Priti Patel

The Department publishes total and regional breakdowns of UK electricity generation by renewable technology here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/regional-renewable-statistics. Breakdowns of generation for each offshore wind farm cannot be provided as this is commercially sensitive information.

The Department does not publish generation forecasts for future projects - these will depend on specific factors such as precise site design and turbine size (among others) which may not yet be publicly known. Some individual developers will publish estimated output on their project websites.

The Government will make use of all available data to inform any future decisions on decarbonising heat in domestic and commercial properties off the gas grid.

We are committed to a more strategic approach to energy planning and will shortly commission NESO to produce the first Strategic Spatial Energy Plan (SSEP). The commission is the first step in the process, setting out our expectations for how the SSEP will be produced and governed. It will also include details on timelines for development, consultations and publication.

The SSEP will build upon independent advice provided by NESO on the pathway to delivering clean power by 2030 commissioned in August 2024.

We are committed to ensuring that communities who live near new clean energy infrastructure can see the benefits of this and are currently considering how to most effectively deliver this. This includes developing guidance on community benefits for electricity transmission network infrastructure, which we will publish in due course.

Whilst details of the guidance are still under development we are not able to estimate the costs of providing community benefits to communities affected by the Norwich to Tilbury grid upgrade. We will provide an update at the appropriate time.

Full account is taken of potential local community impacts when determining an energy infrastructure application. The Planning Act 2008 requires developers to engage with the local authority (or authorities) and consult the local community on a proposed development before submitting an application. Developers must take into account local community views when developing their proposals.

It is the government’s priority to build support for developments by ensuring communities directly benefit.

The government announced at Budget a £2.3 billion increase to the core schools budget for the 2025/26 financial year. This funding increase includes funding for mainstream schools and high needs funding for complex special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

Funding for mainstream schools will be distributed to schools following the existing funding formula, which includes consideration of pupil numbers and other characteristics. The funding allocations to local authorities for 2025/26 are calculated using the latest pupil numbers from the October 2024 census.

Local authorities are responsible for securing enough school places for children in their area. We provide capital funding through the Basic Need grant to support local authorities to provide school places, based on their own pupil forecasts and school capacity data. They can use this funding to provide places in new schools or through expansions of existing schools and can work with any school in their local area, including academies and free schools.

Departmental Pupil Place Planning Advisors engage with councils on a regular basis to review their plans for creating additional places and to consider alternatives where necessary. When local authorities are experiencing difficulties, we support them to find solutions as quickly as possible. Where local authorities are failing in their duty, the government will intervene.

At the Autumn Budget 2024, the government announced an additional £2.3 billion for mainstream schools and young people with high needs for the 2025/26 financial year, compared to the 2024/25 financial year. This means that overall core school funding will total almost £63.9 billion next year.

Through the schools national funding formula (NFF), Essex will receive £5,379 per primary pupil and £6,984 per secondary pupil in mainstream schools in the 2025/26 financial year. These per pupil figures will be used to calculate final allocations for 2025/26 through the dedicated schools grant (DSG) in December, based on updated pupil numbers.

The provisional funding allocation for primary and secondary schools in Essex based on the 2024/25 DSG pupil numbers is £642.0 million and £587.2 million respectively. These figures do not include premises funding or growth funding.

The department does not provide school funding figures at constituency level. The individual allocations that schools within Witham constituency will actually receive are determined each year by the local funding formula set by Essex County Council.

Almost £1 billion of the £2.3 billion increase announced at the Autumn Budget 2024 has been allocated to high needs budgets in the 2025/26 financial year, bringing total high needs funding for children and young people with complex special educational needs and disabilities and those in alternative provision (AP) to £11.9 billion.

Of that total, Essex County Council is being allocated a provisional high needs funding amount of over £259 million through the high needs NFF. This represents an 8.9% increase per head of their 2 to 18 year old population, on their equivalent 2024/25 financial year NFF allocation. It is for local authorities to decide how to distribute the funding to special and AP schools in their local area.

Essex County Council will also be allocated extra funding for pay and pensions costs in special schools and AP. This funding is additional to the allocations through the high needs NFF, and the department will confirm shortly how the funding allocations will be calculated.

At Budget, HM Treasury confirmed that all public sector organisations will be funded for the increase in employer contributions to national insurance in the 2025/26 financial year. This included additional funding for schools.

The allocations for the national funding formula for the 2025/26 financial year do not include the additional funding for the increase in employer contributions to national insurance from April 2025.

The department anticipates providing this funding to schools through a separate grant in the 2025/26 financial year. It will provide more information on this, including funding rates and allocations, as soon as practicable.

This government’s ambition is that all children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) or in alternative provision receive the right support to succeed in their education and as they move into adult life.

The department is providing an increase of almost £1 billion for high needs budgets in the 2025/26 financial year, bringing total high needs funding for children and young people with complex SEND to £11.9 billion.

The department is providing this increase to high needs funding to help meet the increase in costs local authorities will be facing next year, as they in turn provide support to schools and pupils with SEND. The impact on individual local authorities’ deficits will be variable, and it remains important that every local authority looks at what it can do within the current system to manage its high needs budget while continuing to provide the support that children with SEND need.

The department is now in the process of calculating local authorities’ indicative high needs funding allocations for the 2025/26 financial year, which it expects to publish before the end of November.

High needs budgets beyond the 2025/26 financial year are a matter for the next stage of the multi-year spending review.

​​The number of education, health and care (EHC) plans issued in each local authority area per year is set out in published statistics on GOV.UK and is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/150da0a4-2fef-4836-8c12-08dbe514ee42.

The department does not make estimates of the number of EHC plans to be issued in each local authority in future years. However, as noted in the recent National Audit Office (NAO) report into special educational needs and disabilities, the department does make estimates at a national level. Page 35 of the NAO report notes that the department’s central estimate is that, without policy interventions, the number of EHC plans will nearly double from approximately 518,000 in 2022/23 to just over one million in 2032/33.

The Development Consent Order (DCO) application for the A12 Chelmsford to A120 widening scheme, was granted on 12 January 2024. I can confirm that the DCO was determined within the statutory timeframes.

This Government takes the condition of local roads very seriously and is committed to maintaining and renewing the local highway network. The Government will confirm 2025/26 funding allocations to English local highway authorities, including Essex County Council, in due course.

This Government takes the condition of local roads very seriously and is committed to maintaining and renewing the local highway network. The Government will confirm 2025/26 funding allocations to English local highway authorities, including Essex County Council, in due course.

The A120 Braintree to A12 dualling scheme is part of the pipeline of projects being considered for possible delivery as part of a future Road Investment Strategy beyond 2030.

The Government is committed to improving the accessibility of the railway and recognises the social and economic benefits this brings to communities. Since its launch in 2006, the Access for All programme has delivered step free access at more than 250 stations across Great Britain.

Since April 2024, Access for All projects have entered into passenger service at nine stations, with a further 25 stations scheduled to enter into passenger service by April 2025.

In the Autumn Budget on 30 October 2024, the Chancellor announced that the Government will provide £1 billion, including Barnett impact, to extend the Household Support Fund (HSF) in England and maintain Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs) in England and Wales in 2025-2026.

The Household Support Fund scheme guidance and individual Local Authority funding allocations for the forthcoming extension will be announced as soon as possible ahead of the scheme beginning on 1 April 2025.

The Government is committed to a preventative approach to public health. Keeping people warm and well at home and improving the quality of new and existing homes will play an essential part in enabling people to live longer, healthier lives and reducing pressures on the NHS.

Given the substantial pressures faced by the public finances this year and next, the Government has had to make hard choices to bring the public finances back under control. This means that the Winter Fuel Payment will be better targeted to low-income pensioners who need it.

The Household Support Fund is also being extended for a further six months, from 1^st October 2024 until 31^st March 2025.  An additional £421 million will be provided to enable the extension of the HSF in England, plus funding for the Devolved Governments through the Barnett formula to be spent at their discretion, as usual.

The Warm Home Discount scheme in England and Wales provides eligible low-income households across Great Britain with a £150 rebate on their electricity bill. This winter, we expect over three million households, including over one million pensioners, to benefit under the scheme.

In winter 2023 to 2024, a) 21,661 pensioners in Witham constituency (2024 boundaries) and b) 353,463 pensioners in Essex received a Winter Fuel Payment. This is based on the Winter Fuel Payment statistics for winter 2023 to 2024 - Winter Fuel Payment statistics for winter 2023 to 2024 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

It is estimated that around a) 1,681 pensioners in Witham Constituency and b) 34,541 pensioners in Essex will receive Winter Fuel Payment following the changes in eligibility criteria for Winter Fuel Payment. This is based on February 2024 Pension Credit statistics which are available via DWP Stat-Xplore. It is possible to use the Pension Credit statistics to give a minimum estimate of the number who may be eligible for Winter Fuel Payments.

Please note that we do not hold information on the estimated value of these payments.

The estimates for Essex have been calculated by combining the data for the following 14 Local Authorities in Essex: Southend-on-Sea, Thurrock, Braintree, Brentwood, Basildon, Castle Point, Chelmsford, Colchester, Epping Forest, Harlow, Maldon, Rochford, Tendring and Uttlesford.

The above estimation would not take into account any potential increase in Pension Credit take-up that we might see as a result of the Government’s Pension Credit Awareness Campaign. We do not have data on those additional Pension Credit claims by Parliamentary constituencies or Local Authorities.

The published Pension Credit figures refer to households, so the number of individuals in respect of whom Pension Credit is paid will be higher (i.e., taking account of households where a claimant has a partner and / or dependents.)

In addition, while Pension Credit claimants constitute the majority of those that will be eligible for the Winter Fuel Payment, pensioners who claim other qualifying means-tested benefits will also be eligible for the Winter Fuel Payment. It is not, however, possible to include those on other qualifying means-tested benefits in these figures.

We will confirm 2025/26 public health grant allocations later this year, and will confirm future years’ allocations following the upcoming Spending Review in Spring 2025.

The recent Budget set out the overall funding for the Department for 2024/25 and 2025/26. In terms of the next five years, the funding that will be allocated to the three integrated care boards covering Essex will be set out alongside planning guidance for 2025/26 at the earliest opportunity. Funding beyond 2025/26 will be determined as part of Phase 2 of the Spending Review, which will be announced in Spring 2025.

Financial obligations arising from this agreement, including departmental budgetary responsibilities, will be managed responsibly within the Government's fiscal framework.

The Government intends to share further details of the future economic partnership with Mauritius in due course.

The UK has called for the National Security Law to be repealed and for an end to the prosecution of all individuals charged under it.

The Foreign Secretary met Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his visit to Beijing on 18 October where he raised serious concerns around the implementation of the National Security Law and the ongoing treatment of British national Jimmy Lai, again calling for his release.

A decision on publishing details of costs associated with his appointment will be made in accordance with FCDO policy on Direct Ministerial Appointments at a later date. Jonathan Powell has carried out limited overseas engagements in his capacity as envoy, including in Mauritius and the United States.

This Agreement will be underpinned by a financial package which will support a new era of economic partnership between the UK and Mauritius and demonstrate the commitment of both parties to support the welfare of Chagossian communities.

A financial element was crucial to securing the agreement. This government will not scrimp on security.

Financial obligations arising from this agreement, including departmental budgetary responsibilities, will be managed responsibly within the government's fiscal framework.

Financial obligations arising from this agreement, including departmental budgetary responsibilities, will be managed responsibly within the government's fiscal framework.

This government is committed to supporting Chagossians. Further details about UK support to Chagossians will be made available in due course.