Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what representations she has received from schools on the adequacy of funding for the breakfast clubs early adopters scheme.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department had over 3,000 schools apply to be part of the early adopter scheme, so as expected there has been some movement in the schools taking part as we finalised the 750 running from April, but that has been minimal.
The list of schools taking part in the breakfast clubs early adopter scheme can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/breakfast-clubs-early-adopters-schools-in-the-scheme.
The department has used existing programmes and costs to determine the funding rates, and this has been tested and refined with a range of schools. We are confident that the total funding will enable schools to meet the minimum expectations, which is a 30-minute club with breakfast meeting the school food standards, based on existing provision operating in schools.
One function of the early adopters is to test how schools utilise the funding, and the department has a robust strategy to capture and analyse this data. Decisions about the overall budget envelope for breakfast clubs national rollout is subject to the next spending review.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, which early adopter schools have opted out of the free breakfast club pilot programme.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department had over 3,000 schools apply to be part of the early adopter scheme, so as expected there has been some movement in the schools taking part as we finalised the 750 running from April, but that has been minimal.
The list of schools taking part in the breakfast clubs early adopter scheme can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/breakfast-clubs-early-adopters-schools-in-the-scheme.
The department has used existing programmes and costs to determine the funding rates, and this has been tested and refined with a range of schools. We are confident that the total funding will enable schools to meet the minimum expectations, which is a 30-minute club with breakfast meeting the school food standards, based on existing provision operating in schools.
One function of the early adopters is to test how schools utilise the funding, and the department has a robust strategy to capture and analyse this data. Decisions about the overall budget envelope for breakfast clubs national rollout is subject to the next spending review.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps his Department is taking to enable parents the right to access their deceased child’s social media data.
Answered by Feryal Clark - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The government is committed to ensuring families feel that the system is on their side when tragedies happen. In these cases, the Online Safety Act provides for Ofcom to require information from services on a child’s online activity at a coroner’s request. To strengthen this, the Data (Use and Access) Bill seeks to establish a data preservation process requiring companies to preserve such relevant information at a coroner’s request.
The Online Safety Act will also require categorised services to be transparent with parents regarding a company’s data disclosure processes, following the death of a child.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, which companies supply police ICT systems; and how many (a) contracts have been awarded to and (b) systems are managed by each company.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office does not centrally collect all of the information requested. Obtaining and verifying this information for the purposes of answering these questions could only be done at disproportionate cost.
However, the Hon Member may be interested to read the Home Secretary's speech to the National Police Chiefs' Council and Association of Police and Crime Commissioners' annual conference on 19 November 2024, where she set out her vision on police reform and efficiency, including the potential savings to be achieved through greater collaboration on IT contracts. https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/home-secretarys-vision-for-police-reform
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, which companies supplied police ICT systems in each year since 2010; and what the value of contracts awarded to those companies was.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office does not centrally collect all of the information requested. Obtaining and verifying this information for the purposes of answering these questions could only be done at disproportionate cost.
However, the Hon Member may be interested to read the Home Secretary's speech to the National Police Chiefs' Council and Association of Police and Crime Commissioners' annual conference on 19 November 2024, where she set out her vision on police reform and efficiency, including the potential savings to be achieved through greater collaboration on IT contracts. https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/home-secretarys-vision-for-police-reform
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many different suppliers there are for ICT systems used across police forces in England and Wales.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office does not centrally collect all of the information requested. Obtaining and verifying this information for the purposes of answering these questions could only be done at disproportionate cost.
However, the Hon Member may be interested to read the Home Secretary's speech to the National Police Chiefs' Council and Association of Police and Crime Commissioners' annual conference on 19 November 2024, where she set out her vision on police reform and efficiency, including the potential savings to be achieved through greater collaboration on IT contracts. https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/home-secretarys-vision-for-police-reform
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many ICT systems are used across police forces in England and Wales.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office does not centrally collect all of the information requested. Obtaining and verifying this information for the purposes of answering these questions could only be done at disproportionate cost.
However, the Hon Member may be interested to read the Home Secretary's speech to the National Police Chiefs' Council and Association of Police and Crime Commissioners' annual conference on 19 November 2024, where she set out her vision on police reform and efficiency, including the potential savings to be achieved through greater collaboration on IT contracts. https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/home-secretarys-vision-for-police-reform
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the Child Maintenance Service in reaching targets set under its service level standards in each year since 2020.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) has four official Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), each with a standard measure for 1) assessment accuracy, 2) application clearances, 3) change of circumstances clearances and 4) Collect and Pay compliance.
Information on the accuracy of CMS assessments, which has a standard level of >99%, is published in the annual CMS Client Funds Account, and since 2020 has shown a consistent level of 99.4%, increasing for the latest year available (2023/24) to 99.5% .
The published quarterly CMS statistics provide information on application clearances, change of circumstances clearances and Collect and Pay compliance, with the latest data available for quarter ending December 2024, and these are shown in the table below.
Quarterly Child Maintenance Service Key Performance Indicators for Applications, Change of Circumstances and Collect & Pay Compliance, April 2020 to December 2024
| Applications - cleared within 12 weeks Standard 90% | Change of Circumstances - cleared within 28 days Standard 80% | Collect and Pay compliance - paying parent paid some maintenance Standard 67% |
Apr - Jun 20 | 80% | 87% | 74% |
Jul - Sep 20 | 95% | 83% | 72% |
Oct – Dec 20 | 94% | 78% | 72% |
Jan - Mar 21 | 91% | 80% | 72% |
Apr - Jun 21 | 89% | 78% | 74% |
Jul - Sep 21 | 90% | 75% | 72% |
Oct – Dec 21 | 87% | 76% | 68% |
Jan - Mar 22 | 87% | 84% | 63% |
Apr - Jun 22 | 85% | 79% | 64% |
Jul - Sep 22 | 89% | 73% | 64% |
Oct – Dec 22 | 90% | 77% | 65% |
Jan - Mar 23 | 89% | 78% | 65% |
Apr - Jun 23 | 87% | 77% | 67% |
Jul - Sep 23 | 87% | 72% | 69% |
Oct – Dec 23 | 87% | 74% | 68% |
Jan - Mar 24 | 87% | 76% | 69% |
Apr - Jun 24 | 85% | 77% | 69% |
Jul - Sep 24 | 90% | 79% | 68% |
Oct – Dec 24 | [x] | [x] | 68% |
Source: CMS statistics, Stat-Xplore
Notes:
Since 2020, as part of the DWP Service Modernisation Programme, the CMS has been undergoing extensive improvements to increase the quality and range of online services available to separated parents. This program has transformed how customers can interact with CMS, providing them with the choice to make contact through digital routes while ensuring that assistance is available for those who need additional support and non-digital customers via the telephone service. These improvements have allowed case workers to focus more on actioning their work. The wide-reaching programme aims to continue to reform and modernise CMS services with increased effectiveness and efficiency.
Additionally, the CMS has amended its service to allow Direct Pay arrangements to quickly move to Collect and Pay when the Paying Parent is not paying or when Direct Pay is no longer appropriate. 14,000 arrangements moved from Direct Pay to Collect and Pay in the quarter ending December 2024 meaning CMS are collecting money for children quicker.
In the quarter ending December 2024, over 1 million children were covered by CMS arrangements, an increase of 61,000 from the quarter ending December 2023.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what steps his Department is taking to ensure all solar developments do not include components linked to forced or slave labour.
Answered by Michael Shanks - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Government is committed to eradicating forced labour in supply chains, and we expect solar developers to do everything in their power to remove any instances of it that they find.
Legislation and guidance are already in place to help businesses take action against modern slavery. However, we are working across government to see where we can go further, keeping all potential policy options under review.
We are closely monitoring the industry-led supply chain assurance scheme, the Solar Stewardship Initiative. Further information on the actions needed to develop supply chains that are resilient and free from forced labour will be set out in the Solar Roadmap, to be published shortly.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what information her Department holds on the number of charging points for electric vehicles that have been built in each year since 2015, broken down by local authority.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The information requested is not available.
The Department does hold and publish the number of public electric vehicle charging devices in the UK by local authority as of the first day of the month each quarter from 2019 onwards. This information can be found in the attached table.