Asked by: Jo White (Labour - Bassetlaw)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what guidance her Department provides on the potential sanctions available to local authorities in instances when councillors are found to have breached an authority's code of conduct; and whether she plans to re-establish the Standards Board for England with sanction powers in including (a) suspension and (b) disqualification from office for serious breaches.
Answered by Jim McMahon - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Government considers that the current local government standards regime is broadly ineffectual, inconsistently applied, and lacking in adequate powers to effectively sanction members found in serious breach of their codes of conduct.
We are actively considering options to strengthen the standards regime for local government and provide councils with more effective means to address serious misconduct by elected members, including a proposal to allow for the suspension of members who violate codes of conduct. We will be consulting with local authorities, sector representative bodies, and other key stakeholders in due course to ensure a wide range of views are heard.
Asked by: Jo White (Labour - Bassetlaw)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, how many people are in receipt of the Mineworkers Pension Scheme in each constituency.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Every constituency in the country has at least one person in receipt of the Mineworkers Pension Scheme. The number of scheme members in each constituency is listed in the table below. This information is from the scheme trustees and correct as at 30 October 2024. Some of these scheme members will not yet be in receipt of their pension, but we do not have a breakdown of that information at constituency level.
Asked by: Jo White (Labour - Bassetlaw)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure all schools teach financial literacy.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
I refer my hon. Friend, the Member for Basstettlaw to the answer of 14 October 2024 to question 7255.
Asked by: Jo White (Labour - Bassetlaw)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the total underspends for the non-devolved adult education budget were in England in each year since 2018-19.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The budget and the actual spending of the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) element of the Adult Education Budget from 2018/19 to 2023/24 financial year is set out in the table below. Funding to providers is allocated on an academic year and underspends are based on a financial year basis; therefore, underspends in a financial year predominantly reflect provider delivery in the preceding academic year (i.e. 2018/19 academic year is reflected in 2019/20 financial year).
The ESFA allocates grant funding to providers. Providers who underdeliver on their allocations by more than 3% will have their funding recovered through a reconciliation process (allowing providers who can over deliver to grow their allocation by up to 10%).
| Budget | Underspend |
2018/2019 | £1,347,300,000 | £3,125,005 |
|
| |
2019/2020 | £904,829,000 | -£2,710,548 |
|
| |
2020/2021 | £742,706,000 | £56,090,670 |
|
| |
2021/2022 | £701,527,000 | £115,118,943 |
|
| |
2022/2023 | £633,659,000 | £80,083,526 |
|
| |
2023/2024 | £572,004,000 | £43,192,844 |
Asked by: Jo White (Labour - Bassetlaw)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department plans to review payments of benefits to people serving full life terms in secure psychiatric units.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Where a court has decided that someone has committed a criminal offence but that they should say be sent to hospital rather than receiving a custodial sentence in prison, the length of their stay is determined by their recovery and the extent to which they are no longer a risk to themselves or others. Psychiatrist, and in some cases a Mental Health Tribunal or the Secretary of State for Justice, determine when they will be released. All patients in hospital are entitled to benefits. DWP keeps all benefits under review.
Asked by: Jo White (Labour - Bassetlaw)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many of the prisoners released under the early release scheme (a) are foreign nationals and (b) will be deported.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
We are unable to provide the requested prisoner release figures at this time, as they form a subset of prisoner releases data scheduled for future publication. Numbers of custodial releases for the period covering July 2024 to September 2024 will be published on 30 January 2025, here: Offender management statistics quarterly - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
All foreign national offenders in receipt of custodial sentences are referred to the Home Office to be considered for deportation. The Home Office make all final decisions relating to deportation, taking into account individual circumstances in each case, meaning it is not possible to predict future deportation numbers.
Asked by: Jo White (Labour - Bassetlaw)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of foreign nationals who receive a custodial prison sentence are deported on completion of their sentence.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office regularly publishes statistics on the returns of foreign national offenders by nationality and year. These returns are published in the Returns Detailed Datasets, Year Ending June 2024, which are available at: Immigration system statistics data tables - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
The published statistics refer to enforced returns which include deportations, as well as cases where a person has breached UK immigration laws, and those removed under other administrative and illegal entry powers that have declined to leave voluntarily.
Figures on deportations, which are a subset of enforced returns, are not separately available.
We are committed to delivering justice for victims and safer streets for our communities. Foreign nationals who commit crime should be in no doubt that the law will be enforced and, where appropriate, we will pursue their deportation and they will be swiftly removed from the country.
In order to reduce the FNO prison population and support the MoJ in alleviating current prison capacity issues, we are focussing resources on those cases currently serving custodial sentences and maximising returns directly from prison.
Asked by: Jo White (Labour - Bassetlaw)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if she will raise apprenticeship levy funding.
Answered by Darren Jones - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The Apprenticeship Levy (AL) is currently paid by large employers, charged at a rate of 0.5% on an employer’s annual pay bill of over £3 million. The annual apprenticeship budget is then set by HMT, which funds training and assessment costs for apprenticeships.
This government is committed to transform the Apprenticeship Levy into a Growth and Skills Levy, which will allow employers to invest in a wider range of training.
The government will set out more details on the Growth and Skills Levy in due course.Asked by: Jo White (Labour - Bassetlaw)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to identify children who are educated outside school.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department is committed to giving every child the best start in life, regardless of where and how they are educated. We cannot ignore the rising numbers of home-educated children and official data which shows that growing numbers of children have been moved into home education due to mental health concerns or lack of provision for special educational needs in their local schools.
Local authorities have legal duties to be satisfied that all children are receiving a suitable education. However, this duty is undermined by the fact that parents have no obligation to inform their local authority of their decision to home educate. This means that local authorities are unable to fulfil their duties. There is a risk that children are going under the radar and missing out on the education they deserve that will enable them to access the best opportunities in life.
For this reason, the government will use the Children’s Wellbeing Bill to require English local authorities to maintain registers of children not in school. Parents and certain out-of-school education providers will be required to provide information for those registers. This will help local authorities piece together a fuller and more accurate picture of those children who are receiving education otherwise than at school and target resources to locating and supporting those who are missing out on education. Local authorities will also have a duty to provide support to those home-educators who request it, which will act as an incentive for families to register.
The registers will contain information on those children who are registered on a school roll and are receiving education otherwise than at school. It will not include children who are on a school roll but failing to attend. The department is taking separate action on that important issue of persistent absence.
In terms of this new system of registration, parents can be assured that the registers will not be used to criminalise any parent who does not send their child to school. Parents who do not provide information for the registers will result in their local authority being unable to be satisfied that a child is not receiving a suitable education and so the local authority will need to proceed to a formal request for evidence about that education. If that evidence is not forthcoming, or is insufficient, this will usually lead to the local authority needing to issue a School Attendance Order. This is the same mechanism that exists in the current law; no change will be made.
The government takes the matter of data protection very seriously, including any threats to privacy and personal data. Local authorities will be legally restricted as to whom they may share register information with and for what purposes. The usual provisions of the UK-GDPR will apply to all data processing activities.
The department continues to work with local authorities on existing non-statutory registers and to collect data from those registers.
Asked by: Jo White (Labour - Bassetlaw)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what her planned timetable is for issuing contracts to the providers who have been selected to deliver the pilot teacher degree apprenticeships.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
In early 2024, the department invited applications from initial teacher training (ITT) providers and degree-awarding institutions to participate in the Teacher Degree Apprenticeship (TDA) funding pilot in secondary mathematics.
The department assessed all bids and selected eight providers to offer the pilot in March 2024. As part of the pilot, providers received a course development grant. The grant offer letters were agreed between April and July 2024.
Schools that employ trainees on their mathematics TDA courses as part of the funding pilot will receive additional grant funding to support with trainee salary costs. These grants have not yet been paid and will be distributed once candidates have been recruited to courses.
The department continues to work closely with pilot providers to monitor and support course development, candidate recruitment and delivery. The pilot will allow the department to gauge the impact of salary grant funding on recruitment to the TDA.
TDA courses are expected to be published from autumn 2024, with the first cohort of training commencing in autumn 2025.