Kim Johnson

DCMS is reviewing how best it works with industry and local and devolved authorities to drive forward an ambitious plan for UK tourism and the visitor economy. We are committed to ensuring that we work with the whole of the tourism sector, including those who work in inbound, outbound and domestic tourism. We hope to make announcements soon.

DCMS is committed to working collaboratively with all sectors of the tourism industry to support sustainable growth and resilience across the sector. The Department engages regularly with representatives from the cruise industry, as well as other key tourism stakeholders, to ensure a comprehensive understanding of the opportunities and challenges each sector faces. These consultations will continue to inform our approach to tourism planning.

DCMS recognises the significant role the cruise industry plays in the broader tourism and hospitality sectors. The Department regularly engages with a range of stakeholders across the tourism sector, including the cruise industry, to understand their perspectives and challenges. As part of our ongoing commitment to represent the diverse interests within tourism, DCMS is reviewing opportunities for industry representation in relevant groups and will consider the cruise industry’s inclusion in these forums where appropriate. Further details on stakeholder engagement will be made available in due course.

The department does not hold statistics centrally showing how many children who attended special schools were then registered at pupil referral units in each of the last ten years.

All decisions to exclude a pupil must be lawful, reasonable and fair. Permanent exclusion should only be used as a last resort.

There are legal duties on schools and local authorities to provide suitable full-time education from the sixth day of a suspension or permanent exclusion. Where children are permanently excluded, they are frequently placed in alternative provision schools (also known as pupil referral units) so that they can receive the dedicated support they require to return to a new mainstream school or a sustained post-16 educational destination.

The department does not hold statistics centrally on the number of children registered at pupil referral units who have previously been excluded from school. The department is not currently planning to develop this data.

Our aim is to reduce numbers of preventable exclusions, including by using the expertise of alternative provision schools to support pupils whilst they are in mainstream school, before behaviour issues or other barriers to learning escalate.

All decisions to exclude a pupil must be lawful, reasonable and fair. Permanent exclusion should only be used as a last resort.

There are legal duties on schools and local authorities to provide suitable full-time education from the sixth day of a suspension or permanent exclusion. Where children are permanently excluded, they are frequently placed in alternative provision schools (also known as pupil referral units) so that they can receive the dedicated support they require to return to a new mainstream school or a sustained post-16 educational destination.

The department does not hold statistics centrally on the number of children registered at pupil referral units who have previously been excluded from school. The department is not currently planning to develop this data.

Our aim is to reduce numbers of preventable exclusions, including by using the expertise of alternative provision schools to support pupils whilst they are in mainstream school, before behaviour issues or other barriers to learning escalate.

The department does not centrally hold statistics showing how many children who had been excluded from school were then registered at special schools. However, there are legal duties on schools and local authorities to provide suitable full-time education from the sixth day of a suspension or permanent exclusion.

The duties on schools and local authorities in relation to suspension and permanent exclusion are set out in statutory guidance, which is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-exclusion.

The government is committed to making quick progress to deliver on its commitment to offer breakfast clubs in every primary school with primary aged pupils whilst ensuring effective implementation.

Departmental officials are working closely with schools and sector experts on various matters, including facilities and space, to develop a programme that effectively meets the needs of children, schools and parents.

From April 2025, free breakfast clubs will be available in up to 750 early adopter schools, as part of a test and learn phase in advance of national roll out.

We are committed to tackling poverty in all its forms and this includes tackling food insecurity by reducing mass dependence on emergency food parcels. Good work can significantly reduce the chances of people failing into poverty so will be the foundation of our approach.

The Child Poverty Taskforce has started urgent work to publish the Child Poverty Strategy in Spring 2025. We will harness all available levers across government to bring about an enduring reduction in child poverty in this parliament, as part of a 10-year strategy for lasting change.

Our jobcentres support our customers, including in ethnic minority groups, to move into employment by providing access to mainstream services and bespoke programmes that are designed to be flexible to individual needs. We are also taking targeted action in 20 places with a high ethnic minority employment gap. The Get Britain Working White Paper, to be set out in the Autumn, will develop measures to reduce inactivity and help people to find better paid and more secure jobs.

Alongside this, we have committed to reviewing Universal Credit by listening to the full range of views on potential changes, so that our social security system is fit for purpose. As announced in the Autumn Budget, a new Fair Repayment Rate will be introduced from April 2025, reducing Universal Credit deductions overall cap from 25% to 15%. This measure will help approximately 1.2 million of the poorest households benefit by an average of £420 a year.

We also announced that, £1 billion, including Barnett impact, will be invested to extend the Household Support Fund in England by a full year until 31 March 2026, on top of the six months already announced, and to maintain Discretionary Housing Payments in England and Wales.

The Child Poverty Taskforce has started urgent work to publish the Child Poverty Strategy in Spring and will explore all available levers to drive forward short and long-term actions across government to reduce child poverty. The taskforce is exploring a range of metrics and will make decisions alongside the publication of the strategy in Spring 2025.

No assessment has been made of the impact of the Household Support Fund on poverty.

The Government announced funding to extend the Household Support Fund for a further 6 months, from 1 October 2024 until 31 March 2025.

An additional £421 million has been provided to enable the extension of the Household Support Fund in England, plus funding for the Devolved Governments through the Barnett formula to be spent at their discretion, as usual. The objective of the Household Support Fund is to provide crisis support to vulnerable households in England in most need with the cost of essentials such as food and energy.

The Household Support Fund is intended to cover a wide range of low-income households in need, including households with children of all ages, pensioners, unpaid carers, care leavers and disabled people, larger households, single-person households, and those struggling with one-off financial shocks or unforeseen events.

Local Authorities have the discretion to design their own local schemes within the parameters of the guidance and grant determination that the Department for Work and Pensions have set out for the fund. This is because they have the ties and the knowledge to best determine how support should be provided in their local communities.

It is our aim to make the right decision as early as possible in the process. To support this we have made improvements to our decision-making processes, giving Decision Makers additional time to proactively contact customers if they think additional evidence may support the claim.

We will continue to learn from decisions overturned at appeal, for example we regularly gather feedback from Presenting Officers who attend tribunal.

Further, the Health Transformation Programme is transforming health and disability benefit services over the longer term to improve the claimant experience, and improve trust in our services and decisions. It is creating a new customer-focussed Health Assessment Service and transforming the entire PIP service, from finding out about benefits and eligibility through to decisions and payments.

The table below provides information on the total number of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) appeals, which were either lapsed or overturned at a tribunal hearing. It also includes the number of claimants who had no award prior to the appeal, and had their award changed to Enhanced for both daily living and mobility components post lapsed or overturned appeal. Data provided is for the last five financial years.

Table 1: Number of lapsed and overturned appeals for each financial year and how many subsequently went from nil to enhanced on both daily living and mobility components

The table below provides information on the proportion of PIP appeals which were either lapsed or overturned at a tribunal hearing, that previously had no award but had their award changed to enhanced for the daily living and mobility component post appeal. Data is provided for the last five financial years.

Table 2: Proportion of lapsed and overturned appeals whose award changed from nil to enhanced for each financial year

Notes:

1. Figures have been rounded to the nearest 100.
2. Data provided is for England and Wales (excluding Scotland).
3. These figures include appeal clearances and decisions for PIP New Claims, Reassessments, Award Reviews and Change of Circumstances. These figures include appeals cleared from April 2019 to March 2024.
4. Appeals data has been taken from DWP PIP customer system’s management information. Therefore, this appeal data may differ from that held by His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service for various reasons such as delays in data recording and other methodological differences in collating and preparing statistics.
5. This data is unpublished data. It should be used with caution, and it may be subject to future revision.
6. A lapsed appeal is where DWP changed the decision in the customer’s favour after an appeal was lodged but before it was heard at a tribunal hearing.
7. An overturned appeal is where the decision was changed in the customer’s favour after an appeal was lodged and was heard at tribunal hearing.

Whilst there has been no direct assessment of a potential link, the relationship between food security, nutritional intake and physical and mental health in the United Kingdom is currently unclear. However, international data suggests that in the long-term, food insecurity may be associated with poorer diets and poorer mental and physical health.

UK dietary recommendations are based on advice from the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN). SACN’s risk assessments consider a broad range of health outcomes, including mental health where evidence is available.

Working together as a mission led Government, we will move from a model of sickness to one of prevention, reducing health inequality and closing the gap in healthy life expectancy, as well as delivering on our commitment to raise the healthiest next generation. As part of this we are working with civil society, industry and the public to address some of the biggest drivers of ill-health and health inequalities, including tackling poor diet.

To help break down barriers to opportunity and confront child poverty we are rolling out free breakfast clubs in every primary school, with an early adopter scheme launching in April 2025. 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 on the basis of low income.

In addition, our Healthy Food Schemes already provide support for those who need it the most. The 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.

A 2019 evidence review showed that babies and young children are exceeding their energy intake requirement and are eating too much sugar and salt. Some commercial baby foods, particularly finger foods, had added sugar or salt, or contained ingredients that are high in sugar or salt.

More recently, the independent Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) highlighted in their report on Feeding Young Children aged 1-5 years, published in 2023, that free sugar intakes are above recommendations for children at all ages where recommendations have been set; and that commercial baby food and drinks contributed to around 20% of free sugar intake in children aged between 12 and 18 months old. SACN also recommended that in diets of children aged between one and five years old, foods, including snacks that are high in salt, free sugars, saturated fat, or are energy dense should be limited and that commercially manufactured foods and drinks marketed specifically for infants and young children are not needed to meet nutrition requirements.

We face a childhood obesity crisis, and the Government is committed to raising the healthiest next generation. We can therefore confirm that we will publish voluntary industry guidelines to limit the levels of salt and sugar in commercially available baby food and drink in the near future.

The Healthy Start scheme is being kept under review. The scheme was introduced in 2006 to encourage a healthy diet for pregnant women, babies, and young children under four years old from very low-income households. It can be used to buy, or put towards the cost of, fruit, vegetables, pulses, milk, and infant formula. Healthy Start beneficiaries have access to free Healthy Start Vitamins for pregnant women and children aged under four years old.

Healthy Start now supports over 355,000 beneficiaries. This figure is higher than the previous paper voucher scheme. The NHS Business Services Authority operates the Healthy Start scheme on behalf of the Department. All applicants to the Healthy Start scheme, where they meet the eligibility criteria, must accept the terms and conditions of the prepaid card at the point of application. As the prepaid card is a financial product and cannot be issued without the applicant accepting these terms, the NHS Business Services Authority is not able to automatically provide eligible families with a prepaid card. However, we remain open to all viable routes to improve uptake.

This is a serious report, requiring serious consideration. The Department for Work and Pensions is the lead department for this and need time to carefully review and consider it.

Once this work has been undertaken, the Government will set out their approach.

An Equality Impact Assessment (EIA) was completed on the first phase of the roll out of eVisas to EEA nationals on 9 November 2020, which built on the Policy Equality Statement (PES) for the EUSS which was produced in 2017 and published on the gov.uk website on 18 November 2020:

Policy equality statement: EU Settlement Scheme (accessible version) - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

A separate EIA considering equalities issues in relation to the use of digital only right to work and rent checks was published on gov.uk in June 2022:

Digital only right to work and rent checks: equality impact assessment (accessible) - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

We are also in the process of reviewing our eVisas EIA, setting out further analysis of the equalities issues to reflect the current stage in the roll out of eVisas. We plan to publish an up-to-date version of this EIA on gov.uk in due course, and we will continue to keep the issue under review.

Human rights impacts on those with protected characteristics are part of the EIA consideration.

An Equality Impact Assessment (EIA) was completed on the first phase of the roll out of eVisas to EEA nationals on 9 November 2020, which built on the Policy Equality Statement (PES) for the EUSS which was produced in 2017 and published on the gov.uk website on 18 November 2020:

Policy equality statement: EU Settlement Scheme (accessible version) - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

A separate EIA considering equalities issues in relation to the use of digital only right to work and rent checks was published on gov.uk in June 2022:

Digital only right to work and rent checks: equality impact assessment (accessible) - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

We are also in the process of reviewing our eVisas EIA, setting out further analysis of the equalities issues to reflect the current stage in the roll out of eVisas. We plan to publish an up-to-date version of this EIA on gov.uk in due course, and we will continue to keep the issue under review.

Human rights impacts on those with protected characteristics are part of the EIA consideration.

In her written ministerial statement on 24^th October, the Home Secretary announced plans to establish a Windrush Commissioner; an independent advocate for all those affected, who will oversee the compensation scheme's delivery, the implementation of the Windrush Lessons Learned Review, and act as a trusted voice for families and communities, driving improvements and promoting lasting change.

Officials are working at pace to design the recruitment process for the Windrush Commissioner. They are also working through the detail of the role and remit of a Windrush Commissioner including how they would interact and support other related public appointments such as the Windrush Compensation Scheme Independent Person, the Independent Examiner of Complaints and any appointment of a Migrant’s Commissioner.

As promised, we have re-established a Windrush Unit in the Home Office reporting to the Departmental Ethics Adviser and dedicated to driving forward the action needed to ensure that what happened to the Windrush generation can never happen again to any part of our society. The new unit stands ready to support the Windrush Commissioner when appointed.

This renewed work and the recruitment of a dedicated Windrush Commissioner must drive enduring change that matters to the Windrush community and has wider impact across the whole department and across Government.

We recognise that justice has taken far too long for the Windrush community, and this Government will not allow the Windrush Compensation Scheme to fail the victims that deserve our compassion and rightly expect their trauma and experiences to be both heard and understood.

Since February 2024, processes have been in place so that where individuals were unable to work because they could not demonstrate their lawful status in the UK, their National Insurance record is corrected so their State Pension entitlement is not affected.

Officials are working at pace to consider how losses from Private and Occupational pensions could also be accounted for. This is a complex issue, and we will continue to work closely with stakeholders and victims as the work progresses.

The Windrush Compensation Scheme is committed to continuing to listen to and to work with victims and stakeholders to ensure all aspects of the Scheme operating effectively for those affected.

On 8 July 2024, a new single named caseworker process was implemented. This was in direct response to stakeholder and victim feedback. This change has streamlined the process, improving consistency, increasing transparency, and removing duplication that led to avoidable delay.

On 24 October 2024, the Home Secretary made a Written Ministerial Statement to Parliament announcing an injection of £1.5m grant funding to enable organisations to provide advocacy and support for individuals who need additional help with the application process, out of recognition that for many filing a claim is intimidating and requires them to revisit past traumas. This will ensuring claimants feel supported, improving the efficiency of the process.

This assistance will be offered alongside but separate from existing claims support, giving individuals increased flexibility and choice regarding the type of help they want and where they can access it.

The Home Secretary also confirmed that she will establishing a Windrush Commissioner; an independent advocate for all those affected. This role will oversee the compensation scheme's delivery, the implementation of the Windrush Lessons Learned Review, and act as a trusted voice for families and communities, driving improvements and promoting lasting change.

In addition, as promised, the Home Secretary has re-established a Windrush Unit in the Home Office reporting to the Departmental Ethics Adviser and dedicated to driving forward the action needed to ensure that what happened to the Windrush generation can never happen again to any part of our society. The new unit stands ready to support the Windrush Commissioner when appointed.

This renewed work and the recruitment of a dedicated Windrush Commissioner must drive enduring change that matters to the Windrush community and has wider impact across the whole department and across Government.

We recognise that justice has taken far too long for the Windrush community, and this Government will not allow the Windrush Compensation Scheme to fail the victims that deserve our compassion and rightly expect their trauma and experiences to be both heard and understood.

Since February 2024, processes have been in place so that where individuals were unable to work because they could not demonstrate their lawful status in the UK, their National Insurance record is corrected so their State Pension entitlement is not affected.

Officials are working at pace to consider how losses from Private and Occupational pensions could also be accounted for. This is a complex issue, and we will continue to work closely with stakeholders and victims as the work progresses.

The Windrush Compensation Scheme is committed to continuing to listen to and to work with victims and stakeholders to ensure all aspects of the Scheme operating effectively for those affected.

On 8 July 2024, a new single named caseworker process was implemented. This was in direct response to stakeholder and victim feedback. This change has streamlined the process, improving consistency, increasing transparency, and removing duplication that led to avoidable delay.

On 24 October 2024, the Home Secretary made a Written Ministerial Statement to Parliament announcing an injection of £1.5m grant funding to enable organisations to provide advocacy and support for individuals who need additional help with the application process, out of recognition that for many filing a claim is intimidating and requires them to revisit past traumas. This will ensuring claimants feel supported, improving the efficiency of the process.

This assistance will be offered alongside but separate from existing claims support, giving individuals increased flexibility and choice regarding the type of help they want and where they can access it.

The Home Secretary also confirmed that she will establishing a Windrush Commissioner; an independent advocate for all those affected. This role will oversee the compensation scheme's delivery, the implementation of the Windrush Lessons Learned Review, and act as a trusted voice for families and communities, driving improvements and promoting lasting change.

In addition, as promised, the Home Secretary has re-established a Windrush Unit in the Home Office reporting to the Departmental Ethics Adviser and dedicated to driving forward the action needed to ensure that what happened to the Windrush generation can never happen again to any part of our society. The new unit stands ready to support the Windrush Commissioner when appointed.

This renewed work and the recruitment of a dedicated Windrush Commissioner must drive enduring change that matters to the Windrush community and has wider impact across the whole department and across Government.

I am unable to comment on individual planning cases because of the departments quasi-judicial role in the planning system.

However, planning policy is clear that, in respect of Traveller sites, it is for elected local authorities to make their own assessment of need to inform the preparation of local plans and make planning decisions. In assembling this evidence, local authorities should pay particular attention to early and effective community engagement with both settled and Traveller communities in their area.