Navendu Mishra

The Government is committed to ensuring public sector technology procurement delivers value for money, resilience, and access to a competitive supplier market. Departments are responsible for their own contracting and are required to award contracts through fair and open competition.

The Department of Science, Innovation and Technology recognises the importance of maintaining a diverse and competitive supplier base, including reducing over-reliance on a small number of technology solutions where this limits innovation, resilience or value for money.

The Government is aware of strategic decisions made in France regarding their choice of operating systems. The UK will always be diligent in assessing the benefits to ensure it selects the most appropriate operating system for its context, balancing costs, functionality, upkeep and wider requirements.

Everyone should be able to benefit from the digital world – helping families save money, get a better job, and access services like the NHS more easily.

But we know some people face real barriers. That’s why we published the Digital Inclusion Action Plan and launched the £11.9 million Digital Inclusion Innovation Fund, helping more people across the UK get the access, skills and confidence to get online.

Through the Fund we will better understand what works and what could be scaled to support more people. We are taking learnings from this Fund and research projects to develop future interventions, including any potential funding after this financial year.

This is just one of our First Steps, and the Government is clear that everyone should be able to benefit from the digital world – with more needed to ensure this.

Everyone should be able to benefit from the digital world – helping families save money, get a better job, and access services like the NHS more easily.

But we know some people face real barriers. That’s why we published the Digital Inclusion Action Plan and launched the £11.9 million Digital Inclusion Innovation Fund, helping more people across the UK get the access, skills and confidence to get online.

Through the Fund we will better understand what works and what could be scaled to support more people. We are taking learnings from this Fund and research projects to develop future interventions, including any potential funding after this financial year.

This is just one of our First Steps, and the Government is clear that everyone should be able to benefit from the digital world – with more needed to ensure this.

Further to my answer of 13 November 2025, and following my letter to Ofcom’s CEO of 31^st October, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology is continuing to engage with Ofcom on pricing transparency.

Ofcom publicly shared disappointment with O2’s decision, which went against the spirit of the January 2025 changes. Ofcom also reminded telecom companies of their regulatory responsibilities to maintain fair pricing and transparency. The Secretary of State has asked Ofcom what more can be done to go further, faster to ensure that people are getting a fair deal.

The Government recognises the importance of ensuring public access to swimming facilities, which are great spaces for people of all ages to stay fit and healthy, and play an important role within communities.

The ongoing responsibility of providing access to public leisure facilities lies at local authority level, with funding levels set as part of the Local Government Finance Settlement. The Government encourages local authorities to make investments which offer the right opportunities and facilities for the communities they serve.

In June last year, we committed £400 million to transform sports facilities, including public leisure, over the next four years. We are working closely with sporting bodies and local leaders to establish what communities need, before setting out further plans on how future funding will be allocated.

The Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964 requires all local authorities in England to provide a comprehensive and efficient library service. Each local authority is responsible for assessing the needs of their local communities and designing and maintaining a library service to meet those needs within their available resources.

DCMS has held no specific discussions with Stockport Council regarding Reddish library's condition. Building maintenance is an operational matter for the local authority. DCMS only engages with local authorities on this kind of matter where representations allege that the condition of the library building is impacting delivery of library services, meaning the local authority is not delivering its statutory duty.

The National Youth Strategy will put young people from all backgrounds in the driving seat when it comes to decisions that affect their lives.

We are committed to being accountable to young people, their parents/carers, sector partners, and the wider public to deliver this strategy. To assess the impact, we will hold an annual youth-led national hearing to discuss progress and priorities. We will also publish an interim delivery progress report in 2027.

We will also be evaluating the National Youth Strategy's delivery and impact with England-wide metrics, and DCMS reporting across programmes. This will help us identify successful approaches and areas for improvement and explore opportunities to enhance our work.

The National Youth Strategy announced our commitment to developing and growing a skilled and sustainable paid and volunteer youth sector workforce. To achieve this, we are investing £15 million over the next three years.

The Youth Worker Bursary Fund removes financial barriers for individuals, particularly those from underrepresented groups, to gain accredited qualifications. The DCMS is continuing to fund this programme during the next financial year.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has not made a specific formal assessment of the impact of leisure or cultural venues requiring paid-for access cards or third-party certification as proof of disability. However, the legal framework under the Equality Act 2010 already protects disabled people’s access to services. Under the Act, service providers, including leisure and cultural venues, have an “anticipatory duty” to make reasonable adjustments so that disabled people are not placed at a substantial disadvantage compared with non-disabled people. This duty applies regardless of whether an individual provides proof of disability.

DCMS has, however, supported Arts Council England, working in partnership with the other arts councils in the UK and Ireland, to develop All In which is a free membership scheme for disabled people designed to remove barriers and make it easier to book tickets. Disabled members will be offered the choice to provide basic access requirements or proof of their disability as part of the sign up process. All In Essentials has now been opened for venue subscriptions, and All In Plus will open for disabled people to join in the summer.

All social workers in England must meet Social Work England’s professional standards, which set the minimum requirements for safe and effective practice, including promoting the rights, strengths and wellbeing of people, families and communities. Social workers complete initial education and training courses which are approved by the regulator against the education and training standards. In addition, in recognising the impact of trauma, the recently published child and family social worker early career standards and the forthcoming lead child practitioner standards, alongside the National Framework, will be used to underpin a new career-spanning development offer for social workers from autumn 2027 to support a confident and skilled workforce.

The government is capping the maximum interest rates on Plan 2 and 3 student loans at 6% for the 2026/27 academic year. We are clear it does not resolve all of the issues with the Plan 2 system, which was designed and implemented by the previous government. We are considering how to make the system fairer, but to be fiscally responsible we must consider how any change would be funded.

The 16 to 19 funding formula includes extra funding for disadvantaged students made up of two blocks:

• Disadvantage Block 1 funding recognises that there are additional costs incurred in engaging, recruiting, and retaining young people from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.

• Disadvantage Block 2 funding accounts for the additional costs incurred for teaching and supporting students who have low prior attainment to achieve their learning goals. This is defined as not achieving English and/or mathematics GCSEs at grades 9 to 4 by the end of year 11 (typically age 16).

English and maths funding is also available to support students who have not achieved a GCSE grade 4 or above in English and mathematics to participate across all study programmes and T Levels.

For the 2025/26 academic year, the mathematics and English funding rate rose by over 11%, alongside a nearly 7% increase in disadvantage funding and we have allocated over £1 billion for disadvantage block 1, disadvantage block 2 and English and mathematics funding.

While the department has not conducted a separate assessment, the needs of care leavers being placed in accommodation out of area are reviewed in line with the Children Act 1989 Guidance (Vol. 3 -planning transition to adulthood for care leavers), which sets out that the assessment and pathway planning process for a care leaver must involve a measured evidence based analysis of the young person’s continuing need for care, accommodation and support.

The expectations also outline that, where there is any proposal for the young person to move to different accommodation, as part of the process to prepare for their transition to adulthood, the pathway plan must include an explicit assessment of the support they need to develop the skills that they will require to be ready for this significant change. The plan must also include a thorough assessment as to the suitability of the potential accommodation for the individual young person.

Through measures in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026, the new Staying Close duty will provide support to care leavers up to the age of 25 to help them find and keep suitable accommodation, and to access services relating to health and wellbeing, relationships, education, training and employment, where their welfare requires it.

The department recognises the valuable role that charities and voluntary organisations play in supporting children and young people to participate in cultural and educational activities, including brass banding.

The department is clear that a Body of Persons Approvalmay be applied for by any organisation responsible for putting on a performance involving children.

Safeguarding children and young people is a fundamental priority for this government. All organisations involved in brass banding are expected to comply with relevant safeguarding legislation and guidance. This includes effective safeguarding policies, appropriate vetting and training of adults, and clear processes for reporting and responding to concerns, to ensure safe and positive participation for all young people.

Moreover, many brass bands operate as Out‑of‑School Settings (providing activities for children, without their parents’ or carers’ supervision). The department has published guidance outlining the safeguarding standards we expect these settings to meet, and free accompanying e-learning.