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.

Early language is a part of the best start in life pillar of the Opportunity Mission, where we have set an ambitious milestone of a record number of five-year-olds reaching a good level of development in the early years foundation stage assessment by 2028. This measure includes an assessment of children’s early communication and language development.

As part of the support offer in the early years, Stronger Practice Hubs have enabled early years settings to access funded places on evidence-based professional development programmes. This has included over 20 programmes focused on speech, language and communication for under 4s.

The department also works in partnership with NHS England to deliver the Early Language Support for Every Child (ELSEC) pathfinders, which utilises pre-qualification therapy support assistants to improve early identification and support for children and young people with speech, language and communication needs within early years and primary school settings.

Through the Family Hubs programme for children aged 0 to 19-years-old, or 25-years-old with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), the government is investing in parent-facing interventions that seek to give children the best start in life. Research shows that what happens at home can make the biggest difference to long term impacts on a child’s life chances. Therefore, we are supporting families of 3 to 4-year-olds to create rich home-learning environments that foster a love of learning in their children. Family Hubs and voluntary and community sector partners play a pivotal role in supporting these efforts, providing local communities with the tools and support they need to succeed.

This work is complemented by our national campaign, ‘Little Moments Together’, which uses paid-for social media, out-of-home advertising, online videos and free resources to raise parents’ awareness, motivation and capability in the home-environment. We will continue to monitor the Family Hubs networks to ensure we consistently adopt the best approach to support families of young children, including exploring the effectiveness of expanding the age range targeted, as the programme evolves.

My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education has been clear in her commitment to early years as her number one priority and we will take the steps needed to improve children’s early learning and development, giving every child the best start in life.

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.

Patients have been let down for too long whilst they wait for the care they need, including children awaiting specialist cardiac input.

As set out in the Plan for Change, we will return to the National Health Service’s constitutional standard that 92% of patients wait no longer than 18 weeks from Referral to Treatment (RTT) by March 2029, a standard which has not been met consistently since September 2015. This includes for children awaiting elective care at children’s heart units.

Our Elective Reform Plan, published in January 2025, sets out the productivity and reform efforts that will get us back to this standard. Through empowering patients; reforming delivery; and aligning funding, performance oversight, and delivery standards; we will ensure that all patients, including children with heart conditions, are seen as quickly as possible, in line with the RTT standard.