Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many medical school places he expects there to be in each year up to 2031.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of secondary schools provide two weeks of work experience.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The department has asked the Careers and Enterprise Company (CEC) to collect national baseline data on the delivery of two weeks’ worth of work experience for every secondary pupil, across schools in England. CEC plan to publish this data by the end of 2025.
The most recently published data by CEC regarding work experience relates to the 2023/24 academic year. 76% of schools self-report that the majority of their pupils have had an experience of the workplace by the end of year 11.84% of schools report that the majority of their pupils had received experience of the workplace in year 12 or year 13.
The department recently updated careers statutory guidance to set out expectations for the 2025/26 academic year, including multiple, high quality experiences of the workplace for every pupil.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question
To ask the hon. Member for Battersea, representing the Church Commissioners, pursuant to the Answer of 6 July 2025 to Question 63010 on Church of England: Slavery, how much has been spent on this project so far.
Answered by Marsha De Cordova
The Church Commissioners have indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, how much his Department has allocated for the (a) advertising and (b) promotion of the UK's Modern Industrial Strategy 2025, published 23 June 2025 in the (i) 2025-26 and (ii) 2026-27 financial years; and how much and what proportion of this will be spent on advertising in newspapers.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Marketing including paid advertising is necessary to reach a target audience of senior business decision makers, raising awareness of the UK’s new modern industrial strategy and the opportunities it presents for business growth. The Department of Business and Trade declares all advertising and media spend above £25,000 through its monthly transparency reporting process. These figures are published on gov.uk.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question
To ask the hon. Member for Battersea, representing the Church Commissioners, for what reason the Church Commissioners have spent £5 million on Project Spire prior to approval from the Charity Commission.
Answered by Marsha De Cordova
The Church Commissioners has not spent that sum in connection with its response to historic links to African chattel enslavement (known by the project name Spire). Expenditure on this work to date has been limited to proportionate research into the Church Commissioners’ source of funds and consideration of its response to that history, with a view to maintaining public trust in the charity; and in connection with proper steps to explore regulatory authorisation by the Charity Commission.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question
To ask the hon. Member for Battersea, representing the Church Commissioners, what the source of the £100 million fund for healing, repair and justice as part of Project Spire is.
Answered by Marsha De Cordova
I refer the Hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston to the written answer to his question published on 21st March 2025 (UIN 29047). Subject to Charity Commission authorisation the Church Commissioners intends to settle income from its general fund on a new charitable fund through which the Church Commissioners intends to deliver Project Spire.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate she has made of the cost of the new prison at Gartree in Leicestershire.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The value of the main works for the new prison next to HMP Gartree is planned to be published later this year.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the level of plagiarism in the education sector; and what steps her Department is taking to tackle plagiarism.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Cheating of any kind is unacceptable. It threatens to undermine the reputation of our world-class education sector and devalues the hard work of those who succeed on their own merit.
Ofqual require Awarding Organisations to have robust policies and procedures in place to prevent, detect, and deal with malpractice, including plagiarism.
The Joint Council for Qualifications have published guidance to support schools and colleges to identify and address concerns about plagiarism in exams and assessments, which can be found at: https://www.jcq.org.uk/exams-office/malpractice/plagiarism-in-assessments---guidance-for-teachersassessors/.
Higher education providers are independent bodies responsible for their own approaches to preventing academic misconduct by students, including plagiarism, but are regulated in relation their assessment practices by the Office for Students (OfS). The OfS sets the expectation that assessments must be designed in a way that minimises opportunities for misconduct and facilitates its detection where it does occur.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether there is CCTV coverage of the perimeter of RAF Brize Norton.
Answered by Luke Pollard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
RAF Brize Norton has CCTV in operation that enables remote coverage of base areas which is part of the multilayered approach to security on site.
The Defence Secretary has ordered that a full security review be conducted at pace, not only at Brize Norton, but across the defence estate.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on what projects her Department plans to spend the revenue raised from VAT on independent school fees in the (a) 2024-25 and (b) 2025-26 financial years; and how much she plans to allocate to each project.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government has taken a number of decisions on tax to stabilise the public finances and support public services. Ending tax breaks for private schools will raise £1.8bn a year.
To raise school standards for every child, and break down the barriers to opportunity, the government will increase the core schools budget by £2.0bn in real terms over this Spending Review (2023-24 to 2028-29). This provides a £4.7bn cash increase per year by 2028-29 (compared to 2025-26), which ensures average real terms growth of 1.1% a year per pupil.