Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what progress has been made on plans to ban the import of hunting trophies.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government committed to banning the import of hunting trophies in its Manifesto. We intend to deliver on this and are currently considering the most effective way to do so.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 18 October 2024 to Question 8352 on Surrogacy, whether he plans to publish details of the meeting of Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Patient Safety, Women’s Health and Mental Health with the Law Commission; and whether he plans to implement the recommendations of the report.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Ministerial meetings attended by third parties are declared in the quarterly transparency publication on GOV.UK. The Government will publish a response to the Law Commission’s report on surrogacy in due course.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps he is taking to support mine clearance programmes in Sri Lanka.
Answered by Catherine West - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The UK has funded landmine clearance programmes that make land safe since 2002. This supports livelihoods and encourages a return to normalcy for citizens in conflict-affected areas of Sri Lanka. Since 2016, our delivery partners at the HALO Trust and Mines Advisory Group have collectively cleared 3,361,647 square metres of land which is now used for agriculture, collection of natural resources, infrastructure, public services and residential purposes. The UK is one of the founding signatories of the Mine Ban Treaty, and these projects demonstrate the UK's continued leadership with others to make Sri Lanka landmine-free.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to improve staff wellbeing and retention in the education sector.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
Supporting our expert education workforce is critical to this government’s mission to break down the barriers to opportunity for children and young people at every stage.
Improving the wellbeing of staff in the education sector, including teachers, is key to this. The department is working in partnership with the sector, and mental health experts, to make commitments to improve staff mental health and wellbeing and boost retention.
These commitments include the creation of the education staff wellbeing charter which sets out shared commitments to protect and promote the wellbeing of staff in schools and colleges. The charter can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/education-staff-wellbeing-charter.
The charter can be used to inform a whole school or college approach to wellbeing or to develop a staff wellbeing strategy. So far, over 3,900 schools and colleges have signed up to it. In January 2024, the department published a progress report on its commitments in the charter, which is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/education-staff-wellbeing-and-teacher-retention.
The department is funding mental health and wellbeing support for school and college leaders, which includes professional supervision and counselling for those who need it. More than 2,000 leaders have benefitted from the support so far. Support continues to be available and can be accessed by visiting the Education Support website, which can be found at: https://www.educationsupport.org.uk/.
The department has made available a range of resources to help schools address teacher workload issues, prioritise staff wellbeing and support schools to introduce flexible working practices. For example, the department’s improve workload and wellbeing for school staff service, which was developed alongside school leaders, includes a workload reduction toolkit to support schools to identify opportunities to cut excessive workload. More information about this service can be found here: https://improve-workload-and-wellbeing-for-school-staff.education.gov.uk/.
The department also recently clarified that planning, preparation and assessment time can be done from home. The department has also removed the requirement for performance related pay and bureaucracy that went with it and has abolished one-word Ofsted judgements to deliver a system which provides better information for parents and is proportionate for staff.
Fair pay is key to ensuring teaching is an attractive and respected profession, which is why this government has accepted the School Teachers’ Review Body’s recommendation of a 5.5% pay award for teachers and leaders in maintained schools from September 2024. This will be fully funded at a national level.
School support staff play a vital role in all our schools. They are crucial to ensuring we give children the best possible life chances and the department wants to ensure they are paid fairly for the work they do. This is why the department set out its plans to reinstate the School Support Staff Negotiating Body (SSSNB) through the Employment Rights Bill, which was introduced on 10 October. Establishing the SSSNB will help ensure that schools can recruit and retain the staff needed to deliver high-quality, inclusive education.
Additionally, to boost recruitment and retention of teachers, the department has agreed to double the targeted retention incentive from 2024/25, which will give eligible early career teachers in key science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and technical shortage subjects, working in disadvantaged schools and in all colleges, up to £6,000 after tax annually, on top of their normal pay.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to implement the 5.5% pay award for teachers in all sixth form colleges.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government does not set or recommend pay in further education (FE) providers, which have the freedom to make their own arrangements in line with their local circumstances.
This government recognises the vital role that FE teachers and providers play in equipping learners with the opportunities and skills that they need to succeed in their education and throughout life.
That is why the October Budget set out the government’s commitment to skills, by providing an additional £300 million revenue funding for FE to ensure young people are developing the skills this country needs. The department will set out in due course how this funding will be distributed.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, when the Government plans to ratify the Global Oceans Treaty.
Answered by Anneliese Dodds - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Government is completely committed to ratification of the Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ Agreement, also known as the Global Oceans Treaty or the High Seas Treaty), which is in line with our determination to reinvigorate the UK's wider international leadership on climate and nature. Work is in hand on the measures needed to implement the detailed and complex provisions of the Agreement before the UK can ratify.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what recent discussions his Department has had with representatives of the (a) national unity government and (b) ethnic revolutionary organisations in Myanmar on the delivery of aid to people most in need.
Answered by Catherine West - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
We continue to discuss the humanitarian situation and the delivery of aid in Myanmar with a range of opposition stakeholders, including the National Unity Government (NUG) and a number of Ethnic Resistance Organisations (ERO). Since the coup, the UK has provided more than £150 million in life-saving humanitarian assistance, emergency healthcare and education support, and we continue to support civil society and local communities on the ground. The UK is committed to supporting a plurality of voices in Myanmar, and we are clear that any future settlement for Myanmar must be inclusive and involve a wide range of opposition actors, including EROs and the NUG. The Myanmar military must engage with them and all other opposition groups.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans she has to spend the £300 million allocated to her Department for further education in the Autumn Budget 2024.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This government is committed to driving economic growth and supporting opportunity for all, and further education (FE) is central to this. The government is providing the additional £300 million for FE to ensure young people are developing the skills they need to succeed and a further £300 million to support colleges to maintain, improve and ensure suitability of their estate. The department will set out how the additional funding will be distributed in due course.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, with reference to pages 21-23 of the Peace Brigades International UK report entitled, The Case For Change: Why human rights defenders need a UK law on mandatory due diligence, published in November 2024, if he will make an assessment of the potential implications for his policies of that report's findings; and if he will bring forward legislative proposals to introduce requirements on companies operating internationally to demonstrate (a) human rights and (b) environmental due diligence.
Answered by Anneliese Dodds - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The UK recognises the essential role that human rights defenders and civil society organisations play in promoting and protecting human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. The UK supports voluntary due diligence approaches taken by UK businesses to respect human rights and the environment across their operations and supply relationships, in line with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. Going forward, the Government will assess the best way to prevent environmental harms and human rights and labour rights abuses in both private and public sector supply chains.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps she plans to take to deliver the strategy to tackle homelessness; and what steps she plans to take to involve people with lived experience of homelessness.
Answered by Rushanara Ali - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Deputy Prime Minister is leading cross-government work to deliver the long-term solutions we need to get us back on track to ending all forms of homelessness. This includes chairing a dedicated Inter-Ministerial Group, bringing together ministers from across government to develop a long-term strategy.
We have also established an Expert Group to bring together representatives from across the homelessness and rough sleeping sector, local and combined authorities and wider experts to help Government understand what is working well nationally and locally and where improvements are needed.
We will engage with those with lived experience through a lived experience forum to ensure their voices are reflected in the homelessness strategy.