Lee Anderson

The department is committed to rebuilding or refurbishing all schools selected for the School Rebuilding Programme, including all schools selected in Nottinghamshire.

Well maintained, safe school buildings are a priority for the department to ensure they support a high-quality education for all children. All future decisions remain subject to the Spending Review.

The Government takes the condition of local roads very seriously and is committed to maintaining and renewing the local road network.

Nottinghamshire County Council (NCC) is the local highway authority for the Ashfield constituency, and it is therefore responsible for the maintenance of the local road network in its area. NCC is a part of the East Midlands Combined Authority (EMCA), and for this financial year the Department for Transport is providing EMCA with £53.9 million of capital funding for local highway maintenance across its area. It is a matter for EMCA to determine how much of this funding to allocate to each of its constituent authorities.

Funding decisions for highways maintenance beyond 2024/25 will be made at the forthcoming Spending Review.

The Government is committed to ensuring the safety of our roads for all road users. Cyclists, whether riding an e-bike or a conventional pedal cycle, have a duty to behave in a safe and responsible manner and follow the rules set out in The Highway Code. The enforcement of cycling offences, such as cycling on the pavement or cycling without due care or attention, is a matter for the police.

Responsibility for commissioning primary care dentistry, to meet the needs of the local population, has been delegated to integrated care boards (ICB) across England. For the Ashfield constituency, this is the NHS Nottingham and Nottinghamshire ICB.

The Government plans to tackle the challenges patients face when trying to access National Health Service dental care with a rescue plan to provide 700,000 more urgent dental appointments, and to recruit new dentists to the areas that need them most. To rebuild dentistry in the long term and increase access to NHS dental care, we will reform the dental contract, with a shift to focus on prevention and the retention of NHS dentists. The Government will also introduce a supervised tooth-brushing scheme for three- to five-year-olds, targeting the areas of highest need.

Palliative care services are included in the list of services an integrated care board (ICB) must commission. This promotes a more consistent national approach and supports commissioners in prioritising palliative and end of life care. To support ICBs in this duty, NHS England has published statutory guidance and service specifications.

Whilst the majority of palliative and end of life care is provided by National Health Service staff and services, we recognise the vital part that voluntary sector organisations, including hospices, also play in providing support to people, and their loved ones, at end of life.

Most hospices are charitable, independent organisations which receive some statutory funding for providing NHS services. The amount of funding charitable hospices receive varies by ICB area, and will, in part, be dependent on the breadth and range of palliative and end of life care provision within their ICB footprint.

We understand that, financially, times are difficult for many voluntary and charitable organisations, including hospices, due to the increased cost of living. We want a society where these costs are manageable for both voluntary organisations, like hospices, and the people whom they serve.

We, alongside NHS England, will continue to proactively engage with our stakeholders, including the voluntary sector and independent hospices, on an ongoing basis, in order to understand the issues they face.

This is a Government of service that will always stand up for those who serve our country. I am working across government to ensure veterans across the UK have access to the support they need on housing, as well as health, employment and other areas.

The Government will develop a new cross-Government strategy, working with Mayors and Councils across the country, to put Britain back on track to ending homelessness. The MOD will support that work to take a long-term approach and to tackle the root causes of homelessness.

Veterans in need of housing support can contact Op FORTITUDE, a single referral pathway to connect veterans with help and support. This system provides housing guidance and assistance to veterans experiencing or at risk of homelessness across the UK. As of September 2024, over 2,400 referrals have been made and over 700 veterans have been supported into housing.

The Government has been clear that more must be done to accelerate the pace of remediation of unsafe buildings across the country.

After the Grenfell Tower tragedy, the Government prioritised identifying and providing funding for the highest risk buildings with unsafe cladding. Fire and rescue services and local authorities conducted a risk review of high-rise buildings over 18 metres in height, and building owners were required to register high-rise buildings with the department and apply for government funding to remove dangerous cladding.

The Building Safety Act 2022 establishes a new regulatory regime for high-rise buildings, which requires all residential buildings above 18m to be registered with the Building Safety Regulator by October 2023. The regulator has powers to pursue any building owner who fails to comply, including prosecuting for non-compliance.

In 2022, the Cladding Safety Scheme (CSS) was launched, to meet the cost of addressing life safety fire risks associated with cladding in buildings over 11 metres. We estimate that there may be as many as 7,000 buildings that need remediation that have not yet applied for the scheme. Eligible building owners must apply for this scheme, and leaseholders can utilise ‘Tell us tool’ to self-refer their building. Tell us about life-safety fire risks on the external wall system of your building - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) The department is working at pace to identify buildings eligible for funding that are not coming forward. We are utilising specialist data sources and AI technology tools, and the CSS is contacting owners of identified buildings to check whether they have been assessed for unsafe cladding.

The Government has pressed the need for urgent action by local regulators to identify and assess buildings for unsafe cladding and other defects. The Government is supporting local authorities to boost their inspection and enforcement action by providing training, guidance and over £14 million in new burdens funding to date. We are writing to all metro mayors in England to ask for their support in driving forward local remediation acceleration plans to ensure buildings are identified and remediated at pace. We will set out further steps on plans to accelerate remediation this autumn.

Due to the failures of the previous Government, the target for the Affordable Homes Programme has been cut from 180,000 to 130,000 homes, or less.

Ensuring the biggest boost to social and affordable housing in a generation is a personal priority.

We have already:

• proposed reforms to the NPPF

• asked Homes England and the GLA to maximise AHP allocations for social rent homes

• given councils new flexibilities on how they spend their Right to Buy receipts

• and confirmed we’ll set out more details on Government investment in social and affordable housing in the next Spending Review.

Reducing violence in prisons remains a key priority. We are working hard to make prisons as safe as possible and are continuing our efforts to address the levels of violence in prisons.

We have completed our landmark £100 million Security Investment Programme to clamp down on illicit items such as drugs, mobile phones and weapons – that drive prison violence and undermine safety.

To support those at raised risk of being violent, we have introduced the Challenge, Support and Intervention Plan (CSIP), a case management approach that is centred around the individual and addressing the underlying causes of their violence, including specific risk factors and needs, to help them manage and move away from violent behaviours.

To ensure our staff are equipped with the right tools to protect themselves and prisoners from serious assaults, we have completed the roll out of PAVA – a synthetic pepper spray – for use by prison officers in the adult male estate alongside SPEAR, a personal safety training package.

We are continuing with plans for a phased removal of wet-shave razors in up to 30 prisons in the adult male estate in 2024/25.