Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department plans to restore public funding for union-led workplace learning programmes.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The previous government ended the standalone Union Learning Fund (ULF) on 31 March 2021. The Adult Skills Fund funds a very broad range of provision, including to support the effective operation of Trade Unions such as for Trade Union Health & Safety Representatives.
The Department is committed to working with employers, providers, and trade unions to ensure that high quality qualification and training pathways are meeting skills needs.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of prison education staff have been made redundant in each of the past 12 months.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
The Ministry of Justice and HM Prison and Probation Service are committed to ensuring that prisoners can access high-quality education and skills provision that supports rehabilitation and reduces re-offending.
The contract does not require Education suppliers to provide routine information about redundancies, and as the majority of teaching staff are employed by external providers, it is not possible to provide the information requested.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Universal Credit fraud prosecutions were (a) withdrawn by his Department and (b) dismissed by a judge before trial in each of the last three financial years; and if he will provide a breakdown of these cases by (i) region and (ii) the primary reason recorded for the withdrawal of the prosecution.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) do not make decisions on whether to prosecute individuals and cannot make the decision to withdraw a prosecution. The DWP will complete the investigation and when appropriate hand the case files to the Crown Prosecution Service (Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service for Scotland), who will make the decision on whether to prosecute.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of its internal review process for fraud investigations in cases where a claimant provides evidence of (a) identity and (b) location that contradicts the Department's initial findings.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department has robust investigation processes in place to address allegations of identity and residency fraud. The Department is also bringing in additional inspection of our end-to-end investigations following the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Act 2025 through His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire Rescue Services (HMICFRS) in England and Wales and His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMICS) in Scotland.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential implications for her policies of the Disabled Children’s Partnership and the Speech, Language and Communication Alliance's 2025 report entitled How to spend less and get better outcomes for children with speech, language challenges.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The department recognises that early identification and intervention is critical to improving outcomes for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities. We are strengthening the evidence base of what works to improve early identification in mainstream settings. Recently published evidence reviews from University College London highlight the most effective tools and strategies to identify and support different types of needs. We recently announced new government-backed research which will aim to develop and test effective approaches to help early identification.
The department is also working with the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England to improve access to community health services, including speech and language therapy.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she plans to take to improve a) universal, b) targeted and c) specialist speech, language and communication support.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
Speech and Language Therapists (SaLTs) play a critical role in early intervention for children and young people. By breaking down communication barriers, they unlock learning, inclusion, and opportunity for every child.
The department is working closely with the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England to improve access to community health services, including speech and language therapy, for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities. This includes extending the Early Language and Support for Every Child programme, trialling new ways of working to better identify and support children with speech, language and communication needs in early years settings and primary schools.
We are also continuing to grow the pipeline. In addition to the undergraduate degree route, speech and language therapists can also train via a degree apprenticeship. This route is now in its fourth year of delivery and offers an alternative pathway to the traditional degree route into a successful career as a speech and language therapist.
Further plans to bolster this critical workforce will be set out in the forthcoming Schools White Paper.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment has been made of the potential merits of providing training to mental health teams on adapting their support to children with lifelong speech and language difficulties.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department of Health and Social Care is working closely with the Department for Education and NHS England to improve access to community health services, including speech and language therapy, for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities.
In addition to the undergraduate degree route, speech and language therapists can now also train via a degree apprenticeship. This route is going into its fourth year of delivery and offers an alternative pathway to the traditional degree route into a successful career as a speech and language therapist.
In partnership with NHS England, the Department for Education has extended the Early Language and Support for Every Child programme, trialling new ways of working to better identify and support children with Speech, Language and Communication Needs in early years settings and primary schools.
At the Spending Review, we confirmed that we will deliver on our commitment to recruit an additional 8,500 mental health workers by the end of this Parliament, roll out mental health support teams to cover all schools in England by 2029/30 and expand NHS Talking Therapies and Individual Placement and Support schemes.
We have also already started piloting Neighbourhood Mental Health Centres. These pilots aim to provide open access care for anyone with a severe mental illness 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Our aim is to have one Neighbourhood Health Centre in each community that brings together National Health Service, local authority and voluntary sector services in one building to help create a holistic offer that meets the needs of local populations including children with lifelong speech and language difficulties.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has considered requesting the National Institute for Clinical Excellence to set national clinical guidelines for developmental language disorders.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Topics for new or updated National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidance are considered through an established prioritisation process. Decisions as to whether NICE will create new, or update existing, guidance are overseen by a prioritisation board, chaired by NICE’s Chief Medical Officer.
The NICE Prioritisation Board considered developmental language disorder: diagnosis and management as a topic for guidance development at its meeting on 20 November 2025. They recognised that developmental language disorder is a significant condition that affects a large population. However, they agreed that there is unlikely to be sufficient evidence available at this time to be able to develop a useful and usable guideline. Therefore, the topic was not selected for guidance development at this time.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to treat developmental language disorders in line with autism by matching levels of freely available support, training and information for parents and carers.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Community health services, including children’s speech and language therapy, are locally commissioned to enable systems to best meet the needs of their communities. NHS England is working with the Department for Education to identify and support children with speech, language, and communication needs by co-funding pathfinder sites to deliver the Early Language Support for Every Child programme.
The programme aims to identify and support children and young people in their early years and primary school settings with mild to moderate speech, language, and communication needs, reducing the rate of specialist referrals, and increasing workforce capacity through innovative workforce models.
On 5 April 2023, NHS England published a national framework and operational guidance to help integrated care boards (ICBs) and the National Health Service to deliver improved outcomes for people referred to an autism assessment service. The guidance also sets out what support should be available before an assessment and following a recent diagnosis of autism. Since publication, NHS England has been supporting systems and services to identify where there are challenges for implementation and how they might overcome these.
The Medium-Term Planning Framework, published 24 October, was explicit that ICBs and providers are expected to optimise existing resources to reduce long waits for autism assessments and improve the quality of assessments by implementing published guidance.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment she has made of the potential humanitarian impact of the reported demolition issued against 13 residential houses and a community centre in the village of Um al Khair in the occupied West Bank.
Answered by Hamish Falconer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
We are deeply concerned by the levels of settler violence, settlement growth, and demolition of Palestinian homes in the West Bank. In all but the most exceptional cases, demolitions by an occupying power are contrary to international law. We urge Israel to halt demolitions and evictions of Palestinian communities. The UK Government supports Bedouin and Palestinian communities facing demolition or eviction in Area C of the West Bank through access to legal aid programmes and outreach to vulnerable and remote areas. Our officials in Jerusalem will continue to meet communities at risk of demolition and displacement.