Asked by: David Evennett (Conservative - Bexleyheath and Crayford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she is taking steps to increase the number of childcare places in the London Borough of Bexley.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Under Section 6 of the Childcare Act 2006, local authorities are responsible for ensuring that the provision of childcare is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents in their area. Part B of the early education and childcare statutory guidance for local authorities highlights that local authorities are required to report annually to elected council members on how they are meeting their duty to secure sufficient childcare, and to make this report available and accessible to parents.
The department has regular contact with each local authority in England, including Bexley, about their sufficiency of childcare and any issues that they are facing.
Where local authorities report sufficiency challenges, the department discusses what action the local authority is taking to address those issues and, where needed, the department will support the local authority with any specific requirements through its childcare sufficiency support contract.
A commitment has been made to ensure that 30 hours of funded childcare is available for every child over the age of 9 months with working parents by September 2025.
More parents are going to be able to return to work while balancing childcare commitments. This is thanks to the government’s £4 billion per year expansion of childcare in England. This is the largest expansion of funded childcare ever and will remove barriers to work for nearly half a million parents with a child under three in England.
Local authorities have received £12 million of delivery support funding for this financial year to support with meeting programme and delivery costs associated with rolling out the expanded early years entitlements. Bexley will receive money from this fund. Bexley Local Authority are due to receive £716,747.72 to enable them to deliver additional wraparound places.
The department is also allocating £100 million for local areas to use to make sure childcare settings in their areas have enough physical space. This funding is anticipated to add thousands of new places across the country. More detail on the £100 million capital funding, including allocation amounts to local authorities and accompanying guidance, will be published shortly.
Asked by: David Evennett (Conservative - Bexleyheath and Crayford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many apprenticeship starts there were in (a) Bexleyheath and Crayford constituency, (b) Bexley Borough and (c) Greater London in each year since 2010.
Answered by Robert Halfon
Since the 2010/11 academic year, there have been 8,480 apprenticeship starts in Bexleyheath and Crayford constituency, 22,140 in Bexley and 529,370 in London reported to date. These totals include figures for the 2022/23 academic year, which are provisional and cover the first three quarters from August 2022 to April 2023. The full year figures for the 2022/23 academic year will be published on 30 November 2023.
Apprenticeship starts are recorded on the Individualised Learner Record and published by the department in the apprenticeships and traineeships statistics publication, which can be accessed at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/apprenticeships-and-traineeships.
Apprenticeship starts for the Bexleyheath and Crayford constituency, Bexley and London for the 2010/11 to 2022/23 academic years are available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/befe0070-1c12-4f0f-6246-08dbea615343.
Asked by: David Evennett (Conservative - Bexleyheath and Crayford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to reduce the average processing time for asylum claims.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
We have taken immediate action to speed up asylum processing whilst maintaining the integrity of the system. This includes simplifying guidance and streamlining processes and introducing shorter, focussed interviews, making the interview process more efficient and driving productivity improvements.
We have met our commitment to increase the number of asylum caseworkers to 2,500. As of the end of August 2023, provisional data shows that there are 2,510 decision makers in post.
This is more than double the number of asylum caseworkers a year ago in August 2022 and an increase of over 1,200 since December 2022.
We remain on track to clear the legacy asylum backlog by the end of 2023.
Asked by: David Evennett (Conservative - Bexleyheath and Crayford)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many recorded incidents of violent crime there have been in (a) Bexleyheath and Crayford constituency, (b) Bexley Borough and (c) South East London in each of the last five years.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.
A response to the Hon gentleman’s Parliamentary Question of 13 September is attached.
Asked by: David Evennett (Conservative - Bexleyheath and Crayford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate she has made of the number of asylum seekers that have entered the UK via small boats in each of the last five years.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office publishes statistics on small boat arrivals to the UK in the ‘Irregular migration to the UK statistics’ release. Data on asylum applications from small boat arrivals is published in table Irr_D02 of the ‘Irregular migration to the UK detailed dataset’ with the latest data up to the end of June 2023.
Information on how to use the dataset can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbook.
Asked by: David Evennett (Conservative - Bexleyheath and Crayford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people were awaiting the outcome of their asylum application in (a) Bexleyheath and Crayford constituency, (b) Bexley Borough and (c) Greater London on 1 September 2023.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
Whilst we hold information regarding the number of people awaiting the outcome of their asylum claim in each parliamentary constituency, this information is not held in a reportable format.
Asked by: David Evennett (Conservative - Bexleyheath and Crayford)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people receive Universal Credit in (a) the Bexleyheath and Crayford constituency and (b) the London Borough of Bexley.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
In July 2023 there were 7,346 people on Universal Credit who live in the Bexleyheath and Crayford constituency and 18,790 people on Universal Credit who live in the London Borough of Bexley.
The latest available statistics on the number of people who are on Universal Credit, by various geographical breakdowns including Westminster parliamentary constituency and local authority, are published monthly on Stat-Xplore.
Users can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest user and, if needed, can access guidance on how to extract the information required.
Asked by: David Evennett (Conservative - Bexleyheath and Crayford)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of closing train station ticket offices on passengers in Bexleyheath and Crayford constituency.
Answered by Huw Merriman - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
We are now in a period where the independent passenger bodies (Transport Focus and London TravelWatch) are engaging with train operators on the basis of the consultation responses they have received and the criteria they have set out. We expect train operators to work collaboratively with the passenger bodies in the coming weeks, to listen to the concerns raised and to refine their proposals accordingly.
When proposing major changes to ticket office opening hours, including closures, operators were required to take into account the adequacy of the proposed alternatives in relation to the needs of all passengers; and to include this in the notice of the proposal sent to other operators and passenger groups. All operators prepared Equality Impact Assessments and published these on their websites.
Together with the industry, we want to improve and modernise the passenger experience by moving staff out from ticket offices to provide more help and advice in customer focused roles. No currently staffed station should be unstaffed as a result of industry changes. We expect train operators, including Southeastern who manage several stations in the Bexleyheath and Crayford area, to ensure staff are well located to meet passenger needs in future.
Asked by: David Evennett (Conservative - Bexleyheath and Crayford)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people were in receipt of Carer's Allowance in the Bexleyheath and Crayford constituency in each of the last five years.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The caseload statistics for Carer’s Allowance are available on DWP Stat-Xplore. The most recent refer to November 2022. Figures for the Carer’s Allowance in payment caseload for Bexleyheath and Crayford constituency are shown below:
Time period | Carer’s Allowance in Payment Caseload |
Nov ‘17 | 1,195 |
Nov ‘18 | 1,221 |
Nov ‘19 | 1,238 |
Nov ‘20 | 1,297 |
Nov ‘21 | 1,293 |
Nov ‘22 | 1,354 |
The link to access Stat-Xplore is https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk.
Guidance for using Stat-Xplore is available at: https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started.html.
Asked by: David Evennett (Conservative - Bexleyheath and Crayford)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent steps his Department has taken to help support pensioners with increases in the cost of living.
Answered by Laura Trott - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The Government understands the pressures people are facing with the cost of living which is why we are providing total support of over £94bn over 2022/23 and 2023/24 to help households and individuals with their rising bills.
From April 2023, State Pensions, including the Pension Credit Standard Minimum Guarantee, were increased by 10.1%, in line with prices in the year to September 2022.
Over 8 million UK households on eligible means tested benefits, including the 1.4 million pensioners currently in receipt of Pension Credit, will receive additional Cost of Living Payments totalling up to £900 in the 2023/24 financial year.
In addition, over 8 million pensioner households will receive a £300 pensioner Cost of Living Payment as a top up to their winter fuel payment later this year increasing payments to £500 for households with someone aged 66-79 and £600 for households with someone aged 80 and over.
Specific statistics relating to the pensioner Cost of Living Payments are not available. However, the latest available winter fuel payment statistics (2021/22) show that 14,271 customers in Bexleyheath and Crayford received a winter fuel payment. We expect a similar number of customers will receive the pensioner Cost of Living Payment in 2022/23 and 2023/24.
Pension Credit provides vital financial support to pensioners on a low income and we want all eligible pensioners to claim it. That is why we have been running a comprehensive communications campaign since April 2022. Earlier this year we boosted our campaign with extensive television adverts which highlighted that Pension Credit is worth £3,500 a year on average. Most recently on 17 July we launched a new and innovative Pension Credit “Invitation to Claim” trial which will involve DWP sending letters to approximately 2,500 pensioner households in 10 Local Authorities across Great Britain identified via Housing Benefit data as being most likely to be entitled to Pension Credit encouraging them to contact DWP and make a claim.