Michelle Welsh

The Government recognises that baronetcies, like other hereditary titles, can usually only be inherited by male heirs. However, the Government is prioritising on delivering its manifesto commitments, including reform of the House of Lords.

The Government is committed to ending the injustice of the Mineworkers' Pension Scheme and the first increased payments due to the transfer of the Investment Reserve Fund to members were made at the end of November. The Government will soon start talks with the MPS Trustees on the future arrangements for surplus sharing.

The Government is happy to consider any proposals for changes that the BCSSS Trustees wish to make once the new MPS arrangements have been agreed.

The government’s ambition is that all children and young people receive the right support to succeed in their education and as they move into adult life. We are committed to improving inclusivity and expertise in mainstream schools, as well as ensuring special schools cater to those with the most complex needs, restoring parents’ trust that their child will get the support they need.

It is the responsibility of local authorities, schools, and further education settings to commission appropriately qualified staff to support the education of children and young people in their area. All schools have duties under the Equality Act 2010 towards individual disabled children and young people. They must make reasonable adjustments to prevent them being put at a substantial disadvantage. To teach a class of pupils with vision impairments, a teacher is required to hold the relevant Mandatory Qualification for Sensory Impairment (MQSI). The department is committed to ensuring a steady supply of teachers of children with vision impairment in both specialist and mainstream settings.

The Children and Families Act 2014 requires all local authorities to publish a local offer of services for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities in their area, to ensure that families are aware of services that are available in their area and are able to contribute to shaping the services to meet local needs. Information about the support available for children with sensory impairment should be included within that local offer.

The rights of parents to make enquiries about the availability of school places, including across multiple local authorities or academy trusts, is set out in the School Admissions Code. This is mandatory and imposes requirements and guidelines relating to the functions of the local authority and all state schools’ admission authorities, including academy trusts. The School Admissions Code was last updated in 2021 and can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1001050/School_admissions_code_2021.pdf.

Paragraph 2.23 of the Schools Admissions Code states that a parent can apply for a place for their child at any school and at any time to the relevant admission authority.

Paragraph 2.27 of the School Admissions Code states that local authorities must provide information on available places in their area to prospective parents. To enable local authorities to do this, the admission authorities for all schools in the area must provide the local authority with details of the number of places available at their schools whenever this information is requested.

The table below provides per pupil funding units from academic years 2020/21 to 2024/25, which represents the funding provided for schools in Sherwood Forest constituency.

The department cannot provide comparable funding data for each of the last 10 years due to the changes in the funding system since that time. The scope of the per-pupil funding before and after academic year 2018/19 are not directly comparable. In particular, funding for the central services provided by local authorities was split out from the schools block funding in 2018/19, and instead funded separately through the central school services block from that year onwards.

The constituency level data for Sherwood Forest is calculated based on the notional schools national funding formula (NFF) allocations for all mainstream schools in the constituency.

The figures in the table below are provided on a cash basis. We also publish real-terms statistics on schools funding at the national level which does not distinguish by phase. We use the GDP deflator to calculate real-terms funding levels. These can be found on the following links: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-funding-statistics and https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/methodology/school-funding-statistics-methodology.

* The allocations that schools within a constituency actually receive are determined by the local funding formula in their area. Additional grants, such as the School Supplementary grant (SSG) and the Mainstream Schools Additional grant (MSAG) are included in these figures once they have been incorporated into the Dedicated Schools Grant.

For the 2020/21 to 2023/24 academic years, Sherwood constituency has been used. 2024/25 uses the new constituency boundaries which formed Sherwood Forest.

Tackling child poverty everywhere is at the heart of breaking down barriers to opportunity and improving the life chances for every child. For too many children, living in poverty robs them of the opportunity to learn and to prosper.

Child poverty has gone up by 700,000 since 2010, with over four million children now growing up in a low-income family. This not only harms children’s lives now, but it also damages their future prospects and holds back our society and economy.

On 17 July 2024, my right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister, announced the appointment of the Secretary of State for Work and Pension and the Secretary of State for Education to be the joint leads of a new ministerial taskforce to begin work on a child poverty strategy.

The ministerial taskforce, which met for the first time on 14 August 2024, will harness all available levers to drive forward short-term and long-term actions across government to reduce child poverty, with a child poverty strategy published in spring next year. Further details on the taskforce can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/child-poverty-taskforce-kicks-off-urgent-work-to-publish-strategy-in-spring.

The proposed Children’s Wellbeing Bill will ensure education and children’s social care systems transform life chances for millions of children and young people in England.

The department will remove barriers to opportunity to ensure the school system is fair for every child. As announced in the King’s Speech, under the Children‘s Wellbeing Bill, every primary school in England, will offer a free breakfast club. They will play an important role in driving up standards of attendance and attainment, ensuring children are able to listen and concentrate throughout the school day. Alongside removing a barrier to opportunity for every child and supporting families with the cost of living, breakfast clubs will also offer parents more choices in childcare. To ensure that every child, no matter their background, is well prepared for the school day, the department will limit the number of branded uniform items that a school can require.

In addition to free school meals and the over £2.9 billion pupil premium funding, the department has also provided over £200 million of funding this year to all local authorities across England to deliver the holiday activities and food (HAF) programme in their area. This is to ensure that over the longer school holidays, children from disadvantaged backgrounds and low-income families are able to take up free childcare spaces, which offer healthy meals and enriching activities, benefiting their health, wellbeing and learning. This summer, the department anticipated that over three million HAF places would be provided to young people in this country.

The Government is committed to protecting our biosecurity and we are using a risk-based approach to maintain the appropriate level of controls.

Defra will continue to monitor for new and emerging risks and review the border control checks introduced under the Border Target Operating Model.

GB plant health services have increased the number of plant health inspection staff to service the demand for import checks in England and Wales of EU plants and plant products.

Inspector levels are being monitored to ensure these meet demand and deliver checks in line with set Service Level Agreements and ensure minimal trade disruption.

Certain EU Medium Risk cut flowers have been subject to pre-notification since 1 January 2022. EU Medium Risk cut flowers have required a Phytosanitary Certificate since 31 January 2024, but there are now inspections for EU Medium Risk goods at the border since 30 April 2024.

To reduce and prevent the introduction and establishment of invasive non-native species (INNS) we have prioritised horticulture as one of the top 5 pathways of introduction. We have developed a Horticulture Pathway Action Plan, available here: https://www.nonnativespecies.org/biosecurity/pathway-action-plans/horticulture-pap-for-great-britain/ which aims to address the most likely routes by which INNS can get into the country.

Protecting communities around the country from flooding and coastal erosion is one of the new Secretary of State’s five core priorities.

This Government will improve resilience and preparation across central government, local authorities, local communities and emergency services to better protect communities across the UK. We will launch a new Flood Resilience Taskforce to turbocharge the delivery of new flood defences, drainage systems and natural flood management schemes.

The Environment Agency (EA) currently have no flood defences within the constituency except a section of flood bank in Lowdham.

The EA and partners are in the process of constructing a larger flood storage reservoir upstream of Lowdham to reduce the risk of flooding to 191 properties in the village. The scheme is projected to have £50 million in whole life benefits and to be delivered by early 2027.

The EA also carry out maintenance on parts of the River Leen, Bakerlane Brook, Cocker Beck and Dover Beck, and continue to monitor river levels, issuing flood warnings when required. The EA are working with partners to raise community awareness, plan for and respond to incidents, and support communities, alongside Local Authorities, in running Flood Warden schemes.

The Department will publish its findings shortly.

We have no plans to change the Universal Credit capital rules to disregard the settlement payments from estates for cases related to (i) maternity and (ii) death of a baby for the purposes of Universal Credit entitlements.

It is the responsibility of integrated care boards (ICBs) in England to make available appropriate provision to meet the health and care needs of their local population, including assessments for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), in line with relevant National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines.

NHS England has established an ADHD taskforce which is working to bring together those with lived experience with experts from the National Health Service, education, charity, and justice sectors. The taskforce is working to get a better understanding of the challenges affecting those with ADHD, including timely and equitable access to services and support, with the final report expected in the summer.

In conjunction with the taskforce, NHS England has carried out detailed work to develop an ADHD data improvement plan to inform future service planning. NHS England has also conducted detailed work to understand the provider and commissioning landscape, capturing examples from ICBs who are trialling innovative ways of delivering ADHD services. NHS England is using this information to support systems to tackle ADHD waiting lists and provide support to address people’s needs.

The Nottingham and Nottinghamshire ICB advises that it is working with Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust to review current waiting lists and develop an improvement plan to reduce waiting times. These improvements include streamlining the referral, triage and assessment processes and improving data quality. The current service pathway has been reviewed and options for improvement have been developed, these are being progressed locally during 2025 and aim to improve the pathway, including pre-assessment and post-assessment support.

The independent Joint Committee for Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) advises the Department on the approach to vaccination and immunisation programmes. The primary aim of the national COVID-19 vaccination programme remains the prevention of severe illness, involving hospitalisations and deaths, arising from COVID-19. On 13 November 2024, the JCVI published advice on the COVID-19 vaccination programme, covering vaccination in 2025 and spring 2026. This advice is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-vaccination-in-2025-and-spring-2026-jcvi-advice/jcvi-statement-on-covid-19-vaccination-in-2025-and-spring-2026

The Government is considering the JCVI’s advice for autumn 2025 carefully, and will respond in due course.

The Government continues to work with the National Health Service as it delivers its three-year plan for maternity and neonatal services. The plan sets out how the NHS will make maternity and neonatal care safer, more personalised, and more equitable for women, babies, and families.

As part of the delivery plan, an updated version of the ‘Saving Babies Lives Care Bundle’ is being rolled out across England, which is a package of interventions aimed to reduce stillbirths, neonatal brain injury, neonatal death, and preterm birth, as well as initiatives to reduce inequalities. Additionally, 14 Maternal Medicine Networks have been developed across England to ensure that women with chronic and acute medical problems related to pregnancy have access to specialist management and care.

Additional funding has also been provided for Maternity and Neonatal Voice Partnerships to ensure local voices are used to inform decisions and services. All local leadership teams are taking part in a Perinatal Culture and Leadership Programme, helping them to develop and maintain a positive safety culture.

The Government is also currently piloting a training programme to help avoid brain injury in childbirth to improve safety for mothers and their babies. If successful, national rollout is expected to commence this year.

While good progress has been made, the Government recognises that there are real issues within maternity services. Whilst change will not happen overnight, we are determined to go further to ensure all women and babies receive the care they deserve, and we have committed to providing support to trusts failing on maternity care, recruit thousands of new midwives, and tackle the unacceptable inequalities that exist.

As of 4 September 2024, there were four open dentistry practices in the Sherwood Forest constituency, three of which were showing as accepting ‘children aged 17 or under’, ‘adults 18 or over’, and ‘adults entitled to free dental care’.

This data is sourced from the Find a Dentist website, and is matched to constituencies based on the postcode data shown on the website, which is available at the following link:

https://www.nhs.uk/service-search/find-a-Dentist

A Tax Information and Impact Note (TIIN) was published alongside the introduction of the Bill containing the changes to employer NICs. The TIIN sets out the impact of the policy on the exchequer, the economic impacts of the policy, and the impacts on individuals, businesses, and civil society organisations, as well as an overview of the equality impacts.

Early years providers play a crucial role in driving economic growth. The Government has committed to delivering the expansion of government-funded childcare and opening 3,000 new school-based nurseries in this parliament. At the Budget, the Chancellor announced that total funding will rise to over £8 billion in 2025-26 to support providers. On top of this, the Department for Education confirmed an additional £75 million of funding in 2025-26 to support the sector deliver the final phase of expanded childcare entitlements from September 2025. Alongside this, rates for the early years pupil premium have also been increased by over 45%, equivalent to up to £570 per eligible child per year.

To protect the country from the devastating impacts of flooding, the Government has committed £2.4 billion over the next two years to improve flood resilience by maintaining, repairing and building flood defences.

Through this funding the Government provides direct support to communities facing flooding, and therefore we have no plans to change the VAT treatment of flood defence equipment for charities. VAT is a broad-based tax on consumption and the 20 per cent standard rate applies to most goods and services. VAT is the UK’s second largest tax forecast to raise £171 billion in 2024/25. Taxation is a vital source of revenue that helps to fund vital public services including schools and hospitals.

Tackling anti-social behaviour is a top priority for this Government and a key part of our Safer Streets Mission.

On 27 November 2024, the Government announced proposals to give the police greater powers to clamp down on off-road bikes and other vehicles involved in anti-social behaviour, with officers no longer required to issue a warning before seizing vehicles.

This will allow the police to quickly remove anti-social vehicles which are bringing misery to city centres and pedestrian areas. These powers will be included in the forthcoming Crime and Policing Bill.

The National Planning Policy Framework sets out that the purpose of the planning system is to contribute to the achievement of sustainable development, including the provision of supporting infrastructure in a sustainable manner.

Local development plans should address needs and opportunities in relation to infrastructure and identify what infrastructure is required and how it can be funded and brought forward. This will remain the case irrespective of whether any proposed reforms to the National Planning Policy Framework or wider national planning policy are taken forward.

When preparing a Local Plan, Planning Practice Guidance recommends that local planning authorities use available evidence of infrastructure requirements to prepare an Infrastructure Funding Statement. Such Statements can be used to demonstrate the delivery of infrastructure throughout the plan-period.

The government provides financial support for essential infrastructure in areas of greatest housing demand through the Housing Infrastructure Fund.

The changes proposed as part of our recent consultation on proposed reforms to the National Planning Policy Framework are intended to support the increased provision and modernisation of various types of public infrastructure.

The consultation closed on the 24 September and officials in my department are currently analysing responses with a view to publishing a government response before the end of the year.

The government is also committed to strengthening the existing system of developer contributions to ensure that new developments provide appropriate affordable homes and infrastructure. Further details will be set out in due course.

The annual homelessness statistics includes age of applicants in temporary accommodation by local authority as of 31 March 2024. This information is available at table TA5 - Additional_temporary_accommodation_breakdowns__31_March_2024.ods.

The table below shows the number of people under supervision on the last day of each of the last 12 months.

Notes:

[1] Offenders may be subject to multiple sentences. Each person is counted once only in the total even if they are subject to several types of probation supervision on the date shown. For example, if a person is subject to both a community order and a Supervision Default Order on the date shown, then the person would be counted once only within the total of all Probation Service supervision.

[2] Includes offenders subject to a court order or pre- or post-release supervision.

[3] Excludes suspended sentence orders without requirements attached.

[4] These statistics are a further breakdown of the probation caseload in the Offender Management Statistics Quarterly publication. A published breakdown by Probation Service region is included in table 6.8.

[5] The figures presented in this table are based on offenders subject to probation supervision on the date shown who have a recorded main (home) address in the parliamentary constituency of Sherwood Forest. This table does not account for those with no fixed address or recorded postcode. Over the time periods covered in the table, the number of offenders with no fixed address or recorded postcode ranged from 12% to 14% of the total number of offenders subject to probation supervision in England and Wales.

[Note 6] The constituency was formerly known as Sherwood. It was renamed as a result of the 2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies, with minor boundary changes. These changes came into effect for the 2024 general election. All periods in this table are based on the latest composition of the constituency.

This Government is committed to reducing reoffending by giving people the tools they need to turn their backs on crime. To do that, we will increase prisoners’ access to purposeful activity, including education and employment, which we know can reduce reoffending by up to 9 percentage points.

For example, we have recruited specialist education and employment roles in prisons to support and prepare prisoners for work on release. This includes Prison Employment Leads who match prisoners to jobs, and Neurodiversity Support Managers to help neurodiverse offenders to access education, skills and work opportunities. Both roles are currently in place at HMP Nottingham and HMP Ranby, two prisons close to Sherwood Forest constituency.

We are determined to help ensure our hard-working probation staff can continue to deliver high-quality supervision and focus their time on those cases which need most attention including for offenders who reside in the Sherwood Forrest constituency. Operationally, we are focusing probation officer time and energy on the higher risk individuals they have to supervise outside of prison to ensure that the public continue to be protected. We have also committed to bring in at least 1,000 new trainee probation officers across the 2024/25 financial year, allowing for greater oversight and management of offenders once they leave prisons.