Asked by: Jess Asato (Labour - Lowestoft)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether her Department is taking steps to update the Government's loneliness strategy, entitled, A connected society: a strategy for tackling loneliness, published on 15 October 2018.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government is committed to supporting people to have the social connections they need. This is a key part of achieving wider government priorities across health, community cohesion, and supporting young people. Rather than a standalone strategy for tackling loneliness, we are embedding this important issue in wider government strategies, including the new National Youth Strategy which is due to be released in the autumn. The National Youth Strategy will set out a new long-term vision for young people and an action plan for delivering this.
Asked by: Jess Asato (Labour - Lowestoft)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to her Department’s statutory guidance entitled Children missing education - Statutory guidance for local authorities, updated August 2024, when she plans to update the guidance; and if she will make it her policy to regularly update the guidance to adapt to emerging trends and needs as indicated by new data collected.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department conducted a call for evidence from 18 May to 20 July 2023 on ‘Improving support for children missing education’ to understand the sector’s current approach to identifying and supporting children missing education (CME), and to inform any changes which will help us to improve this support.
To address current challenges in identifying and supporting CME, the department has already:
Following the call for evidence, the department is reviewing its CME guidance with a view to publishing an updated version in due course.
Asked by: Jess Asato (Labour - Lowestoft)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans her Department has to support schools to develop timetabling expertise in order to enable more flexible working patterns for teachers (a) who are mothers and (b) generally.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The department is taking action to support and promote flexible working in schools for all teachers and leaders. We have published non-statutory guidance alongside our flexible working toolkit, which includes practical resources to help leaders implement flexible working and to support school staff to request it. We have also clarified the position on planning, preparation and assessment time, so that schools are aware that teachers can use this time more flexibly. This can include taking it in a single chunk of time, or working from home, where the school deems this operationally feasible.
The department is also funding support for teachers and school leaders. We are delivering a culture change programme, focused on embedding flexible working in schools and multi-academy trusts (MATs). This programme allows schools to access support to overcome the perceived or practical barriers they face to implementing flexible working. This includes peer support provided by flexible working ambassador schools and MATs, and the delivery of supportive webinars, including several specifically addressing how timetabling can support flexible working.
Our programme also offers practical support on combining flexible working with life as a parent and has a range of tailored content such as a webinar on making a flexible working request when returning from parental leave.
Asked by: Jess Asato (Labour - Lowestoft)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to her Department’s statutory guidance entitled Children missing education: statutory guidance for local authorities, published August 2024, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of specifying the (a) role and (b) responsibility of local authorities for providing education to children who are absent from mainstream education due to long term illness.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Local authorities do have a statutory duty under section 19 of the Education Act 1996 to arrange suitable and (normally) full-time education for children of compulsory school age who, because of exclusion, illness or other reasons, would not receive suitable education without such provision. This means that where a child cannot attend school because of a physical or mental health need, and cannot access suitable full-time education, the local authority is responsible for arranging suitable alternative provision.
The department sets out guidance to support local authorities to fulfil their section 19 duty available here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/657995f0254aaa000d050bff/Arranging_education_for_children_who_cannot_attend_school_because_of_health_needs.pdf.
The department has also issued statutory guidance for local authorities that makes clear their role and responsibilities for ’Children missing education’ which can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/children-missing-education.
This statutory guidance sets key principles to enable local authorities in England to implement their legal duty to identify, as far as it is possible to do so, children missing education and get them back into education.
Asked by: Jess Asato (Labour - Lowestoft)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to develop central commissioning guidance for clinically-based domestic violence and abuse specialists.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
In May 2025, the Department of Health and Social Care worked with the Ministry of Justice in developing central commissioning guidance for Independent Sexual Violence Advisors (ISVAs) and Independent Domestic Violence Advisors (IDVAs) working in a range of settings, including healthcare. These advocates provide tailored emotional and practical support to victims of sexual violence and domestic abuse, regardless of whether the victim is reporting to the police. The guidance advises commissioners to consider how they resource and encourage ISVA and IDVA services to best serve victims' needs, for example considering additional specialised training beyond an advocate’s core role.
Asked by: Jess Asato (Labour - Lowestoft)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the cost to the public purse was of establishing and operating the National Age Assessment Board; and if she will divert this expenditure into training social workers in local authorities.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
Due to the operational nature of the National Age Assessment Board (NAAB), the costs are subject to change and are currently not published. The Home Office continues to keep all aspects of the immigration system under review, including the best process for conducting age assessments.
Asked by: Jess Asato (Labour - Lowestoft)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent steps her Department has taken to publish (a) the number of people claiming to be children who have been assessed as adults on first arrival and (b) the number later found to be children following further assessment.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office publishes data on asylum in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’. Available data on the number of raised and resolved age disputes is published in table Asy_D05 of the asylum detailed tables. Updated data will be included in a future edition of the Immigration System Statistics release.
Asked by: Jess Asato (Labour - Lowestoft)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent steps her Department has taken to review the (a) accuracy, (b) ethics and (c) fairness of (i) scientific methods and (ii) artificial intelligence tools used to assess the age of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children; and what child-centred safeguards are in place to protect their welfare.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
Assessing the age of unaccompanied children is an incredibly complex and difficult task, and the Home Office is currently assessing which scientific methods and artificial intelligence can best improve age assessment methods. The Government will inform Parliament of any decisions on this policy area in due course.
All policy development is carried out with regard to section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009 and the best interests of the child.
Asked by: Jess Asato (Labour - Lowestoft)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of her Department's age-assessment process for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children; and what steps she is taking to ensure that children are treated as children unless evidence proves otherwise.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
Assessing the age of unaccompanied children is an incredibly complex and difficult task, and the Home Office is currently assessing which scientific methods and artificial intelligence can best improve age assessment methods. The Government will inform Parliament of any decisions on this policy area in due course.
All policy development is carried out with regard to section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009 and the best interests of the child.
Asked by: Jess Asato (Labour - Lowestoft)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department plans to take steps to help minimise the potential impact of prosecutions for child truancy from school on mothers.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Absence is one of the biggest barriers to success for children and young people. Missing school regularly is harmful to a child’s attainment, safety and physical and mental health, limiting their opportunity to succeed. This government is committed to improving school attendance through our ‘support-first’ approach which seeks to foster strong relationships between families, schools, local authorities and other relevant local services. This ensures that support is made available at an early stage to help children to improve their school attendance. This approach is set out in our statutory attendance guidance, which can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/working-together-to-improve-school-attendance.
Schools, local authorities and other partners should always work together to understand and remove the barriers to attendance. The guidance, which came into effect last August, specifically underlines the importance of working in partnership with families. It also details when Notices to Improve should be issued as a final opportunity for a parent to engage in support and improve attendance before legal intervention is pursued.
The decision to prosecute rests solely with the local authority, but paragraph 164 of the guidance sets out factors for their consideration, including public interest tests and equalities considerations.
The department’s attendance guidance is based on best practice and was introduced following full public consultation.