James McMurdock

Essex has a vibrant manufacturing sector and Basildon is home to many key businesses including Ford, Leonardo and New Holland. The strength of the Essex economy means that it is home to two freeports including the Thames Freeport in the Right Honourable member’s constituency.

Our new Industrial Strategy is central to the Governments Growth Mission. The Strategy will drive long-term sustainable, inclusive and secure growth throughout the UK, with advanced manufacturing being one of eight growth-driving sectors the strategy will support. The Strategy will support growth sectors to create high-quality, well-paid jobs across the country.

Ministers and officials regularly engage with their US counterparts to discuss ways to strengthen the UK-US trading relationship, already worth £304 billion. The Secretary of State met US Trade Representative Katherine Tai at the G20 Summit in October where they discussed deepening UK-US collaboration.

The Government recognises that this continues to be a worrying time for the steel sector facing pressures due to global energy prices.

We are committed to minimising energy costs for steel, and all energy intensive industries, to help ensure they remain strong and competitive.

Further support through the new British Industry Supercharger should be worth (on average) around £24-£31 Per MegaWatt Hour (MWh) for eligible businesses, closing the competitive gap with their international competitors.

DBT’s offer of export support for Food & Drink businesses in Essex and the whole of the UK includes: educational support via our Export Academy, 1-2-1 support from International Trade Advisors and our extensive overseas network, with trade advisors promoting UK food in over 100 countries. Overseas we deliver a large programme of trade shows, missions and events to increase exports in the sector. In addition, our UK Export Finance agency helps companies access export finance, with a dedicated finance manager covering Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk.

The current pattern of bank and public holidays is well established and accepted. The Government has no plans to change it.

While an additional bank holiday may benefit some communities and sectors, the cost to the economy of an additional bank holiday remains considerable. The estimated cost to the UK economy of an additional one-off bank holiday is around £2bn.

The design and development of electricity transmission infrastructure is the responsibility of developers. Government sets the rules for a robust and independent planning process that communities can participate in.

Given the Secretary of State’s role in determining consent for Nationally Significant Infrastructure projects, it would not be appropriate for the Secretary of State to discuss any specific projects, so as not to prejudice this process.

The Government believes that the only way to permanently protect billpayers, including disabled households, is to speed up the transition towards homegrown clean energy and reduce our reliance on volatile international fossil fuel markets.

Whilst we make this transition, the Government is committed to ensuring vulnerable households are supported with their energy bills. We are looking at all options on how to make energy bills more affordable for these households.

In the short-term, we are continuing to deliver the Warm Home Discount which provides a £150 annual rebate on energy bills for eligible low-income households. We are also working with energy suppliers to ensure they are providing additional support to vulnerable customers that are struggling with bills.

According to the independent website ThinkBroadband.com, over 98% of premises in the South Basildon and East Thurrock constituency have access to superfast broadband speeds (>=30 Mbps) and over 90% can access a gigabit-capable (>1000 Mbps) connection.

Remaining premises that are not expected to receive a gigabit-capable connection through suppliers’ commercial rollout are being considered for support through Project Gigabit. Under a cross-regional framework agreement with Openreach, we plan to procure a contract to deliver fast, reliable broadband to eligible premises in the area.

The Government remains committed to the licence fee for the remainder of the current Charter period.

As part of the next Charter Review, the government will engage with the BBC and others to consider how to ensure the BBC thrives well into the next decade and beyond. This will include discussions on a range of important issues, including future funding models for the BBC and its fairness for licence fee payers.

The Government remains committed to the licence fee for the remainder of the current Charter period.

As part of the next Charter Review, the government will engage with the BBC and others to consider how to ensure the BBC thrives well into the next decade and beyond. This will include discussions on a range of important issues, including future funding models for the BBC and its fairness for licence fee payers.

The Government remains committed to the licence fee for the remainder of the current Charter period.

We will keep an open mind about the future of the licence fee, and will engage with the BBC, the public and other stakeholders before deciding on next steps.

The department is taking action to increase digital learning opportunities in schools and colleges. To do this effectively requires ensuring that students have the right digital and computing skills.

To help break down barriers to opportunity, this government will deliver a curriculum which is rich and broad, inclusive and innovative, and ensures that all young people get the opportunity to learn digital skills as part of their education. To meet this ambition, the government announced an independent Curriculum and Assessment Review on 19 July, that is being chaired by Professor Becky Francis CBE. The Review Group has launched a call for evidence, which sets out key questions and themes where it would particularly welcome input.

Information about how to respond to the call for evidence, or to register to join a live event, is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/curriculum-and-assessment-review. The call for evidence is open until 22 November 2024, and the review will publish its recommendations in 2025. Ministers will then consider any changes to curriculum and qualifications in the light of these recommendations.

This government has also announced the creation of Skills England, which will transform the skills system to make it truly world leading. It will help to build a high skill, high productivity workforce that is matched to employers’ needs and ensures that everyone, regardless of their background, can access the opportunities they need to thrive. It is a new body that will tackle skills shortages, including digital skills, and support sustained economic growth.

Technology is not a catchall solution to educational challenges and its use in the classroom should be informed by evidence and best practice. The department is working to establish a strong evidence base for the effective use of technology and will embed this evidence across our world class education system, so that it is easy for schools, colleges and families to use the best products at the right time. The department funded the Education Endowment Foundation, an independent charity, with £137 million to encourage innovative and effective evidence based teaching, including using technology.

The department has published digital and technology standards to help schools and colleges make more informed decisions about technology leading to safer, more cost efficient practices and new learning opportunities for students. To support schools to meet these standards, the department has invested in connectivity infrastructure and developed a digital support service.

The department has worked with commercial providers and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology to fund gigabit capable broadband rollout to over 1,500 schools. We have also invested over £200 million in its Connect the Classroom programme, improving Wi-Fi connectivity for over one million pupils in over 3,100 schools.

The department is also committed to using assistive technology (AT) to support inclusive digital learning. AT can break down barriers to opportunity for students with special educational needs or disabilities and the department is broadening the effective use of AT through research, training and guidance.

The national curriculum for citizenship includes content on local, regional and international governance, as well as the UK’s relations with the rest of Europe, the Commonwealth, the United Nations and the wider world.

Citizenship also covers the development of the political system of democratic government in the UK, including the roles of citizens, Parliament and the Monarch. There is also scope within the history curriculum for pupils to be taught about these topics across key stages 1 to 3, as well as within geography, where appropriate.

Keeping children safe is a top priority for this government. The department works closely with the Home Office to deliver better and safer outcomes for young people through the Opportunity and Safer Streets Missions. For example, the department is working cross-government to deliver on the government’s manifesto commitments on the Young Futures Programme, to establish Prevention Partnerships and Young Futures Hubs.

Education plays a key role in ensuring children can lead safe and fulfilling lives, and it provides opportunities to educate young people on dangerous behaviour and provide preventative support to those most vulnerable.

Relationships, sex and health education includes content on the situations that can lead young people to carry weapons such as knives, including criminal exploitation through involvement in gangs and county lines drugs operations, and in particular the grooming relationships that can accompany this. Issues around gun and knife crime can also be taught as part of a school’s wider curriculum.

School-led Support, Attend, Fulfil, Exceed taskforces have been established in ten hotspot areas in England. The taskforces are investing in and delivering evidence-based interventions to help young people get back on track with their education and reduce their vulnerability to serious violence. The department’s Alternative Provision Specialist Taskforces see teams of specialists providing integrated, child-centred support in the largest alterative provision schools in serious violence hotspot areas.

This government’s ambition is that all children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) or in alternative provision receive the right support to succeed in their education and as they move into adult life.

The department is providing an increase of almost £1 billion for high needs budgets in the 2025/26 financial year, bringing total high needs funding for children and young people with complex SEND to £11.9 billion.

The department is providing this increase to high needs funding to help meet the increase in costs local authorities will be facing next year, as they in turn provide support to schools and to pupils with SEND.

The department is now in the process of calculating local authorities’ indicative high needs funding allocations for the 2025/26 financial year, which it expects to publish before the end of November.

The Provider Access Legislation places a duty on all schools to provide at least six opportunities for all their pupils to meet providers of approved technical education qualifications or apprenticeships during school years 8 to 13.

The delivery of provider encounters may need to be adapted for some audiences, for example special schools and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). Schools should involve parents/carers, the Special Educational Needs Coordinator and other relevant staff to identify any specialist support needed, and tailor each encounter appropriately.

Schools can access resources for Provider Access Legislation in SEND settings through The Careers and Enterprise Company (CEC) here: https://resources.careersandenterprise.co.uk/resources/provider-access-legislation-pal-send-settings, as well as by contacting their local Careers Hub for support.

Data published by the CEC outlines that the majority of specialist settings are offering meaningful provider encounters for their pupils. In the 2023/24 academic year, 89% of special schools reported that most students had meaningful encounters with further education colleges. 78% of special schools reported that the majority of students had meaningful encounters with independent training providers.

The department will continue to monitor and review the level of compliance with the Provider Access Legislation, the support in place and the impact on young people.

Defra’s farming budget will be £2.4 billion in 2025/26. This will include the largest ever budget directed at sustainable food production and nature’s recovery in our country’s history: £1.8 billion for Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes. This funding will deliver improvements to food security, biodiversity, carbon emissions, water quality, air quality and flood resilience.

ELM schemes will remain at the centre of our offer for family-owned farms and other farmers, with the Sustainable Farming Incentive, Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier and Landscape Recovery all continuing. These offer funding streams for farmers to make their businesses more sustainable and resilient, including those who have been often ignored such as small, grassland, upland and tenant farmers. We will work with the sector to continue to roll out, improve and evolve these schemes, to make them work for farming and nature.

This support forms part of the Government's New Deal for Farmers. The Government is also supporting family-owned farms and other farmers by protecting them from being undercut by low welfare and low standards in trade deals, by lowering energy bills for farmers by switching on GB Energy, and by using the Government’s own purchasing power to back British produce so that 50% of food brought in hospitals, army bases and prisons is locally produced or certified to high environmental standards.

Improving local bus services is a key part of this government’s growth mission. As announced in the King’s Speech on 17 July 2024, the government will introduce a Buses Bill later this session. This will put the power over local bus services back in the hands of local leaders right across England, including in Essex, to ensure networks meet the needs of the communities who rely on them. The Bill will seek to increase the powers available to local leaders to choose the model that works best in their area, whether that be franchising, high-quality partnerships with private operators or local authority ownership.

In addition, the government has confirmed an additional £925 million for the 2025 to 2026 financial year to support and improve bus services in England outside London which is in addition to the introduction of a new National Bus Fare Cap at £3 from January 2025, bringing total bus investment at the Budget to over £1 billion. Local authorities can use the £925 million to introduce new bus routes, make services more frequent and protect crucial bus routes for local communities.

The government will continue working closely with local transport authorities including Essex County Council, and others, to deliver better bus services throughout England.

The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency’s (DVSA) main priority is upholding road safety standards while it works hard to reduce car practical driving test waiting times.

Measures in place to reduce waiting times for customers at all driving test centres (DTC), include the recruitment of new driving examiners (DE), conducting tests outside regular hours, including at weekends and on public holidays, and buying back annual leave from DEs.

DVSA also continues to deploy DEs from areas with lower waiting times into those where waiting times are longer.

As part of recent recruitment at DTCs that serve the South Basildon and East Thurrock constituency, DVSA has made offers to five potential new DEs. This is made up of two DEs at Basildon DTC and three at Southend DTC.

As part of ongoing recruitment, DVSA is aiming to fill a further three vacancies at Tilbury DTC, three at Basildon DTC and one at Southend DTC.

This Government takes road safety very seriously and reducing those killed and injured on our roads is a key priority. The Department is currently considering policy options in this area.

Local authorities are responsible for the management of local roads, within the rules set by Government, including setting local speed limits where the national limit would not be appropriate.

The Safer Roads Fund is an innovative, non-competitive programme that provides funding for the most high risk ‘A’ roads in England. Essex County Council received funding of £4.96m as part of the Safer Roads Fund for the A113 and A104.

This Government is committed to maintaining and renewing our road network so it can serve all road users and is safe. Traffic management of local roads is the responsibility of local traffic authorities who are best placed to understand local circumstances and needs.

Traffic authorities are subject to the statutory network management duty which requires them to manage their roads to secure the ‘expeditious movement’ of all traffic including pedestrians, with a view to reducing congestion, and they have a wide range of tools already available to them to enable this.

We have committed to expanding Pay As You Go (PAYG) contactless ticketing to further stations in the South East, with six stations on the Chiltern railways line having already gone live in June. This expansion will include the entire c2c network and the 19 stations operated by Greater Anglia in Essex, where passengers will benefit from a better ticketing offer.

Unfortunately, this expansion has been delayed due to the cyber-attack at Transport for London (TfL). TfL are delivering necessary security measures, and the rail industry is working at pace to reschedule the launch, an update will be provided in due course.

Both Basildon and Grays Jobcentres serve the South Basildon and East Thurrock constituency. Both Jobcentres collaborate with employers and providers to resolve recruitment needs, focusing on overcoming common barriers. Solutions include tailored Sector Based Work Academy Programmes, organising recruitment events themed by sector and claimant group, and innovative Movement to Work placements. Both Jobcentres also deliver claimant information sessions, covering topics such as childcare costs, various labour market sectors, 50PLUS Mid-Life MOTs, CV and job application support, and interview preparation.

Basildon Jobcentre are delivering a youth customer forum to encourage their younger customers into work. This is designed to be a provider-led programme to support customers with mental health challenges, as this was their main barrier to employment.

Basildon Jobcentre, Basildon Council, and Essex County Council also recently collaborated to deliver Spectrum, a neurodivergent wellbeing and recruitment event. Among other partners, the local NHS Trust attended the event and is now planning to replicate and deliver similar events across other boroughs. DWP and Thurrock Council will deliver a variation of this event in early 2025 for Grays’ neurodivergent constituents.

Basildon Jobcentre and Basildon Council co-delivered activities for their recent Apprenticeship Day and following its success, both are planning to co-deliver a season recruitment event. Pathways, Basildon Council’s community employment support hub, are committed to delivering monthly recruitment and training events.

The forthcoming Youth Guarantee is testament to our commitment to do more to help young people achieve their potential and how we intend to maximise the role of as wide a range of local partners as possible in helping us to achieve this goal.

Recent examples of positive collaboration in South Basildon and East Thurrock include strong support for and active signposting of young people to Basildon local authority’s recent Apprenticeship Day; and hub-based support for young care leavers in Basildon delivered collaboratively by Local Authority support workers and Jobcentre Plus Work Coaches.

We recognise that autistic people face particular barriers to employment, which is reflected in a poor overall employment rate. In our plan to make work pay, we committed to raising awareness of neurodiversity in the workplace.

We have a range of specialist initiatives to support neurodivergent people to stay in work and get back into work. Measures include support from Work Coaches and Disability Employment Advisers in Jobcentres, Access to Work grants, as well as joining up health and employment support around the individual through Employment Advisors in NHS Talking Therapies and Individual Placement and Support in Primary Care.

Employers will also be a large part of our success in this work. Our current support to employers includes a digital information service for employers, and the Disability Confident scheme. We will be considering how to enhance our work with employers in the months ahead.

It is estimated that around 15,200 pensioners in South Basildon and East Thurrock Constituency (2024 boundaries) will be affected by the decision to amend the eligibility criteria for the Winter Fuel Payment. This is based on February 2024 Pension Credit statistics which are available via DWP Stat-Xplore and the Winter Fuel Payment statistics for winter 2023 to 2024 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

This estimation is calculated by subtracting the number of people claiming Pension Credit in South Basildon and East Thurrock constituency from the number of Winter Fuel Payment recipients in South Basildon and East Thurrock constituency. It is possible to use the Pension Credit statistics, to give a minimum estimate of the number who may be eligible for Winter Fuel Payments. Therefore, the above estimation is essentially the number of Winter Fuel Payment recipients who are not claiming Pension Credit pre-policy change, as an estimate of those who will no longer receive the Winter Fuel Payment.

Please note that the above estimation would not take into account any potential increase in Pension Credit take-up that we might see as a result of the Government’s Pension Credit Awareness Campaign. We do not have data on those additional Pension Credit claims by Parliamentary constituencies.

The published Pension Credit figures refer to households, so the number of individuals in respect of whom Pension Credit is paid will be higher (i.e. taking account of households where a claimant has a partner and/or dependents).

In addition, while Pension Credit claimants constitute the majority of those that will be eligible for the Winter Fuel Payment, pensioners who claim other qualifying means-tested benefits will also be eligible for the Winter Fuel Payment. It is not, however, possible to include those on other qualifying means-tested benefits in these figures.

We recognise the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) review process can be unsettling for some claimants. There are a number of ways in which we provide support:

In order to speed up the review process, DWP Case Managers can now undertake PIP reviews in-house, removing the need for a consultation, in cases where sufficient evidence is provided by the claimant. This takes away the stress of a consultation and enables a decision to be made more quickly for the majority of claimants.

For those cases that do need to be reviewed by a Healthcare Professional, different types of assessment types are available depending on claimant circumstances. Providers can offer telephony, video or face-to-face assessments or reviews can again be undertaken, in some cases, using information provided without the need for a consultation.

For claimants who have severe mental health or cognitive impairments we apply an Additional Support marker to the case which protects the claimant from falling out of payment where they struggle to complete forms or engage in the process. This means that the case will progress to a review even where a review form cannot be completed.

Where there are delays for claimants awaiting a review of their PIP award, we have taken steps to keep claimants informed and updated via text messages. In such cases, we routinely extend awards to ensure continuity of payments, enabling claimants (where appropriate) to retain eligibility for Motability vehicles and Blue Badges.

To help claimants understand the process, information is provided on Gov.UK, which also includes the telephone number to call if more time is needed to complete the review form. This can be found at Personal Independence Payment (PIP): If your PIP claim is reviewed - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) . Gov.UK also signposts claimants to information from Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) about what claimants need to include when completing the PIP review form. Further details can be found at Help with your PIP review form - Citizens Advice.