Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what level of recurrent funding has been identified by NHS England to fund the recommendations of new treatments considered by NHS England’s next Clinical Priorities Advisory Group Prioritisation meeting in Spring 2026.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England is not able to provide the level of recurrent funding identified at this point to support the next Clinical Priorities Advisory Group prioritisation meeting. This would risk disclosing commercially confidential information.
Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if NHS England Specialised Commissioning will consider a second prioritisation meeting this year of the Clinical Priorities Advisory Group to reduce the 20 treatments currently being considered, in addition to the meeting in Spring 2026.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England’s Clinical Priorities Advisory Group (CPAG) prioritisation meetings are held annually and are aligned to NHS England's annual financial planning cycle.
The next prioritisation meeting is planned for spring 2026, where policies that are ready and require investment decisions will be considered. It is expected that up to 20 such policies will be considered at that meeting. CPAG also meets monthly to consider clinical policies and service specifications that are categorised as cost saving or cost neutral, enabling progress to be made outside of the annual prioritisation round.
There are currently no plans to hold an additional prioritisation meeting this year beyond the meeting scheduled for spring 2026.
Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when his Department last reviewed the Child Maintenance Service’s policy framework for modern shared‑care arrangements; and whether the Service plans to reform its policies on cases where both parents actively share day‑to‑day parenting responsibilities.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government recognises that shared care arrangements can play an important role in supporting children to maintain relationships with both parents after separation.
In the child maintenance system, shared care is reflected in the maintenance calculation. Where a child stays overnight with the paying parent for at least one night a week on average, the amount of maintenance due is reduced to reflect the care provided.
If the Child Maintenance Service is satisfied that both parents have equal day-to-day care for the child, in addition to sharing overnight care, there is no requirement for either parent to pay child maintenance.
Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what plans his Department has to review the internal complaints process of the Child Maintenance Service.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS), as part of the Department for Work and Pensions, follows the Department’s standard complaints procedure.
The CMS regularly reviews complaint data, including insights from the Independent Case Examiner, to identify key themes and trends, which they use to drive improvements to the complaint handling process. Furthermore, lessons learned are regularly presented to operational teams, supporting them to deliver effective interventions at the initial stage of the complaint and thereby improve the overall customer experience.
The CMS remains focussed on taking pro-active steps to improve the customer experience, developing its customer service strategy to focus on improving current and future service throughout the customer journey.
Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps National Highways is taking to ensure the provision of timely and accurate physical diversion signage during planned and unplanned road closures.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
National Highways follows the standards GG903 and GG907 outlined in the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges (DMRB) for diversion routes for unplanned events and planned works and activities.
These standards require NH to coordinate with customers and local traffic authorities and to conduct Customer Audits and annual engagements. National Highways monitor diversion routes for unplanned events through the National Highways operational reporting team.
Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps her Department is taking to help ensure that National Highways' contractors adhere to reporting requirements when closing sections of the Strategic Road Network; and what data National Highways holds on contractor compliance with those requirements in the last 12 months.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
National Highways requires its contractors to inform National Highways’ Regional Operations Centres before closing any part of the SRN to allow appropriate signs, signals, and customer communications to be put in place.
In the financial year 24/25, over 90% of the overnight closures planned by early afternoon went ahead as expected. National Highways’ traffic monitoring systems allows them to verify the status of road closures in real time.
Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether National Highways is required to ensure that all planned and emergency road closures are integrated into live satellite navigation systems.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
There are no requirements for National Highways to ensure that all planned and emergency road closures are integrated into live satellite navigation.
However, National Highways publishes information detailing all its planned and emergency work closures. Where available these details are published in advance.
Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether a dedicated teacher retention strategy will be informed by evidence on teacher mental health and workplace wellbeing.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
A well supported, high-quality education workforce is critical to our mission to break down the barriers to opportunity for children and young people, which is why recruiting and retaining our expert teachers is at the heart of the government’s Plan for Change. Detailed plans on how we will recruit and retain more teachers in our 6,500 additional teachers delivery plan are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/every-child-achieving-and-thriving.
We will promote best practice in workload and wellbeing management, including flexible working opportunities, and tackle the external pressures where schools are filling the gaps.
We will invest in a new programme that provides training, resources and peer support to help schools learn from each other, to normalise flexible working and manageable workloads. We will also invest £1 million additional funding each year for wellbeing support, providing up to 2,500 leaders annually with a safe and confidential space to develop new strategies to manage their resilience and capacity to thrive in their role.
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Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of changes to SEND funding on mainstream school budgets in Maidenhead.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
Nationally, mainstream school funding allocated through the dedicated schools grant (DSG) is increasing by 2.6% per pupil, from £6,608 in 2025/26 to £6,778 in 2026/27. This brings total funding for mainstream schools through the DSG schools block to £50.5 billion in 2026/27. This will support mainstream schools with ongoing costs and deliver an excellent education for all, including pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
From 2026/27 onwards, we will provide £1.6 billion for a new Inclusive Mainstream Fund over three years.
We will provide more details on how this funding will be distributed in the coming weeks.