Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what estimate he has made of changes in the level of funding for domestic abuse services in each year since 2018.

Answered by Felicity Buchan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)

Support for domestic abuse services is a devolved matter, and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) holds data relating to England.

On 1st May 2023, according to Women’s Aid, throughout England, there were 236 domestic abuse service providers delivering a range of local services. Some providers deliver multiple services. The table below shows total number of domestic providers since 2018:

Since 2021 £507 million has been allocated to support local authorities across England to delivery their statutory duty under Part 4 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 to ensure that all victims, including children, have access to support within safe accommodation when they need it.

DLUHC has allocated over £4.2 million of funding to Warwickshire County Council to support domestic abuse victims in safe accommodation since 2021.

Further funding has been provided by the Ministry of Justice to Police and Crime Commissioners with £38 million of funding ring-fenced for Independent Sexual and Domestic Violence Advisors across England.

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what estimate he has made of the number of domestic abuse services in the UK in each year since 2018.

Answered by Felicity Buchan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)

Support for domestic abuse services is a devolved matter, and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) holds data relating to England.

On 1st May 2023, according to Women’s Aid, throughout England, there were 236 domestic abuse service providers delivering a range of local services. Some providers deliver multiple services. The table below shows total number of domestic providers since 2018:

Since 2021 £507 million has been allocated to support local authorities across England to delivery their statutory duty under Part 4 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 to ensure that all victims, including children, have access to support within safe accommodation when they need it.

DLUHC has allocated over £4.2 million of funding to Warwickshire County Council to support domestic abuse victims in safe accommodation since 2021.

Further funding has been provided by the Ministry of Justice to Police and Crime Commissioners with £38 million of funding ring-fenced for Independent Sexual and Domestic Violence Advisors across England.

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what estimate he has made of trends in the level of funding given to domestic abuse services in Warwick and Leamington constituency since 2018.

Answered by Felicity Buchan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)

Support for domestic abuse services is a devolved matter, and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) holds data relating to England.

On 1st May 2023, according to Women’s Aid, throughout England, there were 236 domestic abuse service providers delivering a range of local services. Some providers deliver multiple services. The table below shows total number of domestic providers since 2018:

Since 2021 £507 million has been allocated to support local authorities across England to delivery their statutory duty under Part 4 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 to ensure that all victims, including children, have access to support within safe accommodation when they need it.

DLUHC has allocated over £4.2 million of funding to Warwickshire County Council to support domestic abuse victims in safe accommodation since 2021.

Further funding has been provided by the Ministry of Justice to Police and Crime Commissioners with £38 million of funding ring-fenced for Independent Sexual and Domestic Violence Advisors across England.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the maximum value of a student maintenance loan (a) was in 2018 and (b) is as of 4 March 2024; and if she will make an estimate of the real-term change in that value since 2018.

Answered by Robert Halfon

The maximum maintenance loan for an undergraduate student living away from parents outside London in the 2023/24 academic year is £9,978. The equivalent maximum maintenance loan was £8,430 in the 2017/18 academic year. This is a 13.9% reduction in the real-terms value of the maximum loan. This figure has been derived by using the Retail Price Index (RPIX) measure of inflation, applied at Quarter 1 in each academic year throughout this time period, as published by the Office for Budget Responsibility in November 2023, which can be found here: https://obr.uk/efo/economic-and-fiscal-outlook-november-2023/.

The government has continued to increase maximum loans and grants for living and other costs each year. Maximum support has been increased by 2.8% for the 2023/24 academic year with a further 2.5% increase announced for 2024/25.

The government recognises the additional cost of living pressures that have arisen this year and that are impacting students. The department has already made £276 million of student premium and mental health funding available for the 2023/24 academic year to support successful outcomes for students including disadvantaged students.

The department is now making a further £10 million of one off support available to support student mental health and hardship funding. This funding will complement the help universities are providing through their own bursary, scholarship and hardship support schemes.

Over the period between 2022/23 to 2024/25, the government will have provided support worth £104 billion to help families throughout the UK with the cost of living including to meet increased household energy costs. This is an average of £3,700 per household. This will have eased some of the pressure on family budgets and so will in turn enable many families to provide additional support to their children in higher education to help them meet increased living costs.

The department has also frozen maximum tuition fees for the 2023/24 and 2024/25 academic years to deliver better value for students and to keep the cost of higher education under control. By 2024/25, maximum fees will have been frozen for seven years.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will make an estimate of the number of international students who go on to work in the NHS after studying in the UK.

Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)

The Home Office publishes data on how people move through the immigration system in the Migrant Journey report. The report contains information on the number of people starting a journey each year broken down by immigration route (e.g. study) and how many extend into other categories (e.g. work) following their initial leave. The statistics do not show which sectors people were employed in. The latest report covers up to the end of 2022.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps he is taking to ensure that investors in pension funds have the right (a) for complaints to be determined by the Financial Ombudsman Service and (b) to receive redress from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.

Answered by Bim Afolami - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)

The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) can consider complaints about businesses regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) which includes firms that provide self-invested personal pensions (SIPPs). The jurisdiction of the FOS, including which complaints it can deal with, is determined by the FCA and set out in the FCA Handbook. Whether a complaint is eligible or not is a matter for the FOS to consider.