Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps he is taking to ensure adequate funding for (a) innovation and (b) development in technology in Warwickshire.

Answered by Feryal Clark - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)

UKRI invested £43 million in Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire in 2021-22.

This included core funding for the Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG), which is a centre of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult. WMG is a world-leading industrial research and education group that works with companies to boost the UK’s manufacturing performance and sustainability.

Innovate UK’s Launchpad programme is also allocating up to £7.5 million for the immersive and creative industries cluster centred on Coventry and Warwickshire. This is supporting thirteen projects, eleven of which are with small and medium sized business, to progress their ideas toward commercialisation and contribute to local economic growth.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to reduce the number of asylum seekers being housed in hotels in the West Midlands.

Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)

The Home Office has a statutory obligation to provide destitute asylum seekers with accommodation and subsistence support whilst their application for asylum is being considered.

This Government inherited an asylum system under unprecedented strain, with thousands stuck in a backlog without their claims being processed.

The Home Secretary took immediate action by restarting asylum processing and scrapping the unworkable Rwanda policy. This will save an estimated £4 billion for the taxpayer over the next two years. We are delivering a major uplift in returns to remove people with no right to be in the UK. Over the long term this will reduce our reliance on hotels and costs of accommodation.

We remain absolutely committed to ending the use of hotels to accommodate asylum seekers as part of this programme to reduce overall asylum costs.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many (a) educational spaces for children and (b) youth centres have closed in North Warwickshire and Bedworth constituency since 2010.

Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)

Information on mainstream primary and secondary school places is published annually in the School Capacity publication, which is accessible here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-capacity. Time series data are not published at constituency level, which is difficult to track over time due to changing boundaries and school-reorganisations. School capacity data is published at school level and can be combined with information from ‘Get information about schools’ to identify the number of places based on the current parliamentary constituency.

The latest data at local authority level shows that between 2009/10 and 2022/23, the number of school places in Warwickshire increased by 14,143. This data is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/33b1bea3-efe4-4b37-f914-08dd0adc50ad. This represents an increase of 7,634 primary and 6,509 secondary places.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) do not collect individualised data on youth centre closure. As set out in section 507B of the Education Act 1996, local authorities have a statutory duty to secure, so far as is reasonably practicable, sufficient provision of educational and recreational leisure-time activities for young people in their area.

In September 2023, DCMS published updated statutory guidance to support local authorities’ understanding of the existing duty and how to deliver it. The statutory duty, and therefore local authorities’ responsibilities, have not changed.

Alongside this, DCMS funds a peer review programme for local authorities to learn from each other about the best approaches to youth service provision.

In 2025/26, the department will also be launching the Local Youth Transformation pilot, which will support local authorities to build back capacity in the youth space and improve local youth offers.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to support the National Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service.

Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)

The National Vehicle Intelligence Service (NaVCIS) is a national policing unit funded by industry, including finance and leasing companies, insurers and hauliers, to provide dedicated specialist intelligence and enforcement.

We are providing £250,000 this financial year to help support enforcement at the ports to prevent stolen vehicles and vehicle parts being shipped abroad, including additional staff and specialist equipment.

Found: David Burton-Sampson; Rosie Duffield; Kirith Entwistle; Catherine Fookes; Christine Jardine; Rachel Taylor

The Women and Equalities Committee will examine community cohesion at a local and national level in the UK.  This inquiry aims to gather diverse evidence and investigate barriers to cohesion, examples of best practice and how to ensure cohsion for the next generation.

Submit Evidence (by 31 Jan 2025)

Unequal division of childcaring responsibilities is a key driver of wider gender inequality and the gender pay gap. The Women and Equalities Committee is examining options for reform of the statutory shared parental leave scheme and statutory paternity rights with the aim of identifying the most effective ways of incentivising more equal sharing of childcare and wider domestic responsibilities between mothers and their partners.

This is a one off session examining issues around gendered Islamophobia.