James Morris

Rebalancing the economy by creating a Northern Powerhouse is part of our long-term economic plan, to pool its strengths and become greater than the sum of its parts. This could add £44bn to the Northern Economy by 2030, or £1,600 per person living there -in real terms. Our £20 million investment in Health North will make a valuable contribution to these efforts.

Complimenting this, on 1^st June my Rt hon Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced proposals for making the Midlands an Engine of Growth. Working with Local Enterprise Partnerships across the Midlands, we are seeking to align investments and devolve decision-making, to create the strongest possible environment for economic growth across the region.

The number of public service mutuals has increased from 9 in 2010 to nearly 100 today, operating in sectors ranging from youth services to social care. My department's Mutuals Support Programme continues to provide professional support and training to live and developing mutuals, supporting over 65 to date.

The department wants to ensure that education, health and care (EHC) plan applications are processed promptly and, where required, plans are issued as quickly as possible so that children and young people can access the support they need. In March 2023 the government set out its plans to reform and improve the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system through its SEND and Alternative Provision (AP) Improvement Plan. The SEND and AP Improvement Plan commits to establishing a single national system that delivers for every child and young person with SEND so that they enjoy their childhood, achieve good outcomes, and are well prepared for adulthood and employment.

As part of these reforms, the department is currently testing measures to deliver a nationally consistent EHC plan system to improve the quality and speed with which support is put in place. The department is also considering the skills and training which local authority caseworker teams require and is offering some short-term legal training to local authority caseworker teams.

Where local authorities are failing to deliver consistent outcomes for children and young people with SEND, we work with them using a range of improvement programmes and SEND specialist advisors to address weaknesses.

The department is monitoring Sandwell’s EHC plan performance and is offering specialist support through a specialist SEND Advisor. Following the Ofsted and CQC visit in July 2023, three areas for improvement were identified. The local area has published its Sandwell Local Area Partnership Inclusion (SEND and AP) Plan 2023/2026 and progress on improvement will be continuously monitored by the department and NHS England.

Following the Ofsted and CQC re-visit to Dudley in February 2022, an Accelerated Progress Plan (APP) was put in place to address six areas of weakness. EHC plan timeliness was not identified as an area of weakness, although through the APP, the department, along with a specialist SEND Advisor and NHS England, works closely with the local area to ensure they are supported in addressing issues and driving improvements to services, including continuous improvement in EHC plan timeliness.

The mental health and wellbeing of students, including suicide prevention, is a government priority. The department has been working closely with higher education (HE) providers and health colleagues to ensure that students are well supported during their time at university. We expect all HE providers to take suicide prevention with the utmost seriousness, focusing on prevention, providing information and places for students to find help, actively identifying students at risk, and intervening with swift support when needed.

HE providers are autonomous organisations, independent from the government. HE providers have a general duty of care to deliver educational and pastoral services to the standard of an ordinarily competent institution and, in carrying out these services, they are expected to act reasonably to protect the health, safety and welfare of their students. HE providers have a duty of care to not cause harm to their students through the university’s own actions.

Students with disabilities, including mental health impairments, are protected under the Equality Act 2010 which prohibits discrimination and imposes a duty on HE providers to make reasonable adjustments where disabled students are put at a substantial disadvantage.

The NHS has statutory responsibility for delivering mental health services to the whole population, including students.

We work closely with the Department of Health and Social Care, the Office for Students (OfS), and the HE sector to support the student population. We have asked the OfS to distribute £15 million of funding this year as additional support to help students with the transition from schools and colleges to university. This is also to fund partnerships between universities and local NHS services to provide pathways of care for university students.

The department has been vocal in our support for the University Mental Health Charter, led by Student Minds and developed in collaboration with students, staff, and partner organisations. The Charter aims to drive up standards of practice across the HE sector. 60 universities on the Charter Programme form part of a UK-wide practice sharing network with access to events and opportunities to come together to improve their whole university approach to student and staff mental health. Programme members can also work towards the Charter Award, an accreditation scheme which recognises universities that demonstrate excellent practice.

The department has appointed university Vice-Chancellor Edward Peck as HE's first ever Student Support Champion. His role is to provide sector leadership and promoting effective practice in areas including mental health and information sharing. Professor Peck is engaging with families who have suffered bereavement due to students taking their own life during their time at university.

New industry-designed standards are driving up quality, such as the project management apprenticeship developed by employers. We have increased off-the-job training and introduced rigorous end-point assessments so apprentices are occupationally competent. We’ve also strengthened the Register of Apprenticeship Training Providers giving employers confidence apprentices will receive high-quality training.

It is a fundamental priority for this Government to keep children safe from harm and improve their life chances. We are reforming children’s social care, putting practice excellence and achieving more for children at its heart. We have made significant progress, reducing bureaucracy and recently announced a further £200m to support innovative new ways of working that focus on the needs of children and families.

Children and young people’s mental health is a high priority for the department, and that is why my Rt Hon friend the Secretary of State appointed me as the first DfE minister with specific responsibility for this important area.

Over the last 9 months, we have funded guidance for schools on counselling and lesson plans to support age-appropriate teaching about mental health. Today the Government is launching a new campaign to tackle stigma and discrimination which aims to involve schools, children and young people.

We are also contributing £1.5m to a joint pilot for training single points of contact in schools and specialist mental health services; and providing funding worth £4.9m this year, through a dedicated mental health strand within our VCS programme, to support 17 projects delivering a wide range of support across the country to children and young people with mental health issues. These include projects to promote positive mental health in schools with organisations such as MIND and Place2Be, and new resources for parents on MindEd.

I am not in a position to update the Honourable Member on timings.

Good progress has been made on drafting the various required statutory instruments and guidance, working with the Stakeholder Working Group who developed the recommendations for reform. The group produced a finely balanced package of recommendations and we want to present our work in one go because this is very much a package of recommendations. We hope to bring it forward but I am not in a position to say precisely when.

We have some of the safest roads in the world, but we are not complacent.

The Department for Transport provides guidance to LTAs on various traffic management measures which impact road safety. A collection of these can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/local-transport-notes.

Guidance provided by the Department for LTAs is kept updated to maintain the highest road safety standards possible. The responsibility for making decisions about the roads under its care, including measures to improve the safety of residential roads, sits with the relevant Local Traffic Authority (LTA).

The Department does not hold the specific information requested. However, industry figures from the Rail Delivery Group suggest that the number of planned train services per year has increased from 5.69 million in 1997-98 to 7.30 million in 2016/17. The industry also cites some specific examples of increased services on routes to London, such as Manchester to London increasing from 17 trains per day in 1994 to 47 in 2016, and the number of trains from London to Sheffield increasing from 15 per day in 1994 to 31 in 2016.

In relation to the number of seats, According to the Rail Delivery Group, there were 10,400 vehicles in passenger use in 1996/97 compared to 14,025 as at March 2018, an increase of over 3,500 vehicles or nearly 35%. This additional fleet capacity is helping to lengthen trains and contribute towards the thousands of extra rail services each week.

In 2017-18, train operating companies provided a net premium of £0.2 billion to central government. In 1993-94, train operating companies received a net subsidy of £0.9 billion in nominal terms (£1.5 billion in real terms) from central government.

For additional information on train operating companies net premiums and subsidies please refer to the Office of Rail and Road data at the link below:

http://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/displayreport/report/html/a830de20-83bf-408d-9c22-7f3ec23999f9

The Department does not hold the specific information requested. However, industry figures from the Rail Delivery Group suggest that the number of planned train services per year has increased from 5.69 million in 1997-98 to 7.30 million in 2016/17. The industry also cites some specific examples of increased services on routes to London, such as Manchester to London increasing from 17 trains per day in 1994 to 47 in 2016, and the number of trains from London to Sheffield increasing from 15 per day in 1994 to 31 in 2016.

In relation to the number of seats, According to the Rail Delivery Group, there were 10,400 vehicles in passenger use in 1996/97 compared to 14,025 as at March 2018, an increase of over 3,500 vehicles or nearly 35%. This additional fleet capacity is helping to lengthen trains and contribute towards the thousands of extra rail services each week.

The number of new carriages ordered by Train Operating Companies in each complete year between 1997 and 2018 is:

Statistics published by the NHS Business Services Authority show that there were 22 pharmacies in Halesowen and Rowley Regis on 31 December 2023. As of 31 January 2024, 22 Pharmacies had signed up to provide Pharmacy First.

The Department is not involved in the direct promotion of quality standards. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) promotes Quality Standards (QS) and other guidance via its website, newsletters and other media.

On 28 June 2018, NICE published a new QS on spondyloarthritis. The QS includes four quality statements identified as the markers of high quality spondyloarthritis care. QS are important in setting out to patients, the public, commissioners and providers what a high quality service should look like in a particular area of care. Whilst providers and commissioners must have regard to NICE QS in planning and delivering services, they do not provide a comprehensive service specification and are not mandatory.

We work closely with our international partners in the EU and beyond to tackle the threat that terrorism poses to all communities, with regular discussions on security and counter-terrorism issues. Currently, we are working with European partners to further strengthen areas of operational and policy co-operation, to support information and international data sharing, to implement a common strategy to counter the threat from ‘foreign fighters’, and to counter radicalisation both within and outside the EU.

We are concerned about the closure of the Rafah Crossing and the impact that has on urgent medical and other priority cases in Gaza. The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond), most recently raised the importance of reopening the Rafah crossing when he spoke with the Egyptian Foreign Minister on 14 January. We continue to raise this issue in our contacts with the Egyptian government.

In the Immigration Act 2016, we made illegal working a criminal offence so that wages can be seized as proceeds of crime and introduced tougher sanctions on rogue employers. We have also recently introduced additional safeguards to protect legal migrants seeking employment who do not have the necessary documentation to establish their lawful immigration status.

Local Enterprise Partnerships rather than the Government decide which sites should be prioritised for development. A new bidding round for Enterprise Zones was announced by my rt. hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer (George Osborne), in his Budget statement on 8 July. Applications involving the development of brownfield sites will be considered alongside other proposals based on their strategic, economic and financial benefits.