Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool Riverside)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps she is taking to protect the Tara Park Traveller site in Liverpool; if she will make an assessment of the adequacy of the consultation with the residents of that site on the potential impact of the Ten Streets development; and whether she plans to redevelop that site in line with the surrounding redevelopment proposals.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local 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.
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool Riverside)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to engage with the cruise industry; and whether she plans to invite representatives of that industry to join industry groups that her Department convenes.
Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
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.
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool Riverside)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether she plans to consider the cruise industry’s role in (a) inbound, (b) outbound and (c) domestic tourism when determining the membership of a re-established Tourism Industry Council.
Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
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.
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool Riverside)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how her Department plans to engage with (a) the cruise industry and (b) other tourism sectors in the development of tourism planning.
Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
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.
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool Riverside)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she has made an assessment of the potential implications for her policies of surveys undertaken by the Food Foundation Food entitled Food insecurity tracking, published in July 2024, on a potential link between ethnicity and food insecurity.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
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.
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool Riverside)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 14 October 2024 to Question 7596 on Special Educational Needs, how many and what proportion of children who had been excluded from school were then registered at special schools by (a) sex/gender, (b) ethnicity, (c) free school meal status and (d) region in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
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.
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool Riverside)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answers of 14 October to Questions 7569 on Special Educational Needs and 7570 on Pupil Referral Units, how many and what proportion of children who attended Special Educational Needs schools were then registered at Pupil Referral Units in each of the last ten years, broken down by (a) sex/gender, (b) ethnicity, (c) free school meal status and (d) region.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
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.
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool Riverside)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 25 October 2024 to Question 9795 on Pupil Referral Units, if her Department will undertake a manual audit of all children registered at Pupil Referral Units since 1 November 2023 to see how many have previously been excluded from school.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
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.
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool Riverside)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 25 October 2024 to Question 9795 on Pupil Referral Units, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of recording the number of children registered at Pupil Referral Units who have previously been excluded from school.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
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.
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool Riverside)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department has made an equalities impact assessment on the transition from Biometric Resident Permits to eVisas.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
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:
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.