Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the press notice entitled More bobbies on the beat as PM puts people's priorities first, published on 4 December 2024, what steps her Department is taking to recruit 13,000 (a) police officers, (b) special constables and (c) Police Community Support Officers by the end of this Parliament.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
As part of the Government’s Safer Streets mission, the Home Secretary has made a clear commitment to strengthen neighbourhood policing through the introduction of a Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee. This includes delivering an additional 13,000 police officers, PCSOs and special constables in neighbourhood policing roles up and down the country and ensuring every community has a named officer to turn to. Every part of the country benefit from this pledge.
£100 million will be made available in 2025/26 to kickstart the recruitment of neighbourhood policing roles.
We are working closely with policing to implement this commitment and will announce our plans for the delivery of neighbourhood officers shortly.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that newly-built homes reflect the (a) family size and (b) income of the communities in each local area.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The revised National Planning Policy Framework, published on 12 December, makes clear that it is for local authorities to assess the size, types and tenure of housing needed for different groups in their area, including those who require affordable housing and families with children, and to reflect this in their planning policies.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if she will take steps to prioritise the allocation of affordable housing to UK citizens.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Eligibility for social housing is already tightly controlled. If a person’s visa means that they cannot access state benefits or local authority housing assistance, they are not eligible for an allocation of social housing. Migrants arriving in the UK on student or work visas are not eligible and nor are those who arrive in the country illegally with no leave to remain.
Where someone is eligible, they will have their housing needs considered on the same basis as other eligible applicants in accordance with the local authority’s housing allocation scheme. Social housing goes to those who need it most.
The previous government consulted on changes to social housing allocation tests. This government’s response was published on 2 September and can be found on gov.uk here.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps her Department is taking to protect park home owners from charges by park owners when they sell their home.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
I refer the hon Member to the answer given to Question UIN 11995 on 6 November 2024.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to increase the availability of mental health support for men under 50.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government accepts that too many men are not getting the support with their mental health that they deserve. As part of our mission to build a National Health Service that is fit for the future, we will recruit an additional 8,500 mental health workers to reduce delays and provide faster treatment, which will also help ease pressure on the busy mental health services.
We are also committed to tackling suicide as one of the biggest killers of men. The 8,500 new staff will be specially trained to support people at risk from suicide.
The five-year Suicide Prevention Strategy for England, published in September 2023, identifies young people and middle-aged men as one of a number of groups for consideration for tailored or targeted action at a national level.
Many voluntary community and social enterprise organisations are also working hard to ensure that men have access to different types of services for a range of needs and preferences, in places where they are most likely to engage.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to support early childhood education providers to ensure that three-quarters of five-year-olds are school ready in (a) under-resourced and (b) other areas.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Giving young children the best start in life is the foundation of the government’s Opportunity Mission. Children’s earliest years are crucial to their health, development and life chances. We have set a milestone of a record proportion of children starting school ready to learn in the classroom. We will measure our progress through 75% of children at the end of reception reaching a good level of development in the early years foundation stage profile assessment by 2028.
The government set out its next steps for delivering on this milestone in the Plan for Change published on 5 December. It will roll out government-funded childcare support to improve access, delivering the expansion to 30 funded hours, and supporting 3,000 new and expanded school-based nurseries, increasing the availability of high-quality childcare places where they are needed most.
The government will work in partnership with the sector, reforming training and support for the workforce to drive up standards. Only by listening to the expertise and experiences of those on the ground can we deliver this together.
We will work towards a stronger early years system, beginning with offering sustained professional development and working with providers to help spread evidence-based programmes as part of comprehensive plans to drive high-quality early education and care. We will ensure that the reception year sets children up for success in the rest of primary school, by rolling out schools’ access to evidence-based programmes that boost early literacy and numeracy skills.
We will strengthen and join up family services to improve support through pregnancy and early childhood. This includes continuing to invest in and build up Family Hubs and Start for Life programmes to support early child health, parenting and home learning programmes. In addition, we will strengthen health visiting services for all families and improve early identification of special educational needs and disabilities.
In the Autumn Budget 2024, we provided an additional £1.8 billion to continue the expansion of government-funded childcare support for working parents in England, bringing total spending on childcare to over £8 billion in 2025/26.
As usual, hourly funding rates for providers offering the government-funded hours will vary between local authorities, reflecting local circumstances. On average, rates will rise to £11.54 for under 2s, £8.53 for two-year-olds and £6.12 for three and four-year-olds.
The government also announced, on 10 December, a new £75 million expansion grant, to be allocated later this year, to support nurseries, childminders and other providers to deliver the 35,000 additional staff and 70,000 places required to meet demand for September 2025.
The government will also deliver the largest ever uplift to the early years pupil premium, increasing rates by over 45% to up to £570 per eligible child per year. This unprecedented increase is an investment in quality early education for those children who need it most, in the areas that need it most, to give them the support they need to be ‘school ready’ at age 5 and go on to have the best life chances.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that 92% of NHS patients are treated within 18 weeks.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Tackling waiting lists is a key part of our Health Mission. The NHS Constitutional Standard for 92% of patients to wait no longer than 18 weeks from Referral to Treatment has not been met consistently since September 2015, and is a priority for the Government. As a first step, we will deliver an extra 2 million operations, scans, and appointments per year, which is equivalent to 40,000 a week, during our first year in Government.
A plan will be published in the coming weeks, which will set out more detail on how the National Health Service will deliver on the 18-week standard.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what the evidential basis is for the levels of Extended Producer Responsibility fee for (a) steel food cans, (b) fibre-based cartons and (c) plastic pouches.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra published the second iteration of packaging extended producer responsibility (pEPR) illustrative base fees on 30 of September. These illustrative fees are estimates only, based on the best available data at the time. They are not the final base fees to be used for year 1 of the pEPR scheme. The second iteration of illustrative base fees are based on tonnages of packaging placed on the market in 2023, as reported by producers on RPD, and local authority waste management costs, which were modelled using the LAPCAP model. Local authority costs account for the management of different material types based on key drivers, such as a local authority recycling system, residual collection frequency, or level of deprivation and rurality. Defra’s model is undergoing a robust quality assurance process under the new Government, with ongoing consultation taking place which involves local authorities and packaging producers, to ensure that fees reflect the costs of waste management associated with each material.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure that residents of Ashfield constituency are able to access essential postal services.
Answered by Gareth Thomas - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Government provides an annual £50m Network Subsidy funding to support the delivery of a minimum number of Post Office branches and a geographical spread of these branches in line with published access criteria. This requires 99% of the UK population to be within three miles of their nearest Post Office outlet. The Government-set Access Criteria ensures that however the network changes, services remain within local reach of all citizens, including those living in the Ashfield constituency.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
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 help protect leaseholders from (a) excessive ground rents and (b) other exploitative practices in the period until secondary legislation is implemented under the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
I refer the Hon Member to the Written Ministerial Statement made on 21 November 2024 (HCWS244).