Josh Newbury

IPSA's proposed budgets are scrutinised each year by the Speaker's Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Authority and approved by the House of Commons.

MPs' staffing budgets have increased by 63.3% between 2018-19 and 2024-25. In 2018-19, the London Staffing Budget was £164,460 and the non-London Saffing Budget was £153,620. In 2024-25, the London Staffing Budget was £268,550 and the non-London Saffing Budget was £250,820.

IPSA staffing expenditure has increased by 47.8% between 2018-19 and 2023-24 (the most recent year for which there is a full year expenditure) in response to MPs clearly expressed wish to see service standards significantly improved.

In our manifesto, we committed to reforming gender recognition law. We will remove indignities for trans people who deserve recognition and acceptance whilst retaining the need for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria.

We will set out our next steps on this work in due course.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is responsible for monitoring effectiveness of the Groceries (Supply Chain Practices) Market Investigation Order 2009 in ensuring that businesses, including farmers, that supply groceries directly to designated retailers are treated lawfully and fairly. This includes the £1 billion threshold at which a retailer can be designated by the CMA.

The Groceries Code Adjudicator (GCA) is currently funded by an annual levy on the 14 large retailers that are designated under the Code by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). The CMA assesses annually whether retailers which have a turnover exceeding £1bn of grocery sales in the UK should be designated under the Code. The £1bn threshold is set out in the Groceries (Supply Chain Practices) Market Investigation Order 2009 which is the responsibility of the CMA.

The Green Gas Support Scheme (GGSS) provides tariff-support for biomethane produced via anaerobic digestion (AD) and injected into the gas grid. It is expected to contribute 10.7MTCO2e of carbon savings over its lifetime.

The GGSS requires that at least 50% of all biomethane, by energy content, is produced using waste feedstocks. In England, we expect that food waste collected due to Simpler Recycling reforms will constitute a significant portion of AD feedstocks.

Food waste can also be used in AD Combined Heat and Power systems to produce electricity, with support provided through a number of the Department’s renewable electricity schemes.

The Green Gas Support Scheme (GGSS) provides tariff-support for biomethane produced via anaerobic digestion (AD) and injected into the gas grid. It is expected to contribute 10.7MTCO2e of carbon savings over its lifetime.

The GGSS requires that at least 50% of all biomethane, by energy content, is produced using waste feedstocks, which includes agricultural wastes.

The GGSS will close to new applicants on 31 March 2028. To follow this, the Government is developing a holistic policy framework to support the growth of the biomethane sector. The new framework includes consideration to the role of AD in treating agricultural wastes.

I refer the Hon. Member to the answer I gave on 12 November to Question UIN 12551.

We are unable to provide the breakdown requested. However, information from the trustees shows that, as at October 2024, the number of pensioner and dependant members in Cannock Chase was 530.

The Government has ended the injustice of the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme (MPS) and agreed the transfer the Investment Reserve Fund to members, so that the mineworkers who powered our country receive a fairer pension.

The resulting bonus will increase pensions by 32% and should start to be paid in November. The Government will soon start talks with the MPS Trustees on the future arrangements for surplus sharing.

The Government is committed to supporting the uptake, development and evaluation of alternative methods to the use of animals in science and new approach methodologies. It is not yet possible to replace all animal use due to the complexity of biological systems and regulatory requirements for their use.

We recognise that any work to support the transition to new approach methodologies must be science-led and in lock step with partners, and so we are meeting with key stakeholders to pursue this work. We will make any announcements on our plans in due course.

The Government recognises the potential of the UK esports industry and its impact on the economy, with major tournaments hosted across the UK this year, including in Manchester, Birmingham and London.

Kickstarting economic growth, and breaking down barriers to opportunity are two of this government's core missions. We are supporting the esports sector to grow, building on the success of our world-class creative industries. This includes support for the sector in looking at how to strengthen pathways into the esports workforce.

The Government has identified the creative industries, which includes video games and esports, as a growth-driving sector within the Industrial Strategy. My department will produce an ambitious and targeted Sector Plan for the creative industries to be published alongside the Spending Review in spring 2025.

We are fully committed to enabling our athletes to excel on the world stage. Decisions relating to training centres for elite athletes are a matter for the relevant martial arts governing bodies. We welcome sports working together to share expertise and resources where they feel there is mutual benefit for their sports and athletes.

Our mining past has shaped the lives of people, communities and landscapes across the country. It is essential we record mining heritage, and crucially share it with future generations, in order not to forget its fundamental impact on our society, country and indeed the world. My department, working with our arm's length bodies and the heritage sector, promotes and safeguards our rich mining heritage in a variety of ways.

The National Lottery Heritage Fund has awarded more than £39 million to projects focused on the history of mining across the UK since 1999. This includes investing in internationally important heritage sites such as the Mining Institute in Newcastle, restoring landscapes impacted by mining, and funding grassroot community projects to collect oral histories of those involved in mining. In Cannock Chase Staffordshire, the Heritage Fund has invested more than £120,000 in projects focused on the area’s important coal mining history.

As the Government’s expert advisor on the historic environment, Historic England has also advised on and instigated a range of projects to record and preserve the history of mining. For example, the former mining village of Elsecar in South Yorkshire was one of the first places in England to be awarded Heritage Action Zone (HAZ) status by Historic England. Working with the community and the local authority, Historic England looked to document the tangible and intangible aspects of this area's rich mining heritage. Between 2016 and 2018, Historic England also funded The Chase Through Time project which explored the history and landscape of Cannock Chase, including its important mining and industrial heritage.

The National Coal Mining Museum in Wakefield receives funding via the Science Museum Group, an arm's length body of DCMS. The museum is a centre of mining heritage for England, preserving and promoting the history of mining heritage and the stories of the people and communities affected by mining across the country.

Through our designation and planning system we will continue to protect the mining heritage of national and international importance. This includes the Cornwall & West Devon Mining Landscape, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which spreads across 20,000 hectares in the South West. The region used to produce most of the world's copper, tin and arsenic, and the World Heritage Site looks to preserve aspects of this history for local communities and visitors.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is supporting this Government’s mission to extend opportunities for children and young people.

As part of this, DCMS will support the Department for Education led Curriculum and Assessment Review to develop a broader curriculum so that children and young people have access to creative education such as music, the arts and drama and the enormous range of benefits they bring to a child's development from improved language development to confidence building.

Arts Council England has supported the development of cultural partnerships in Cannock Chase to help grow audiences, opportunities and cultural infrastructure. This has included funding of £10,000 to launch a cultural compact in the borough, led by the local Cultural Education Partnership.

Most funding for pupil referral units, and other alternative provision (AP), comes from local authorities’ high needs budgets, Following the Autumn Budget 2024, the department is providing an increase of £1 billion for high needs budgets in England in the 2025/26 financial year, bringing total high needs funding for children and young people with complex special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and AP to £11.9 billion. Of that total, Staffordshire County Council is being allocated over £143 million through the high needs funding block of the dedicated schools grant (DSG), an increase of £10.4 million on this year’s DSG high needs block, calculated using the high needs national funding formula (NFF). This NFF allocation is an 8.7% increase per head of their 2 to 18-year-old population, on their equivalent 2024/25 NFF allocation.

Top-up funding is agreed locally, between the local authority and alternative providers themselves. The top-up funding should reflect the costs of additional support to meet the individual pupil or student’s needs. Top-up funding also reflects costs that relate to the facilities required to support a pupil or student’s education and training needs and can take into account expected place occupancy levels and other factors, which means they can vary from one local authority to another.

Local authorities are responsible for providing enough school places for their area. The department provides capital funding through the basic need grant to secure mainstream school places and through the high needs provision capital allocations to invest in places for children and young people with special education needs and disabilities or who require alternative provision (AP). In Cannock Chase constituency there are four special schools, one pupil referral unit (PRU), one Progress Centre and one independent AP provider.

Ensuring schools and other education settings have the resources and buildings they need is a key part of this government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and give every child the best start in life. Responsibility for keeping education buildings safe and well-maintained lies with settings and their responsible bodies, such as local authorities and academy trusts. The department supports them by providing capital funding, delivering major rebuilding programmes and offering guidance and support.

The department has allocated £1.8 billion in condition funding for the 2024/25 financial year to improve the condition of schools, including PRUs. As part of the 2025/26 financial year budget, we are increasing capital funding to improve the condition of the estate to £2.1 billion, which is £300 million more than this year. The department expects to publish allocations in the spring, including for individual local authorities and other responsible bodies. Capital funding beyond 2025/26 will be set out following the spending review.

Local authorities are responsible for providing enough school places for their area. The department provides capital funding through the basic need grant to secure mainstream school places and through the high needs provision capital allocations to invest in places for children and young people with special education needs and disabilities or who require alternative provision (AP). In Cannock Chase constituency there are four special schools, one pupil referral unit (PRU), one Progress Centre and one independent AP provider.

Ensuring schools and other education settings have the resources and buildings they need is a key part of this government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and give every child the best start in life. Responsibility for keeping education buildings safe and well-maintained lies with settings and their responsible bodies, such as local authorities and academy trusts. The department supports them by providing capital funding, delivering major rebuilding programmes and offering guidance and support.

The department has allocated £1.8 billion in condition funding for the 2024/25 financial year to improve the condition of schools, including PRUs. As part of the 2025/26 financial year budget, we are increasing capital funding to improve the condition of the estate to £2.1 billion, which is £300 million more than this year. The department expects to publish allocations in the spring, including for individual local authorities and other responsible bodies. Capital funding beyond 2025/26 will be set out following the spending review.

This government is committed to providing support for care leavers to ensure they have the practical and emotional support they need as they move towards independence.

Local authorities must provide assistance to care leavers near to the place they are receiving education, including outside their home authority. This assistance may take the form of either providing the young person with suitable accommodation, or by paying them enough to secure suitable accommodation themselves.

Care leavers must have pathway plans setting out what support they can expect from their local authority, including accommodation during term time, short vacations and summer vacation. If care leavers are unable to return to their former placements, they must be provided with alternative suitable accommodation. The requirement to assist with vacation accommodation lasts for as long as the young person continues on the course which has been agreed as part of their pathway plan.

Care leavers who enter higher education (HE) are entitled to a statutory bursary of £2,000 from their local authority and many universities offer additional support within their access and participation regimes. This may include additional financial support, pastoral support and 365 days per year housing whilst they are at university.

In addition, the Children's Commissioner for England has recently published a handbook for professionals working in HE on supporting care experienced students. The recommendations in the handbook come directly from care experienced young people and it includes practical proposals to improve their experience of HE.

The department continues to support access to higher level qualifications to break down barriers to opportunity and support economic growth.

The department continues to support learners who wish to progress from Level 3 to a higher level, whether that is to study at university, a higher level or degree apprenticeship, or a Level 4 or 5 classroom-based qualification, including Higher Technical Qualifications (HTQs), which have been approved as providing the skills that employers need.

The introduction of HTQs at Level 5 is aimed at providing high quality, employer-led qualifications that meet the needs of local economies and improves the accessibility and flexibility of higher education. These qualifications are designed to be delivered by further education colleges and other providers and are flexible, offering full-time, part-time and online learning options. This allows breadth of access, meaning that individuals who do not live near a university may be able to access higher technical education through a college.

The department also continues to support the delivery of higher and degree apprenticeships, which allow individuals to earn while they learn and gain qualifications up to Level 6. This approach helps to ensure that training is closely aligned with industry needs.

Additionally, institutions like the Open University offer Validation Programmes enabling institutions without their own degree-awarding powers to offer validated higher education programmes. Such initiatives can help to ensure that high quality degrees are accessible to learners in areas that do not have a university.

The department is also setting up Skills England, a new body, to bring together central and local government, businesses, training providers and unions to meet the skills needs of the next decade across all regions, providing strategic oversight of the post-16 skills system aligned to the government’s Industrial Strategy.

The government will bring forward a comprehensive strategy for post-16 education to break down barriers to opportunity, support the development of a skilled workforce, and drive economic growth through our Industrial Strategy.

The interim evaluation of the programme found the Farming in Protected Landscapes programme (FiPL) to be delivering positively for nature, climate, people, and place, with over 7,000 farmers participating and 3,700 projects in the first three years across our National Parks, National Landscapes and The Broads. We will be sharing further detail from the final evaluation report due later this year.

Over £570,000 has been spent on approved projects in the Cannock Chase National Landscape area since the Farming in Protected Landscapes programme (FiPL) launched in July 2021, with further projects in progress and to be completed by the end of 24/25.

To support waste collection authorities to deliver household food waste collections, we provided capital transitional funding in February 2024 to cover reasonable costs of purchasing trucks and bins needed to deliver weekly food waste collections from 31 March 2026.

We are preparing to deliver transitional resource new burdens funding to local authorities for weekly food waste collections for households in two batches, one in early 2025 and the other in spring 2025.

Funding for ongoing resource funding from 1 April 2026 is subject to agreement through a spending review and we will confirm details when we can.

We are also working with sector specialists WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme) to provide guidance on best practice and scope additional areas of support.

The Government’s preference is for unavoidable food waste to be collected for treatment by anaerobic digestion (AD): producing bio-gas and digestate.

Defra has been working with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) and the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) to estimate AD capacity in England. Based on current estimates, there will be sufficient AD capacity in England to treat the increased tonnage of food waste expected to be collected once Simpler Recycling’s mandatory food waste collection requirements commence between 2025-2027. Defra intends to publish a Recycling Infrastructure Capacity Analysis soon. This will set out anticipated waste volumes to 2035, mapping this modelling against known waste management infrastructure for various waste streams, including food waste. The analysis will signal where there is likely over or under-provision of waste management capacity.

DESNZ’s Green Gas Support Scheme (GGSS) provides tariff-support for biomethane produced via AD and injected into the gas grid, supporting investment in AD plants. Under the GGSS, at least 50% of all biomethane by energy content must be produced using waste or residue feedstock. In England, we expect that food waste collected due to Simpler Recycling reforms will constitute a significant portion of AD feedstocks.

The Government recognises the urgent need to limit the environmental impact of single-use plastic, including fibre composite cups.

The Government has committed to reducing waste by moving to a circular economy. The Secretary of State has convened a Small Ministerial Group on Circular Economy and asked his Department to work with experts from industry, academia, civil society, and the civil service to develop a Circular Economy Strategy for England; supporting Government’s Missions to kickstart economic growth and make Britain a clean energy superpower.

We will consider the evidence for action right across the economy and evaluate what further interventions may be needed in the plastics sector as we develop the Circular Economy Strategy.

The Government is aware that hydrogen has a potential role to play in decarbonising heavy goods vehicles (HGVs).

The £200 million zero emission HGV and infrastructure demonstrator programme will demonstrate both battery electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles on UK roads alongside recharging and refuelling infrastructure. The programme will gather data for a 5-year demonstration period which will be released publicly throughout the duration of the programme.

Improving local transport services is a key part of this government’s growth mission, and the government has set out plans to deliver better bus services, grow passenger numbers and drive opportunity to under-served regions.  The government have been clear that bus services need to work better for the local communities who rely on them.

The Department for Transport recently consulted on improving guidance for local authorities who are considering franchising bus services. This guidance includes consideration of the best ways to consult with local communities, and forms part of a package of bus franchising reforms announced on 9 September 2024.

The Department for Transport also published the Bus Service Improvement Plan guidance in 2021, which includes guidance for consulting with communities. The government will continue working closely with local transport authorities on delivering better bus and public transport services throughout England.

Improving local transport services is a key part of this government’s growth mission, and the government has set out plans to deliver better bus services, grow passenger numbers and drive opportunity to under-served regions.

As announced in the King’s Speech on 17 July 2024, the government will introduce a Buses Bill later this parliamentary session. The Bill will increase 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.

Government will continue working closely with local leaders and bus operators to deliver on the government’s ambitions, and will publish guidance to support bus reform delivered through the Buses Bill as appropriate.

Good local bus services are an essential part of prosperous and sustainable communities. As announced in the King’s Speech on 17 July 2024, the government will introduce a Buses Bill later this parliamentary session, which will put decision-making into the hands of local leaders, including in rural areas right across England. This will allow local areas to determine how best to design their bus services so that they have control over routes and schedules.

The government has also committed to increasing accountability by providing safeguards over local networks across the country and empowering local transport authorities through reforms to bus funding.

Government has set an ambition to get to an 80% employment rate, alongside raising living standards and tackling insecurity at work. The Government plans to tackle economic inactivity, support people into good work and help them to progress.

Proposed reforms include:

• A new public employment and careers service to help get more people into work and to progress in work.
• Working with local areas to tackle economic inactivity including the development of joined-up work, health and skills plans for the economically inactive, with input from mayors, local councils, the NHS, businesses, colleges and the voluntary sector to address barriers and deliver employment opportunities for local people.
• A youth guarantee for all people aged 18 to 21 to ensure that they can access quality training opportunities, an apprenticeship or employment support.
• DWP will shortly publish a white paper to these effects.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has calculated annual charge rates for controls conducted in meat premises in 2025/26 for England and Wales and has indicated that charges will continue to be offset by a taxpayer-funded discount scheme in that financial year. As in previous years it is the FSA’s intention that the discount for 2025/26 will provide the greatest proportional support to smaller businesses. The FSA is engaging with industry representative bodies on the charge rates and full details of these will be communicated to stakeholders and published on the FSA website at the end of February 2025. A separate exercise is being conducted in relation to Northern Ireland.