeliness of death registration and (b) what steps she is taking to reduce delays in registering a death.
Answered by Mike Tapp
Monitoring has shown good appointment availability to enable the registration of deaths in England and Wales within the 5-day statutory time period. The Government’s work towards transforming the death registration process will allow the bereaved to register deaths remotely, and help minimise the burden on bereaved family members at a difficult time.
Asked by: Darren Paffey (Labour - Southampton Itchen)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what progress her Department has made on restoring spending on official development assistance. to 0.7% of Gross National Income.
Answered by Chris Elmore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
I refer the Hon Member to the answer provided in response to Question 66549 on 21 July 2025.
Asked by: Darren Paffey (Labour - Southampton Itchen)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to modernise communications with the public and claimants, including increased use of email correspondence.
Answered by Andrew Western - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department is modernising communications with the public and claimants as part of its wider digital-first strategy, while ensuring that support remains available for those who need non-digital channels.
We are moving towards the digitisation of notifications so that, by 2030, most communications will be delivered through the most appropriate channel, including email, SMS, secure messages via customer accounts and the GOV.UK App, whilst always providing a printed letter or other reasonable adjustment option where relevant customer needs are identified.
This multi-channel approach is designed to provide quicker, clearer, and more accessible communications, tailored to individual preferences and support needs, while maintaining paper correspondence and other reasonable adjustments for those who require them.
Asked by: Darren Paffey (Labour - Southampton Itchen)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to review guidance to Integrated Care Boards on access to NHS-funded frozen embryo transfers for patients with remaining embryos from previous NHS-funded IVF cycles seeking to have a further child.
Answered by Preet Kaur Gill
Funding decisions for health services in England are made by integrated care boards (ICBs) and are based on the clinical needs of their local population.
On 31 March, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published its updated fertility guideline, which states that a full cycle of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) should include one episode of ovarian stimulation and the transfer of any resulting fresh and frozen embryos.
We expect ICBs to consider and reflect the updated NICE fertility guidelines in their commissioning decisions, and we are working with NHS England to support greater consistency in provision.
There are no plans to review guidance to ICBs on access to National Health Service funded embryo transfers for patients with remaining embryos from previous NHS-funded IVF cycles seeking to have a further child.
Asked by: Darren Paffey (Labour - Southampton Itchen)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment the Department has made of the potential impact of the recent changes to teacher training funding eligibility on the provision and uptake of language teaching in schools.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The department has now achieved over 70% of our target to recruit 6,500 additional expert teachers by the end of this Parliament. There are 4,654 additional expert teachers in secondary and special schools and colleges.
Recruitment of physics trainee teachers has almost doubled since 2023/24, and modern foreign languages recruitment (MFL) has increased by nearly a third over the same period. Our focus is on maintaining the growth in domestic recruitment and improved retention of existing teachers that we have already seen.
As a result, the department has paused the bursary and scholarship offer for new international entrants in physics and languages. International entrants that held an offer to start an initial teacher training course as of 7 May are unaffected by this change and will therefore receive bursaries and scholarships from this autumn. We will review our offer ahead of the next recruitment cycle.
Asked by: Darren Paffey (Labour - Southampton Itchen)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment the Department has made of the potential impact of the recent changes to teacher training funding eligibility on recruitment to Modern Foreign Languages and Physics teacher training courses.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The department has now achieved over 70% of our target to recruit 6,500 additional expert teachers by the end of this Parliament. There are 4,654 additional expert teachers in secondary and special schools and colleges.
Recruitment of physics trainee teachers has almost doubled since 2023/24, and modern foreign languages recruitment (MFL) has increased by nearly a third over the same period. Our focus is on maintaining the growth in domestic recruitment and improved retention of existing teachers that we have already seen.
As a result, the department has paused the bursary and scholarship offer for new international entrants in physics and languages. International entrants that held an offer to start an initial teacher training course as of 7 May are unaffected by this change and will therefore receive bursaries and scholarships from this autumn. We will review our offer ahead of the next recruitment cycle.
Asked by: Darren Paffey (Labour - Southampton Itchen)
Question
To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, whether she plans to respond to the consultation entitled Improving disabled people’s access to let residential premises: reasonable adjustments to common parts, a new duty, which closed on 18 August 2022.
Answered by Olivia Bailey
This Government will provide a response to this consultation in due course.