Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the National Audit on Group-Based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, published in June 2025, what progress her Department has made on implementing recommendation nine.

Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

Baroness Casey’s Audit into Group-Based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse highlighted a decline in child sexual abuse and exploitation within the department’s children in need data, which is published annually. We are undertaking work to better understand how children who experience child sexual abuse and exploitation are represented in both child in need assessment data and child protection data and will publish analysis by the end of the year.

This will include analysis of demographics, outcomes, trends, local area variation over time and analysis of serious incident notifications.

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what her planned timetable is for opening the next application round for (a) Capital Grants, (b) the Farming Equipment and Technology Fund, (c) the Farming Innovation Programme's Farming Futures R&D competition and (d) the Improving Farm Productivity Grant.

Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

As of 1 August, strong demand for the Government’s £150 million Capital Grant offer means that all available funds for this round have now been allocated.

We plan to make further improvements to the offer for future rounds. We expect to open a new round for farmers to secure more funding during 2026. Other Countryside Stewardship capital grants which remain open for applications now are Woodland Tree Health grants, Capital grant plans, woodland management plans, Protection and Infrastructure grants and Higher Tier capital grants.

We continue to work to simplify and rationalise our wider capital grant funding from 2026 onwards. We want to ensure our grants are targeted towards those who need them most and where they can deliver the most benefit for food security and nature.

We also welcome the announcement within the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy to allocate at least £200 million to the Farming Innovation Programme up to 2030 which will offer continued targeted funding to drive innovation in agriculture.

Found: Robbie Moore: Action and delivery.

Found: Watch the meeting Members present: Dame Karen Bradley (Chair); Lewis Atkinson; Ben Maguire; Robbie Moore

Found: Affairs 1 0 Mark Spencer MP Minister of State 1 0 Lord Richard Benyon Minister of State 1 1 Robbie Moore