Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Spen Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of extending the criteria for 30 hours free childcare to children at risk regardless of their parents' employment status.
Answered by Claire Coutinho
In the Spring Budget 2023, my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced transformative reforms to childcare for parents, children, and the economy. By 2027/28, the government will expect to be spending in excess of £8 billion every year on free hours and early education, helping working families with their childcare costs. This represents the single biggest investment in childcare in England ever.
The government’s 30 hours free childcare entitlement is intended to encourage parents back into work, or to take on additional hours, by helping them with childcare costs. Therefore, it is available to parents who earn at least the equivalent of 16 hours per week at National Minimum or Living Wage (currently just over £167 per week, or £8,670 per year), and less than £100,000 adjusted net income per year.
In a two-parent family, both parents must meet these thresholds, unless one partner receives certain benefits, such as Incapacity Benefit, Severe Disablement Allowance, Carer’s Allowance or contribution-based Employment and Support Allowance. In a single-parent household the single parent must meet the thresholds.
Parents who are unable to meet the income thresholds for 30 hours free childcare remain eligible for the universal entitlement to 15 hours free early education. This is available for all three and four-year-olds regardless of their family circumstances, and supports children’s development, helping prepare them for school.
Working parents on low incomes and in receipt of certain benefits (earning less than £15,400 and receiving Universal Credit or earning less than £16,190 and receiving tax credits), as well as disadvantaged children, including those with education, health and care plans and looked after children, can qualify for 15 hours free early education for two-year-olds.
Outside of the early education entitlements, working parents on Universal Credit may also be eligible for help with up to 85% of their childcare costs through Universal Credit Childcare for children aged 0 to16, up to £646 for one child and £1,108 for two or more children.
The department continues to support the most disadvantaged and vulnerable children by investing in high-quality early education, family hubs and local services, and by helping parents to support their child’s early language development at home.
In future, working parents will be able to access 30 hours of free childcare a week for 38 weeks a year from the point their child is 9 months, to when their child starts school. This offer will be rolled out in phases from April 2024 to September 2025. The department is ensuring a phased implementation of the expansion to the 30 hours offer to allow the market to develop the necessary capacity, and we are working closely with the sector on the implementation of these reforms.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Spen Valley)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, when the Government will publish the Strategy for Community Spaces and Relationships as committed to in the Levelling Up White Paper published in February 2022.
Answered by Dehenna Davison
Since publishing the levelling up white paper we have delivered improvements to communities across the country. From saving community assets through the Community Ownership Fund, and investing in local priorities through the Levelling Up Fund and UK Shared Prosperity Fund, to tackling Anti-Social Behaviour with an ambitious new Action Plan to crack down on issues that blight communities.
Going forward we want to consult and work with local communities and stakeholders to understand how community spaces and relationship could be strengthened. This work will begin in due course.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Spen Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to implement fully the restrictions on advertising of unhealthy food and drink in the Health and Care Act 2022.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
We will be implementing restrictions on the advertising of less healthy products before 9pm on television and paid-for advertising of less healthy products online from 1 October 2025.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Spen Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure (a) consistency and (b) adequate monitoring of care standards in care homes.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator for health and adult social care in England. The CQC monitor, inspect and regulate services, including care homes. To ensure consistency in their approach to regulating providers, the CQC assess all providers against the fundamental standards of quality and safety.
Where concerns on quality or safety are identified, the CQC have a wealth of enforcement powers available and will take swift action to ensure the safety of service users. This could include publishing actions a provider must take to make improvements, restricting a service’s operation or in cases of significant concern, taking action which would lead to the closure of a service. All of these are designed to ensure providers act quickly to improve the quality of care they are delivering.
CQC will continue to engage with providers to monitor services and will act on feedback received from people who use services, their families and other stakeholders when concerns are raised about the quality of care.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Spen Valley)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of funding for the Inter Faith Network on community cohesion, and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Dehenna Davison
I refer the Hon Member to my answer to Question UIN 183570 on 15 May 2022.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Spen Valley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, for what reason the increased rate of Universal Credit began on 10 April 2023; and what steps he took to ensure that those with assessment periods between 1 April and 10 April 2023 were not adversely affected.
Answered by Guy Opperman
Increases in Universal Credit come into force from the start of the first assessment period beginning on or after the first Monday of the tax year. As Universal Credit is a calendar monthly assessed benefit that is paid monthly in arrears, a claimant will receive their newly-uprated benefit award at their first full Assessment Period that follows the change.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Spen Valley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department plans to alter the Universal Credit assessment and payment process to prevent repayments being demanded after the recalculation of a person's earnings and sick pay but before their next payment is due.
Answered by Guy Opperman
There are no plans to change the Universal Credit (UC) assessment and payment process. Changes made to a claimant’s earnings after an assessment period has ended, would generate an overpayment at the end of the following assessment period. The overpayment would be relevant to the period in which it occurred.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Spen Valley)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether his Department plans to respond formally to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Summit 2023; and what progress his Department has made on achieving the goals.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
The UK is committed to working to deliver the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as set out in the International Development Strategy (IDS) and Integrated Review (IR23). The UN's SDG Summit in September will mark the mid-way point to 2030. We will work closely with our partners to accelerate progress towards the SDGs at this critical juncture and ensure the SDG Summit delivers for all, including the poorest and most vulnerable.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Spen Valley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment he has made of (a) the potential merits of raising the minimum employer pension contribution and (b) the fairness of the proportion of pension contributions paid by (i) employees and (ii) employers.
Answered by Laura Trott
The current minimum contribution levels, and the split between employer and employees, were set following extensive stakeholder consultation and consensus building at the time, balancing the benefits of pensions saving with the costs to employers and individuals. No further assessment has been made since then.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Spen Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that the national curriculum includes (a) sustainable development and (b) project-based learning to encourage practical experience.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department reformed the National Curriculum to set world class standards across all subjects.
The National Curriculum focuses on the key knowledge that schools should teach. Within this broad statutory framework, schools have considerable flexibility to organise the content and delivery of the curriculum to meet the needs of the majority of their pupils.
In April 2022, the Department published ‘Sustainability and climate change: a strategy for the education and children’s services systems’. The strategy sets out new initiatives, including extra support, for teaching nature and climate change, the introduction of a natural history GCSE, a National Education Nature Park, Climate Action Award, and support for head teachers to take a whole school approach to climate change.
The National Education Nature Park will bring together all the land from across the education sector into a vast virtual nature park. It will enable pupils to get involved in taking practical action to improve biodiversity and see over time how the virtual park changes. The initiative will provide many educational opportunities for pupils to take part in biodiversity monitoring, mapping, and data analysis, developing excellent knowledge for the future, underpinned by a strong foundation in mathematics.
The Department is drafting subject content for the proposed natural history GCSE and aims to consult publicly on this in the coming months.
Topics related to climate change and the environment are already included within the citizenship, science, and geography National Curriculum programmes of study.
The Department has no plans to promote project based learning in schools. The Department is committed to evidence based teaching and has recently re-endowed the Education Endowment Foundation with £137 million to research and fund innovative approaches to improve teaching in schools, nurseries, and colleges. Their approaches are aimed at improving educational outcomes, especially for disadvantaged pupils. This supports teachers to make evidence led decisions and choose interventions that they know are effective and appropriate for their pupils. Schools can also refer to the Oak National Academy and the network of subject hubs for support with teaching an evidence based curriculum.
In the Schools White Paper, published in 2022, the Department committed not to make any changes to the National Curriculum for the remainder of this Parliament.