Jess Asato

There is a wide variety of public appointments which are made by Ministers. Typically they consist of non-executive positions of a public body, or a member of an advisory committee. A person appointed to such a position is an office holder. Office holders tend not to be employees.

By operation of law, statutory maternity and paternity leave is only available to employees, who are employed under an employment contract and meet the necessary eligibility criteria.

A particular Office holder may be eligible for a form of discretionary leave, but this would be a matter for the relevant appointing authority to determine.

The UK fashion industry is famed for its historic creativity and this government recognises the important role the sector plays both in our domestic economy and on the global stage.

It is important to take an evidence-based approach to considering policy options. As well as the garment trade adjudicator or fashion watchdog idea, there have been other proposals including licensing and increased guidance on managing supply chains. We will continue to review measures to drive up standards across the sector and monitor global regulatory proposals in the sector.

The Government recognises that thermal storage can be advantageous, because of its smaller physical size, for properties that may struggle to install a traditional hot water cylinder. If installed at the same time as a heat pump, the installation of thermal storage will be zero rated for VAT purposes.

The Boiler Upgrade Scheme does not fund thermal storage because we are directing funding at heat pumps and in limited circumstances biomass boilers. However, we will keep our policy under review as further evidence emerges. In addition, Government is funding innovation in thermal storage through its energy research programmes.

Heat pumps will have a major role to play in all net zero pathways and the Government expects most properties will ultimately switch to heat pumps as these are a proven technology and have been installed in high numbers in other countries.

We recognise that heat pumps may not be feasible in a small number of off-gas-grid properties and have commissioned a package of research to collect data on the costs of different approaches to decarbonising the most complex housing archetypes, including the use of alternative low carbon heating solutions. We expect to receive results from that research in 2025.

We are committed to ensuring that communities who live near new clean energy infrastructure can see the benefits of this and are currently considering how to most effectively deliver this. This includes developing guidance on community benefits for electricity transmission network infrastructure, which we will publish in due course.

Services in scope of the Online Safety Act are already required to take action to tackle horrific illegal pornographic content and will be required prevent children accessing all pornographic content.

The Secretary of State has met Baroness Bertin to discuss her review. The review’s findings continue to be assessed by the Government and an update will be provided in due course.

Under the Online Safety Act platforms must proactively tackle the most harmful illegal content including extreme pornography, much of which disproportionately affects women and girls. The Act requires services in scope to understand risks from illegal content online and take mitigating action.

Separate to provisions in the Online Safety Act, the Independent Pornography Review, led by Independent Lead Reviewer Baroness Gabby Bertin will explore the effectiveness of regulation, legislation and the law enforcement response to pornography. The government expects the Review to present its final report by the end of the year.

Under the Online Safety Act, platforms must proactively tackle the most harmful illegal content including extreme pornography, much of which disproportionately affects women and girls. The Act requires services in scope to understand risks from illegal content online and take mitigating action.

Separate to provisions in the Online Safety Act, the Independent Pornography Review, led by Independent Lead Reviewer Baroness Gabby Bertin will explore the effectiveness of regulation, legislation and the law enforcement response to pornography. The government expects the Review to present its final report by the end of the year.

This government wants to create a high-quality system that places children and families at the centre of its design, providing meaningful and consistent support for families as their needs change over time.

Schools, colleges, early years and childcare settings, and other educational providers, including alternative provision, all have a pivotal role to play in safeguarding children and promoting their welfare. Their insight and co-operation are vital to the successful delivery of multi-agency safeguarding arrangements. People working in education settings play an important role in building relationships, identifying concerns and providing direct support to children.

The Children’s Social Care National Framework sets out the purpose, principles and enablers of good practice and the outcomes that should be achieved. The guidance describes what everyone working with families should do and helps everyone come together with a clear vision for how to transform the support that families receive.

Services should prioritise supporting the whole family, recognising that problems do not exist in silos and are often interconnected and intergenerational. Intervening to provide support at the earliest opportunity can help prevent challenges from escalating and improve outcomes.

Family hubs play an important role helping families access vital services to improve the health, education and wellbeing of children, young people and their families. As part of the family hubs’ ‘Start for Life’ programme, there are now over 400 family hubs open across 88 local authorities, creating a welcoming place where families with children aged 0 to 19, or up to 25 with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), can be connected to a wide range of services.

Programme guidance outlines the minimum expectation that local authorities should be delivering in their family hubs for SEND support Family Hub Service Expectations.

This support includes the staff in the family hub being knowledgeable about the SEND services available and being able to connect families to SEND services within the family hub network.

Over the last three years, many of the local authorities on the programme have chosen to focus on improving SEND services, bringing local offers together in one place and funding early identification/intervention on speech, language and communication needs.

Adult, those aged over 19 years old, government-funded further education and skills learning in England is recorded on the individualised learner record and published in the ‘Further education and skills’ statistics publication.

In the 2023/24 academic year, there were 33 adult education and training learning aim enrolments on the level 3 Electrotechnical Experienced Worker Qualification. There were 3,017 enrolments on other level 3 learning aims that are electrical-related.

It should be noted that:

(1) Aim enrolments are a count of enrolments at aim level. Learners will be counted for each aim they are studying and so can be counted more than once.

(2) Learners that are self-funding will not be included.

(3) Electrical-related learning aims are identified as those with ‘Electric’ or ‘Electro’ in the title. The ‘Electrotechnical Experienced Worker Qualification’ is the aim awarded by City & Guilds. There may be other relevant learning aims that are not readily identifiable as related to the electrical profession that are not included here.

(4) The department does not hold information on how much prior experience of the electrical trade that learners taking these aims have.

This government is determined to tackle the generational challenge of school absence, which is a fundamental barrier to learning and life chances. Missing school regularly is harmful to a child’s attainment, safety and physical and mental health, limiting their opportunities to succeed.

The ‘Strengthening the bridge between home and school’ report, published by School-Home Support in November 2024, gives an overview of some of the complex factors which affect school attendance.

We recognise that the barriers to attending regularly can be wide and complex, both within and beyond the school gates, and are often specific to individual pupils and families. Improving attendance must be everyone’s mission. This is why, in August 2024, the department made its ‘Working together to improve school attendance’ guidance statutory, which promotes a ‘support first’ approach and sets out clear expectations for schools, trusts, and local authorities to work together to tackle absence.

Families of children with attendance issues should receive multi-agency support to help resolve complex out-of-school barriers that might affect their attendance, such as housing, transport or mental ill health. This should be from the team or service best placed to support the family and their needs, which may be the school, a local authority team or service, or another statutory partner, such as a health professional. For example, in the case of a pupil experiencing barriers to attendance because of a housing issue, the lead practitioner may more sensibly be the family’s housing officer.

Schools can also allocate pupil premium funding, which has now increased to over £2.9 billion for the 2024/25 financial year, to support disadvantaged pupils with identified needs to attend school regularly.

The department’s work to support school attendance is also supported by broader investments, including funded breakfast clubs for all primary schools to ensure children start their day ready to learn. We are also working across government on plans to provide access to specialist mental health professionals in every school, new Young Futures Hubs, including access to mental health support workers, and an additional 8,500 new mental health staff to treat children and adults.

In addition to this work, the department is also providing tangible direct support for pupils who struggle with their attendance through our attendance mentor programmes. Over £17 million is being invested across two mentoring projects that will support at least 12,000 pupils in 15 areas. The mentoring pilots are designed to work with pupils to tackle individual causes of persistent absence. These programmes are being rigorously evaluated, and the effective practice that we develop will be shared with schools and local authorities nationally.

This government is committed to tackling school absence, including through our attendance guidance, our national enforcement framework and engagement with schools, local authorities and the third sector.

The ‘Working together to improve school attendance’ guidance was developed following government consultation and using effective practice from within the sector. It built on what schools, trusts and local authorities were already successfully doing to improve attendance, particularly in above-average areas of deprivation.

The guidance was first published in 2022 in non-statutory form to give schools and local authorities time to embed the expectations. Since the guidance was published, attendance hubs have offered support to around 2,000 schools to improve their attendance practice, and every local authority in the country has been offered attendance adviser support to help them implement the expectations. Prior to the guidance becoming statutory, a large majority of leaders reported that they either knew a bit about the guidance or were familiar with the details, and almost all of them reported that their school monitors pupil attendance data. A majority of leaders said that their school has a single point of contact at the local authority, and at least half said they hold targeting support meetings with them.

An updated statutory version of the guidance was published in August 2024, and the department will keep its effectiveness under review. Since August 2024, every state-funded school is required to share its attendance data, which is published every fortnight. Thanks to the hard work of the sector, we have seen positive initial progress in attendance rates, although there is further to go. The latest published statistics show that the rate of persistent absence (pupils who miss 10% or more of their possible sessions) was 18.6% over the current academic year, which is a 2.0 percentage point improvement compared to the equivalent point last academic year.

We recognise the valuable role that third-sector organisations can play in supporting families of pupils with barriers to attendance and in tackling the root causes of low attendance. Our ‘Working together to improve school attendance’ guidance is clear that both schools and local authorities should work with the voluntary and community sector, amongst other partners, in removing the barriers to attendance that families experience and in facilitating multi-disciplinary support.

The guidance promotes a support-first model and is clear that all partners should always work together to understand the barriers to attendance. However, where that support is not successful, not appropriate (for example, term-time holidays), or not engaged with, the law protects pupils’ right to an education. The guidance outlines a role for legal intervention based on effective practice within the sector. In a public consultation in 2022, 71% of local authority employees and 59% of school and academy trust employees and governors or trustees strongly or somewhat agreed with the proposed national thresholds for the circumstances in which a penalty notice must be considered, which were subsequently adopted last August.

The department is looking at ways of improving the transition rate from further education (FE) courses into construction sector jobs. This includes through the defunding of low-quality courses through the qualifications review.

The department is also working to find ways to narrow the practical experience gap that the industry reports is preventing them from employing people directly after achieving an FE qualification. We will likely need alternative bridging provision for some occupations for those completing FE courses. We are working with the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) and competency bodies to improve the learner journey and bridge the gap between achieving qualifications and being competent to begin work.

The Government has launched a rapid review of the Environmental Improvement Plan to deliver on our legally binding targets to save nature. This includes how best to manage chemicals, including the risks posed by per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). A Regulatory Management Options Analysis (RMOA), published in April 2023, made a detailed assessment of the range of hazards and risks from PFAS identified in Great Britain, as well as a preliminary analysis of the availability of alternatives for a range of applications. The RMOA recommended a range of actions including the development of UK REACH restrictions for a wide range of PFAS uses. We have started work on a UK REACH dossier investigating whether to restrict PFAS in fire-fighting foams, and we are scoping further action across a wide range of industrial and consumer PFAS uses.

Action has already been taken to ban or highly restrict specific per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) both domestically and internationally, including PFOS (perfluoro-octane sulfonate), PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) and PFHxS (perfluorohexanesulphonic acid), the use and production of which was prohibited in 2023.

Internationally, PFAS was added to the OSPAR List of Chemicals for Priority Action in 2023. This list identifies substances considered to be a threat to the marine environment and the actions that OSPAR Contracting Parties (including the UK) should take to minimise those threats. The UK Government is also working closely with domestic regulators and key stakeholders to improve wider understanding and approach to managing the risks from PFAS. This includes working with the Environment Agency (EA) to assess levels of PFAS occurring in the environment, their sources, and potential risks to inform future policy and regulatory approaches.

The EA monitors for PFAS in England. Additional PFAS are being added to those measured as the scientific capabilities and reference standards improve. The EA analyses PFAS in freshwater and saline fish. PFAS are also monitored in the marine environment by Centre for Environment, Fish and Aquaculture Science (Cefas), using samples from fish and cetaceans.

Defra officials have had discussions with their counterparts in other countries to learn lessons on tackling waste, including plastic waste. For instance, officials have had discussions with the German Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) administrator to assist in developing the DRS in the UK.

The Secretary of State has asked his department to convene a Taskforce of experts from across the Government, industry, academia and relevant NGOs. The Taskforce will help to develop a Circular Economy Strategy for England and a series of roadmaps detailing the interventions that the Government will make on a sector-by-sector basis. The Taskforce will consider the evidence for action right across the economy, and as such the Taskforce will evaluate what interventions may need to be made in the textiles sector as it helps to develop the Circular Economy Strategy. In the meantime we have no plans to require clothing producers or retailers to publish additional data.

No recent assessment has been made of the Environmental Audit Committee’s recommendation for a charge on garments to fund collection and sorting services. However, the Secretary of State has asked his department to convene a taskforce of experts from across the Government, industry, academia and relevant NGOs. The Taskforce will help to develop a Circular Economy Strategy for England and a series of roadmaps detailing the interventions that the Government will make on a sector-by-sector basis. The Taskforce will consider the evidence for action right across the economy, and as such the Taskforce will evaluate what interventions may need to be made in the textiles sector as it helps to develop the Circular Economy Strategy.

Buses are the most commonly used mode of public transport in Britain, and good local bus services are an essential part of prosperous and sustainable communities. The Government is determined to deliver better bus services, grow passenger numbers and drive opportunity to under-served regions. We have set out our plan to achieve this, centred around supporting local transport authorities to take back control of local bus services.

In order to give control back to local leaders, we will pass the Better Buses Bill and review existing guidance for local authorities. We want to make bus franchising quicker, easier and cheaper to deliver, for all types of local authority, as well as removing the existing ban on the creation of new municipal bus companies. We will refocus the Department to provide help and support to local authorities to make franchising – and other models where they are preferred locally – a success.

Council Tax Support is administered by the Local Authority and is not a DWP benefit, therefore before we have determined entitlement to Universal credit, it is not appropriate for the department to trigger a claim for Council Tax Support automatically. A significant number of UC claims do not have an entitlement so notifying Councils before entitlement is established would present a number of risks to Councils.

The information requested is not available.

DWP stated routinely collecting data on care leavers claiming UC in February 2022. All new claimants are now given the option of reporting their care leaver status, and work coaches can record existing claimants’ care leaver status if they are told about this.

This data is being monitored for data quality and does not meet the quality assurance standards for officials statistics: the data coverage is still very limited and the claimants we have data on are not representative of the UC caseload. It is hoped that information will be available for publication in 2027. I have asked officials to explore the potential for answering this question from other data sources.

For the latest year 2022/23, 1.9 million pensioners were in relative poverty after housing costs (AHC). Of these, 1.6 million pensioners were not in receipt of Pension Credit.

For the latest year 2022/23, 1.4 million pensioners were in absolute poverty AHC. Of these, 1.2 million pensioners were not in receipt of Pension Credit.

A household is in relative poverty if its income is less than 60 per cent of the median household income in a given financial year. ​A household is in absolute poverty if its income is less than 60% of median household income in 2010/11, uprated by inflation.​

‘Households Below Average Income’ provides estimates on the number of and percentage of people living in low-income households based on their household disposable income. As an income measure, it does not include other available resources that might impact on a household’s poverty levels such as savings.

These numbers have been rounded to the nearest 100,000.

This data is available on Stat-Xplore at https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk in the ‘Households Below Average Income’ dataset.

More Information on the data included in the ‘Households Below Average Income’ dataset can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/households-below-average-income-for-financial-years-ending-1995-to-2023/households-below-average-income-series-quality-and-methodology-information-report-fye-2023#income-definition.

Guidance on how to use Stat-Xplore can be found here: https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/index.html.

An account is not required to use Stat- Xplore, the ‘Guest Login’ feature gives instant access to the main functions.

Recognising the wide-ranging causes of pensioner poverty, we will explore how we can use all the available levers we have across government, external partners and local authorities. This includes boosting the uptake of Pension Credit to ensure that the poorest pensioners get the support they need.

We know there are low-income pensioners who aren’t claiming Pension Credit, and we urge those people to apply. This will passport them to receive Winter Fuel Payment alongside a range of other benefits – depending on circumstances, these could be worth hundreds of pounds that could really help them.

This Government is committed to pensioners – everyone in our society, no matter their working history or savings deserves a comfortable and dignified retirement.

Given the substantial pressures faced by the public finances this year and next, the government has had to make hard choices to bring the public finances back under control.

Winter Fuel Payments will continue to be paid to pensioner households with someone receiving Pension Credit or certain other income-related benefits. They will continue to be worth £200 for eligible households, or £300 for eligible households with someone aged over 80.

The Government is committed to a preventative approach to public health. Keeping people warm and well at home and improving the quality of new and existing homes will play an essential part in enabling people to live longer, healthier lives and reducing pressures on the NHS.

We are also providing support through our Warm Homes Plan which pensioners will benefit from. This will support investment in insulation and low carbon heating – upgrading millions of homes over this Parliament. Our long-term plan will protect billpayers permanently, reduce fuel poverty, and get the UK back on track to meet our climate goals.

In making a decision on Winter Fuel Payment eligibility, the Government had regard to the equality analysis in line with the Public Sector Equality Duty requirements.

The requested information is not available. However, figures are published showing the number of households in receipt of an exception for children likely to have been born as a result of non-consensual conception, which for this purpose includes rape or where the claimant was in a controlling or coercive relationship with the child’s other biological parent at the time of conception. Table2, provides this information.

The full statistics tables and supporting narrative are published here: Universal Credit and Child Tax Credit claimants: statistics related to the policy to provide support for a maximum of 2 children, April 2024 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Most cases of malnutrition are clinical and will be secondary to another health condition which may impact on nutritional needs or impact on a person’s ability to eat and drink, rather than it solely being caused by poor or inadequate dietary intake. The term malnutrition is sometimes incorrectly used to refer to a poor diet; although this may put someone at increased risk of malnutrition, this would not necessarily meet the criteria for a clinical diagnosis.

The National Health Service provides Hospital Episode Statistics figures for malnutrition, broken down by age group, for the period 2007/08 to 2020/21, which are available at the following link:

https://digital.nhs.uk/supplementary-information/2021/admissions-for-scurvy-rickets-and-malnutrition-2007-08-to-2020-21

The relationship between food poverty or food insecurity, nutritional intake and health in the United Kingdom is currently unclear. However, international evidence suggests that in the long-term, food insecurity may be associated with poorer diets and poorer health, including higher risk of overweight and obesity. The Department for Food, Environment and Rural Affairs’ UK Food Security Report 2024, which pulls together data from a range of sources including the Department of Work and Pensions Family Resources Survey, found that 90% of UK households were food secure in the financial year ending 2023. The report is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/united-kingdom-food-security-report-2024/united-kingdom-food-security-report-2024-theme-4-food-security-at-household-level

The Government is rolling out free breakfast clubs in every primary school, with an early adopter scheme launching in April 2025, so children start the day ready to learn, helping to break down barriers to opportunity and confront child poverty. Additionally, all children in Reception, year 1 and year 2 in England's state-funded schools are already entitled to universal infant free school meals and disadvantaged pupils in state-funded schools, as well as students aged between 16 and 18 years old in further education, receive free meals based on low income.

The existing Healthy Start scheme aims to encourage a healthy diet for pregnant women, babies and young children under four from very low-income households. It can be used to buy, or put towards the cost of, fruit, vegetables, pulses, milk and infant formula; beneficiaries also have access to free Healthy Start Vitamins. The Child Poverty Taskforce, made up of ministers from across Government, will be publishing its strategy to reduce child poverty in spring 2025.

We are committed to delivering and expansion of NHS Talking Therapies, increasing the number of sessions available, and increasing the number of people completing a course of treatment by 384,000 by 2028/29.

NHS Talking Therapies offer National Institute for Health and Care Excellence approved psychological and talking therapies, such as counselling and cognitive behavioural therapy, for adults in England with common mental health conditions such as anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder, including victims of domestic abuse and sexual violence.

In addition, NHS England has established local pathfinder projects for enhanced trauma-informed mental health support for sexual abuse victims and survivors with the most complex needs. There is now dedicated, enhanced mental health support in five of the seven commissioning regions. The final two regions are considering delivery model options.

In December 2024, the Ministry of Justice confirmed grant awards for the provision of domestic abuse and sexual violence services in 2025/26. Grant recipients provide services, including trauma-informed counselling, based on their local assessment of need.

Integrated care boards are responsible for providing health and care services to meet the needs of their local populations. Despite the challenging fiscal environment, we have chosen to prioritise funding to deliver expansions of NHS Talking Therapies in the Autumn Budget, demonstrating our commitment to addressing the root cause of mental health issues. This is expected to increase the number of people completing courses of treatment by 384,000 and increase the number of sessions.

Improving mental health support for children and young people is a priority for the Government and the National Health Service. Since 2018, NHS England has invested significant additional funding to ensure that more children and young people, including those who may have experienced or witnessed domestic abuse, are able to access mental health support.

However, we need to do more. Too many children and young people are not receiving the mental health care they need, and we know that waits for mental health services are far too long. We are determined to change that. As part of our mission to build an NHS that is fit for the future, we will provide access to a specialist mental health professional in every school in England, introduce open access Young Futures hubs in every community and recruit an additional 8,500 mental health workers across children and adult services to reduce delays and provide faster treatment.

In addition, the Ministry of Justice provides funding for vital victim and witness support services. This includes community-based domestic abuse and sexual violence services, in addition to the core funding the Ministry of Justice provides to Police and Crime Commissioners to allocate at their discretion, based on their assessment of local need. This includes support for children and young people.

In December 2024, the Ministry of Justice confirmed grant awards for the provision of domestic abuse and sexual violence services in 2025/26. Grant recipients provide services, including trauma-informed counselling, based on their local assessment of need.

The Government is committed to tackling the childhood obesity crisis and creating the healthiest generation of children ever. We have revised the National Planning Policy Framework for local government which has provided stronger powers to local authorities to block new fast-food outlets near schools.

We are implementing legislation to ban junk food advertising on TV before 9pm and paid for advertising online. This will remove up to 7.2 billion calories from children’s diets per year in the United Kingdom and reduce the number of children living with obesity by 20,000.

Mandatory and voluntary measures are also in place which aim to reduce consumption and encourage reformulation of products that are high in fat, sugar and salt. The Soft Drinks Industry Levy has reduced sugar levels in drinks in scope by 46% between 2015 and 2020, removing 46,000 tonnes of sugar. As announced at Autumn Budget 2024, both the lower and higher tax rates of the Soft Drinks Industry Levy will increase each year over the next five years. A review is also underway of the sugar thresholds at which the levy rates apply, and the current exclusion for milk-based drinks. These changes will ensure that the levy remains effective, protects its value in real terms, and will deliver further reformulation.

The voluntary reformulation programme requires the food industry sector to reduce levels of sugar, calories and salt in food and drink products that contribute substantially to poor diets.