David Baines

Small businesses are the beating heart of our high streets, our communities, and essential to our economic success. The Government will boost small business growth and productivity by delivering upon the commitments within Labour's nine-point Plan for Small Business published prior to the election.

As a first step, we announced on 19th September 2024 new measures to help small businesses and the self-employed tackle the scourge of late payments and long payment terms.

We are also creating opportunities for small businesses to access the finance they need to scale up and to break into new markets through exporting.

Our Manifesto committed to reviewing the surplus sharing arrangements and transferring the Investment Reserve back to scheme members. We are committed to ending the injustice of the Mineworkers' Pension Scheme and work on delivering these commitments is already underway.

We fully understand people’s concerns about the excessive deployment of telegraph poles, and are urgently considering options to address this.

Obviously, telegraph poles can play an important role in delivering connectivity to communities and competition between providers can offer consumers greater choice and cheaper rates, but it is vital that operators share infrastructure wherever possible in the interests of local communities.

The law already provides for this. The Electronic Communications Code (Conditions and Restrictions) Regulations 2003 require operators to share infrastructure where practicable, and the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Act 2022 made it easier for operators to upgrade and share existing apparatus.

In addition, providers can also use the Communications (Access to Infrastructure) Regulations 2016 (“the ATI regulations”), which are designed to facilitate sharing for physical infrastructure.

The government has established an independent Curriculum and Assessment Review, covering ages 5 to 18, chaired by Professor Becky Francis CBE.

The review will seek to refresh the curriculum to ensure it is cutting edge, fit for purpose and meeting the needs of children and young people to support their future life and work.

The government’s ambition is for a curriculum that delivers excellent foundations in reading, writing and mathematics, and ensures every young person gets the opportunity to develop creative, digital, and speaking and listening skills particularly prized by employers.

The review will look closely at the key challenges to attainment for young people, and the barriers which hold children back from the opportunities and life chances they deserve – in particular those who are socio-economically disadvantaged, or with special educational needs or disabilities.

The views of the sector will be pivotal to the review and there will be extensive engagement throughout. A call for evidence will be launched in the coming weeks and the review will also undertake a national roadshow, meeting and taking input from staff on the frontline.

The department cannot provide comparable funding for St Helens North constituency back to 2010, due to the changes in the funding system since that time. Therefore, the scope of the funding in 2010 and 2024 are not directly comparable. In particular, in 2018/19 the central services provided by local authorities were split out from the schools block funding, and instead became funded separately through the central school services block from that year onwards.

The schools national funding formula (NFF) determines schools’ core revenue funding, in respect of 5 to 16 year olds, for all mainstream schools in England. Constituency figures are based on an aggregate of schools’ notional NFF allocations. In 2024/25, the schools in St Helens North constituency received an aggregated total of £86.5 million through the NFF. The allocations that schools within a constituency actually receive are determined by the local funding formula in their area.

The above figure is for mainstream schools only. The department does not hold constituency level funding data for special schools.

​In addition to this core revenue funding, schools also receive funding through a number of separate streams, including pupil premium, Universal Infant Free School Meals funding, PE and sport premium funding, and the recovery premium, and the National Tutoring Programme to support education recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic. The department also has a capital budget, which funds a range of programmes for schools, such as the Schools Rebuilding Programme. Additionally, schools will receive funding for 16 to 19 year olds, or for children in school nursery provision, if applicable.

We are committed to supporting all farming sectors to increase levels of productivity whilst increasing their sustainability and resilience. We are looking carefully at how to position further investment and support to enable the delivery of this Government's objectives, including a range of existing and new fiscal and non-fiscal support. We will confirm plans for the rollout of schemes and our wider approach as soon as possible, and the farming budget beyond this year will be part of the government’s spending review.

The department has secured funding to support increased staffing and fund our communications strategy to support our programme of activity to drive up Pension Credit claims. The latest data available shows we have received around 38,500 Pension Credit claims in the 5 weeks since the announcement on 29th July (which is up to and including w/c 26th August).

This represents a 115% increase in Pension Credit claims received by the Department in the past 5 weeks compared to the 5 weeks before.

Statistics on the number of Children living in absolute and relative poverty per constituency are published annually in the “Children in low income families: local area statistics” publication and can be found in tabs “6_Absolute_ParlC” and “5_Relative_ParlC” at Children in low income families: local area statistics 2014 to 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). The latest statistics published on 21 March 2024 cover the years 2014/15 to 2022/23. Figures are not available prior to 2014/15 and are produced on a before housing costs basis only.