Asked by: Helen Grant (Conservative - Maidstone and Malling)
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 the education of women and girls globally.
Answered by Stephen Doughty - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The UK is committed to empowering women and girls around the world through our international work. We work through the humanitarian system, leveraging multilateral institutions' funding, and strategically deploying scarce resources to improve access to quality education, particularly for women and girls, through stronger systems.
In November 2024, the UK provided £14 million of support for Sudanese refugees through Education Cannot Wait. This reaches 200,000 vulnerable displaced children with education interventions in Sudan and Sudanese refugee populations in Central African Republic, Chad, Ethiopia, Libya, South Sudan and Uganda.
An estimated 60 million girls are sexually assaulted on their journey to, from and in school annually. In May 2025, the Minister for Africa launched the new Ministerial Taskforce on Ending Violence in and around Schools co-chaired by the UK and Sierra Leone. 11 countries endorsed a joint declaration committing to make violence prevention in and around schools a political priority.
Asked by: Helen Grant (Conservative - Maidstone and Malling)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of increasing the taxable turnover SMEs can earn in a12-month period before registering for VAT.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
At £90,000, the UK has a higher VAT registration threshold than any EU country and the joint highest in the OECD. This keeps the majority of businesses out of the VAT regime altogether.
Asked by: Helen Grant (Conservative - Maidstone and Malling)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will launch a public consultation on the proposed changes to EHCP eligibility criteria.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
This government inherited a special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system that has been failing to meet the needs of children and families for far too long. We know that families face real challenges with EHC plans and that even after fighting to secure the entitlement, a plan does not always guarantee the right the support will be delivered.
The department needs to focus on addressing the overall systemic issues that make SEND support so hard to access. We are thinking about how we protect support for the children that will always need specialist placements and to make accessing that support less bureaucratic and adversarial, as well as how we intervene earlier so support can be provided regardless of whether a legal plan is in place.
Ministers and officials have been engaging with parents to seek their views on the direction of future reforms and to understand their experiences of the SEND system. For example, through a webinar attended by around 100 parents in early June. We plan to deliver more such webinars over the coming weeks and months.
Asked by: Helen Grant (Conservative - Maidstone and Malling)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to protect patients with cystic fibrosis in the context of a shortage of Creon gastro-resistant capsules.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department is in regular discussions with the supplier of Creon on the latest stock availability and the actions that are being taken to mitigate the supply issue that is affecting the whole of the United Kingdom. Through these discussions we have managed to secure additional volumes of Creon for 2025 for the UK. We are continuing to work with all suppliers of pancreatic enzyme replacement therapy (PERT) to understand what more can be done to add further resilience to the market. The Department has also reached out to specialist importers who have sourced unlicensed stock to assist in covering the remaining gap in the market.
In the longer term, the Department has had interest from non-UK suppliers of PERT wishing to bring their products to the UK and, along with colleagues in the Medicine and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), we are working with these potential suppliers, and if authorised, these products could further diversify and strengthen the market.
The Department has issued management advice to healthcare professionals which directs clinicians to unlicensed imports when licensed stock is unavailable, and which includes actions for integrated care boards to put in place local mitigation plans to ensure that patients are not left without PERT. The Department, in collaboration with NHS England, has created a public facing page to include the latest update on PERT availability and easily accessible prescribing advice for clinicians.
Asked by: Helen Grant (Conservative - Maidstone and Malling)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if she will take steps to ensure that property management companies (a) accurately relay charges to customers, (b) respond to correspondence within reasonable timeframes and (c) do not add administrative charges without explanation.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to Question UIN 38576 on 24 March 2025 and Question 37829 on 20 March 2025.
Asked by: Helen Grant (Conservative - Maidstone and Malling)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if she will make an assessment of the potential implications for her policies of the adequacy of the service provided by First Port property management.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The government is committed to ensuring that consumers are protected from abuse and poor service at the hands of unscrupulous property agents.
Legislation is currently enforced by local authorities and by the National Trading Standards’ Lettings and Estate Agency Team, who have the power to issue warnings and banning orders to rogue estate and letting agents.
The previous government committed to regulate the property agent sector in 2018 and asked a working group chaired by Lord Best to advise them on how best to do it.
However, they failed to respond to the recommendations set out in the working group’s 2019 Regulation of Property Agents: working group report which can be found on gov.uk here.
Managing agents play a key role in the maintenance of multi-occupancy buildings and freehold estates, and their importance will only increase as we transition toward a commonhold future. As a result, we are looking again at the 2019 report.
As set out in the Written Ministerial Statement made on 21 November 2024 (HCWS244), the government have made clear it intends to strengthen regulation of managing agents to drive up the standard of their service. As a minimum, this should include mandatory professional qualifications which set a new basic standard that managing agents will be required to meet. We will consult on this matter this year.
We will set out our full position on regulation of estate, letting and managing agents in due course.
Asked by: Helen Grant (Conservative - Maidstone and Malling)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to improve the accessibility of face-to-face GP appointments (a) in general and (b) for people less digitally literate.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
General practitioners (GPs) must provide face to face appointments alongside remote consultations. Online services must always be provided in addition to, rather than as a replacement for, in-person consultations.
The GP contract also makes clear that patients have a right to request a face-to-face appointment and practices must make every effort to meet their preference, unless there are good clinical reasons to the contrary.
We know that some patients can struggle to access digital services. To help address this, digital tools used in primary care settings must meet required minimum standards of functionality set by NHS England, ensuring a consistent quality of service for patients. All organisations providing services in the National Health Service, including primary care providers, must follow the Accessible Information Standard.
Asked by: Helen Grant (Conservative - Maidstone and Malling)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps his Department is taking to further support Ukraine.
Answered by Luke Pollard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
The UK continues to step up its assistance, spending £4.5 billion on military support for Ukraine this year - more than ever before. This includes £2.26 billion of interest from frozen Russian assets which the UK will use to source essential military capabilities for Ukraine.
We also recently agreed a £1.6 billion export finance deal which will supply Ukraine with more than 5,000 air defence missiles. The deal marks a historic step for industrial relations between the UK and Ukraine, building on the 100 Year Partnership signed recently by the Prime Minister and President Zelenskyy in Kyiv.
Furthermore, we also announced the biggest package of sanctions in over two years to continue to bear down on Russia's economy.
Asked by: Helen Grant (Conservative - Maidstone and Malling)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to Q3 of the oral evidence given by the Lady Chief Justice of England to the Justice Select Committee on 26 November 2024, HC 421, what estimate she has made of the total cost of sitting the extra 6,500 court sitting days to reach the maximum 113,000 days available.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
113,000 sitting days are a theoretical maximum of judicial sitting days in the Crown Court. It is not clear whether other parts of the system – for example the availability of counsel - could sustain that level of sitting, and therefore it is not correct to say that number of sitting days was 'available' for FY24/25.
In June the previous Lord Chancellor reached agreement with the Lady Chief Justice and Senior President of Tribunals to sit 106,000 days in the Crown Court in FY24/25 within a total budget of £275 million. In September, the current Lord Chancellor increased the allocation of sitting days for the Crown Court by 500 additional days and then again in December by 2,000, meaning that the total allocation for FY 24/25 is now 108,500, the highest number in nearly a decade.
Asked by: Helen Grant (Conservative - Maidstone and Malling)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if she will make an estimate of the total cost to the public purse of accessing court transcripts for each of the last five years.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The cost incurred by HM Courts and Tribunals Service for transcription services in the five most recent financial years (April – March) is as below:
Financial Year | Total Spend (£) |
2019-20 | 1,252,201 |
2020-21 | 939,309 |
2021-22 | 1,258,353 |
2022-23 | 1,104,667 |
2023-24 | 1,043,971 |
These figures do not include transcription spend incurred by Legal Aid Agency which are covered by central funds as these are not included in the accounts for HM Courts and Tribunals Service.