Asked by: Neil Duncan-Jordan (Labour - Poole)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she plans to take to increase funding for the early years childcare sector.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education has been clear in her commitment to early years. Despite tough decisions to get our public finances back on track, this government has increased investment in the early years sector to drive forward progress towards our plan for change target of a record number of children starting school ready to learn.
In the 2025/26 financial year alone, this government plans to spend over £8 billion on early years entitlements. We have also announced the largest ever uplift to the early years pupil premium, increasing the rate by over 45% compared to the 2024/25 financial year, raising it to the equivalent of up to £570 per eligible child per year.
On top of this we are providing further supplementary funding of £75 million for the early years expansion grant to support the sector to provide the additional places and workforce needed by September 2025.
We are also providing £25 million through the forthcoming Employer National Insurance Contributions Grant for public sector employers in the early years.
Future spending decisions beyond the 2025/26 financial year will be announced at the next spending review.
Asked by: Neil Duncan-Jordan (Labour - Poole)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she plans to take to ensure that all families have access to (a) affordable and (b) quality childcare.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
As part of our Plan for Change, this government is committed to giving every child the best start in life. The department has set a milestone of a record proportion – 75% – of children to be starting school ready to learn. We will measure our progress through the percentage of children reaching a good level of development in the early years foundation stage profile assessment by 2028.
To help deliver this ambition, from the start of September 2024, eligible working parents have been entitled to 15 hours a week of early education and care from the term after their child turns nine months old. The department is expanding the childcare entitlements so that, from September 2025, eligible working parents can access 30 hours of early education and childcare a week.
Parents may also be eligible for childcare support through Tax-Free Childcare or Universal Credit childcare.
Next year alone, the department plans to provide over £8 billion for the early years entitlements, which represents a more than 30% increase compared to the 2024/25 financial year.
The early years pupil premium rate has increased by over 45% compared to the 2024/25 financial year, equivalent to up to £570 per eligible child per year. We are also providing further supplementary funding of £75 million for the early years expansion grant and £25 million through the forthcoming National Insurance contributions grant for public sector employers in early years.
The government is also rolling out plans for the first phase of school based nurseries, ensuring families across the country have access to high quality childcare and early education. The first wave of up to 300 schools to be allocated nursery funding will be announced in spring.
As we grow the childcare system, it must remain fair and accessible to all parents. The department has taken action to protect parents from reported instances of very high additional charges or ‘top-up fees’ on top of their entitlement, ensuring the funded hours remain accessible and affordable for families.
The department is determined to create change in the approach to early years, focusing on high quality early education, celebrating and supporting early years careers, and embedding the sector into the wider education system. We are delivering programmes to support the sector to attract talented staff and childminders by creating conditions for improved recruitment, alongside programmes to better utilise the skills of the existing workforce.
Asked by: Neil Duncan-Jordan (Labour - Poole)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she plans to take to ensure that childcare is affordable for working parents.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
As part of our Plan for Change, this government is committed to giving every child the best start in life. The department has set a milestone of a record proportion – 75% – of children to be starting school ready to learn. We will measure our progress through the percentage of children reaching a good level of development in the early years foundation stage profile assessment by 2028.
To help deliver this ambition, from the start of September 2024, eligible working parents have been entitled to 15 hours a week of early education and care from the term after their child turns nine months old. The department is expanding the childcare entitlements so that, from September 2025, eligible working parents can access 30 hours of early education and childcare a week.
Parents may also be eligible for childcare support through Tax-Free Childcare or Universal Credit childcare.
Next year alone, the department plans to provide over £8 billion for the early years entitlements, which represents a more than 30% increase compared to the 2024/25 financial year.
The early years pupil premium rate has increased by over 45% compared to the 2024/25 financial year, equivalent to up to £570 per eligible child per year. We are also providing further supplementary funding of £75 million for the early years expansion grant and £25 million through the forthcoming National Insurance contributions grant for public sector employers in early years.
The government is also rolling out plans for the first phase of school based nurseries, ensuring families across the country have access to high quality childcare and early education. The first wave of up to 300 schools to be allocated nursery funding will be announced in spring.
As we grow the childcare system, it must remain fair and accessible to all parents. The department has taken action to protect parents from reported instances of very high additional charges or ‘top-up fees’ on top of their entitlement, ensuring the funded hours remain accessible and affordable for families.
The department is determined to create change in the approach to early years, focusing on high quality early education, celebrating and supporting early years careers, and embedding the sector into the wider education system. We are delivering programmes to support the sector to attract talented staff and childminders by creating conditions for improved recruitment, alongside programmes to better utilise the skills of the existing workforce.
Asked by: Neil Duncan-Jordan (Labour - Poole)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to ensure oversight of the welfare of trout on farms in England.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Current legislation provides protection for farmed fish. The Animal Welfare Act 2006 makes it an offence to cause unnecessary suffering to any protected animal, including fish, or to fail to provide for the welfare needs of a protected animal, for which that person is responsible.
Any allegations of welfare issues on trout farms in England will be investigated by the Animal and Plant Health Agency and where there are non-compliances with the regulations, appropriate action will be taken.
Asked by: Neil Duncan-Jordan (Labour - Poole)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help improve the (a) recruitment and (b) retention of school teachers.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
High quality teaching is the most important in-school factor to a child’s educational outcomes. Recruiting and retaining more qualified, expert teachers is therefore critical to the government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity, boost the life chances for every child, reset the relationship with the sector and restore the status of the teaching profession. This is why the department will recruit 6,500 new expert teachers, get more teachers into shortage subjects, support areas that face recruitment challenges and tackle retention issues.
The department is making good progress through delivery of key initiatives to recruit and retain more high quality teachers. We announced an initial teacher training financial incentives package for the 2025/26 recruitment cycle worth £233 million, a £37 million increase on the last cycle. This includes a range of measures, including bursaries worth £29,000 tax-free and scholarships worth £31,000 tax-free, to encourage talented trainees to key subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing.
Fair pay is key to ensuring teaching is an attractive and respected profession, which is why this government has accepted the School Teachers’ Review Body’s recommendation of a 5.5% pay award for teachers and leaders in maintained schools from September.
For the 2024/25 and 2025/26 academic year, the department is also offering a Targeted Retention Incentive worth up to £6,000 after tax for mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing teachers in the first five years of their careers who choose to work in disadvantaged schools. This will support recruitment and retention of specialist teachers in these subjects, in the schools and areas that need them most.
To further support retention, the department has made available a range of resources to help address teacher workload and wellbeing and support schools to introduce flexible working practices. The department’s Improve Workload and Wellbeing for School Staff service , developed alongside school leaders, includes a workload reduction toolkit to support schools to identify opportunities to cut excessive workload, as well as the Education Staff Wellbeing Charter, which sets out commitments from the government, Ofsted, schools, and colleges to protect and promote the wellbeing of staff. The department’s improve workload and wellbeing for school staff service can be found here: https://improve-workload-and-wellbeing-for-school-staff.education.gov.uk/.
The department will continue to work alongside the sector to further develop our delivery plan and seek to re-establish teaching as an attractive profession and will share further details in due course.
Asked by: Neil Duncan-Jordan (Labour - Poole)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to help improve the terms and conditions of teachers in the public sector.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
There is a statutory process for making revisions to the pay and conditions of teachers, and any change must first be referred by my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, to the independent School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB).
The department’s written evidence for the 2025/2026 pay round asks the STRB to consider how schools can support teachers from all backgrounds and promote flexible working, which will improve the experience of teaching and help deliver the best possible education for students.
The department is also asking the STRB to consider how additional responsibility payments can be more fairly managed for part-time teachers.
The department will also use the new powers in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to make changes to the teacher pay and conditions framework to create a pay floor with no ceiling, to enable healthy competition and innovation beyond a core framework, which will help to improve all state schools.
Asked by: Neil Duncan-Jordan (Labour - Poole)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an estimate of the number of households that will receive (a) up to £25, (b) between £25 and £50, (c) between £50 and £75, (d) between £75 to £100 and (e) more than £100 less per week as a result of proposals in Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper, published on 18 March 2025.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
No such estimates have been made.
Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course with some information published this week alongside the Spring Statement.
A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.
Asked by: Neil Duncan-Jordan (Labour - Poole)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of publishing guidance on ethical principles for licensing of wildlife management.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This is a devolved matter, and the information provided therefore relates to England only.
Wildlife conflicts are often minor and tolerable, especially if basic avoidance measures are employed. If the problem is significant enough to warrant action, options should be explored that avoid harmful impacts on the species concerned while still resolving the problem. In the first instance, legal non-lethal measures should be considered. Only if these fail, are impractical or deemed ineffective, should available legal lethal options be considered.
Many laws in England protect and regulate how wild animals may be controlled and anyone carrying out wildlife management must ensure that they comply with the law. Many organisations have published Codes of Practice to summarise the law, as well as including information on best practice. Natural England can also offer advice on how to comply with laws that protect wildlife and the natural environment.
The Government has no current plans to assess the merits of publishing guidance on ethical principles for licensing of wildlife management.
Asked by: Neil Duncan-Jordan (Labour - Poole)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to help protect animal habitats from building developments.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Protected sites designated under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017 afford a high degree of statutory protection to some of our most valuable habitats. We are committed to making sure development contributes to nature’s recovery. The Planning and Infrastructure Bill gives us an opportunity to use development to support nature’s recovery, while providing greater speed and certainty for developers. We will use the Planning and Infrastructure Bill to establish a more efficient and effective way for obligations related to our most important sites and species to be discharged at a scale that has the greatest environmental benefits.
Asked by: Neil Duncan-Jordan (Labour - Poole)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an estimate of the number of children in poverty as a result of the Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper, published on 18 March 2025.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The government's impact assessment regarding Health and Disability Reform is available at Spring Statement 2025 health and disability benefit reforms - Impacts. A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.