Margaret Beckett

The Government has regular engagement with Rolls-Royce on a wide range of issues, including to understand the impact of COVID-19 on its business, employees and UK supply chain and how best to help them through the crisis and into recovery.

Temporarily closing facilities is a commercial decision for Rolls-Royce and I understand the company is currently consulting with Union and Employee representatives around these proposals.

The Government is committed to supporting companies through the COVID-19 crisis and has worked with many businesses across the economy to understand how best to do so, including Rolls-Royce.

The Government has been in close discussions with Rolls-Royce on the various business support schemes available to the business and its suppliers. Through the Aerospace Growth Partnership , the company has also fed into the Government’s dialogue with the wider aerospace sector about business support.

Government is committed to publishing a Cyber Security Skills Strategy by the end of 2018. We are working with Devolved Administrations on the development of the Strategy and the document will set out our approach to implementation and next steps. In the meantime, government continues to deliver a range of initiatives designed to boost cyber security skills in the UK.

The Department for Education recognises the costs associated with the use of agency social workers. The department welcomes the efforts made by local authorities through regional memoranda of understanding to improve the deployment, and manage the costs, of agency social workers. The department has not conducted an assessment of their effectiveness or of the effect on local authority expenditure. Similarly, the department has not carried out an assessment of a national cap on agency social worker fees.

The Department for Education recognises the costs associated with the use of agency social workers. The department welcomes the efforts made by local authorities through regional memoranda of understanding to improve the deployment, and manage the costs, of agency social workers. The department has not conducted an assessment of their effectiveness or of the effect on local authority expenditure. Similarly, the department has not carried out an assessment of a national cap on agency social worker fees.

The Department for Education recognises the costs associated with the use of agency social workers. The department welcomes the efforts made by local authorities through regional memoranda of understanding to improve the deployment, and manage the costs, of agency social workers. The department has not conducted an assessment of their effectiveness or of the effect on local authority expenditure. Similarly, the department has not carried out an assessment of a national cap on agency social worker fees.

The Department does not hold the information requested.

The Department published an update on the exercise to correct past ESA underpayments on Gov.uk on 8 July 2021. This reported that as of 1 June 2021, of the 600,000 cases checked, 118,000 arrears payments have been made totalling £613 million. This report showed the numbers of cases paid arrears at a national level only as the data was not available at sub-national level at that time. The Department is investigating the feasibility of providing this analysis at a constituency level.

The Libya Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (CSSF) Programme was allocated £6.6 million in financial year 2022-2023, of which £6 million was Official Development Assistance (ODA) and £0.6 million Non-ODA.

Since 2012 the scheme has already provided over 70 highly skilled new entrants to the GCHQ workforce. Of the 18 students who joined the GCHQ apprenticeship scheme in September 2012, over 60% successfully graduated from the course in 2014 and joined the GCHQ workforce. In September 2013, the nature and scale of the apprenticeship scheme changed as it expanded to become a scheme covering the whole of the SIA: all three of the UK's intelligence Agencies (MI5, SIS and GCHQ) now directly recruit successful graduates from the scheme, which means that the exact number of apprentices each year cannot be openly released for security reasons. I can confirm however that over 160 new apprentices have joined the scheme since 2013, and of these a substantial majority are expected to join GCHQ when they graduate.

The CyberFirst scheme was launched in 2015 and met its initial target of awarding 21 bursaries, of which 19 have been taken up and committed to by UK students. Eight of the students are in the first year of their degree, ten are in their second year and one student is in the third year of a four year course. The first students will be able to join the department when they graduate in 2017. As announced by the Minister for the Cabinet Office, we will have 1000 students on the scheme by 2020. During summer 2016, five of the students will attend GCHQ Student Technical Internships, seven will attend the various GCHQ summer technical schools, one will start a 1 year industrial placement at GCHQ and six will attend internships in other government cyber operations.

From the 1st of June until the 31st of December 2013 there were 149,995
applications for family visit visas. Of those applications:

• 111,990 were issued
• 37,370 were refused
• 65 were lapsed
• 330 were withdrawn
• 4,570 were given the right to appeal

These figures are based upon management information, and have been rounded to
the nearest 5. Until the 24th June 2013, any family visit visa that was refused
was given a right of appeal against that decision. The numbers above reflect
this change to appeal rights.

Local authorities receive funds through local taxes, fees and charges, as well as through central government. Local authorities are best placed to take decisions on spend for social care based on local priorities. In response to calls for further funding to tackle the immediate pressures, the Local Government Finance Settlement increased the dedicated funding available for social care through increased flexibility around the social care precept and with a new dedicated £240 million Adult Social Care Support Grant in 2017 to 2018, distributed according to relative need.

This information is not held by the department.

We do not currently publish pregnancy data routinely.

As part of our fundamental review of policy relating to mothers and expectant mothers in prison, we have committed to providing national pregnancy data in future.

Further information on the review, including our findings and resulting reforms regarding data collection, can be found in our summary report published in July 2020: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/905559/summary-report-of-review-of-policy-on-mbu.pdf

Information is not held centrally by the Ministry of Justice about the nationality (or ethnicity) of the children and families involved in family court proceedings in England and Wales.