Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the requirement upon Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to make savings of £99 million this year on the delivery of health services in Oxfordshire.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

Like many other trusts, the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust overspent against their own plan in 2024/25, despite receiving significant additional support to deliver that plan. We can no longer accept overspends as standard. It is critical that all National Health Service organisations maximise every penny available to them and deliver the plans that they agree to. All efficiency savings will be used by organisations such as the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to reinvest in services and deliver on their plans.

All systems have agreed breakeven financial plans for 2025/26, requiring £11 billion of efficiencies and other savings, or 7.1% of total allocation. While ambitious, NHS England has provided detailed efficiency and productivity support during 2025/26 planning and will continue to do so through a new finance improvement programme to ensure efficiency and financial plans are met without adversely impacting service delivery or patient care.

As of the second month, the trust reports that it is on track to deliver the efficiencies set out in their plan for 2025/26.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that early years providers are not disadvantaged by restrictions on charging flexibility for funded childcare hours.

Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

It is this government’s ambition that all families have access to high-quality, affordable and flexible early education and care, giving every child the best start in life and delivering on our Plan for Change.

Government funding for the entitlements does not cover consumables like meals, nappies or sun cream or additional activities, such as trips, so providers are able to ask parents to pay for these things.

However, in line with a recent high court judgment, these charges must not be mandatory or a condition of accessing a funded place. The high court judgement is accessible here: https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewhc/admin/2025/224. The government’s guidance sets out requirements for the delivery of the early education and childcare entitlements in line with the law.

The statutory guidance emphasises transparency at the heart of how the entitlement should be passed on to parents, including that any costs should be clearer on invoices and websites. Providers have until January 2026 to update their information in line with transparency requirements.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to increase workforce numbers in the early years sector.

Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

The early years workforce is at the heart of the government’s mission to give every child the best start in life and deliver the Plan for Change.

The department is supporting the sector to attract talented staff and childminders to join the workforce by creating conditions for improved recruitment. Our national recruitment campaign is urging the public to ‘Do Something BIG’ and start a career working with small children. A dedicated website is helping people to find out more about gaining qualifications and to search for existing job vacancies. To further boost recruitment in early years, we are continuing to offer £1,000 financial incentives.

We are creating new routes into the workforce through skills bootcamps for the early years which lead to an accelerated apprenticeship, and also funding early years initial teacher training as a route for new and existing staff to gain early years teacher status. Our commitment to grow the early years skills pipeline can also be seen through the expansion of the Levelling Up Premium payments. To support childminders to join and stay in the profession we have implemented new flexibilities to work with more people and spend more time working from non-domestic premises.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 4 July 2025 to Question 64334 on Roads: Noise, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of the installation of noise cameras, following the 2022 trial.

Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

The Department for Transport conducted roadside trials of noise camera technology between October 2022 and February 2023. Reports of these trials, including detailed assessment of the technology’s performance and potential merits, were published on 17 March 2024. Overall, the trials demonstrated that noise cameras currently have the potential to be used for enforcement, but only when accompanied by human review of the recorded evidence, which is likely to lower the cost effectiveness of deploying the technology in many circumstances. A link to these reports can be found here: www.gov.uk/government/publications/noise-camera-technology-roadside-trial.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether she has made an assessment of the potential impact of recent changes to stamp duty thresholds on the number of first time buyers entering the property market.

Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)

Recent changes to stamp duty thresholds on 1 April 2025 were the result of policy introduced by the previous government. HMRC analysis estimates that there will be 4,000-6,000 fewer first-time buyer transactions per year between 2025/26-2029/30 as a result.

At Budget 2024, the Government increased the higher rates of Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) for additional dwellings by two percentage points from 3% to 5%. This measure will help to ensure that those looking to move home, or purchase their first property, have a greater advantage over second home buyers, landlords, and companies purchasing residential property. The OBR certified costing estimates that increasing the higher rates of SDLT by two percentage points is expected to result in 130,000 additional transactions over the next five years by first-time buyers and other people buying a primary residence.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of allocating SEND funding to schools on the basis of their current cohort of pupils rather than the cohort in a previous academic year.

Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)

The schools national funding formula (NFF) operates on a lag, where schools are funded based on their pupils in the previous October census. This helps to give schools more certainty over funding levels, to aid their planning, and is particularly important in giving schools that see year-on-year reductions in their pupil numbers time to re-organise their staffing and costs before seeing the funding impact.

Schools are expected to meet from their core funding the additional support costs of pupils with special educational needs and disabilities up to £6,000 per pupil per annum. When those support costs exceed £6,000, the authority should also allocate additional top-up funding to cover the excess costs. This funding comes from the authority’s high needs budget, and is based on the needs of current pupils.

UK-based medical charities in Palestine

Reform of the special educational needs and disabilities system

Government policy on the Hillsborough Law

Post Offices in rural areas

Support for farmers

Found: Nichols Irene Campbell Siân Berry Ellie Chowns Dawn Butler Tessa Munt Adrian Ramsay Freddie van Mierlo

Found: Nichols Irene Campbell Siân Berry Ellie Chowns Dawn Butler Tessa Munt Adrian Ramsay Freddie van Mierlo

Found: Nichols Irene Campbell Siân Berry Ellie Chowns Dawn Butler Tessa Munt Adrian Ramsay Freddie van Mierlo

Found: Nichols Irene Campbell Siân Berry Ellie Chowns Dawn Butler Tessa Munt Adrian Ramsay Freddie van Mierlo

Found: Nichols Irene Campbell Siân Berry Ellie Chowns Dawn Butler Tessa Munt Adrian Ramsay Freddie van Mierlo

Found: Nichols Irene Campbell Siân Berry Ellie Chowns Dawn Butler Tessa Munt Adrian Ramsay Freddie van Mierlo

Found: Nichols Irene Campbell Siân Berry Ellie Chowns Dawn Butler Tessa Munt Adrian Ramsay Freddie van Mierlo

Found: Nichols Irene Campbell Siân Berry Ellie Chowns Dawn Butler Tessa Munt Adrian Ramsay Freddie van Mierlo

Found: Jones Manuela Perteghella Caroline Voaden Lisa Smart Mike Martin Sir Gavin Williamson Freddie van Mierlo

Found: Jones Manuela Perteghella Caroline Voaden Lisa Smart Mike Martin Sir Gavin Williamson Freddie van Mierlo

Found: Jones Manuela Perteghella Caroline Voaden Lisa Smart Mike Martin Sir Gavin Williamson Freddie van Mierlo

Found: Jones Manuela Perteghella Caroline Voaden Lisa Smart Mike Martin Sir Gavin Williamson Freddie van Mierlo