Asked by: Sam Rushworth (Labour - Bishop Auckland)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many paying parents were newly recorded as being in arrears by the Child Maintenance Service in each of the last 24 months.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The information requested is not readily available and providing it would incur disproportionate cost.
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) will do everything within its powers to make sure parents comply. Where parents fail to take responsibility for paying for their children, the Service will not hesitate to use the range of enforcement powers available to collect maintenance, combining robust negotiation activity with the highly effective use of its extensive range of Enforcement Powers.
CMS has a wide range of strong enforcement powers including deductions from earnings orders, removal of driving licences, disqualification from holding a passport, and committal to prison. The CMS also introduced powers to enable the deduction of child maintenance directly from a wider range of accounts, including certain joint and business accounts, and target complex earners via a calculation of notional income based on assets.
The Service is committed to using these powers fairly and in the best interests of children and separated families.
Asked by: Sam Rushworth (Labour - Bishop Auckland)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of payments were made through the Child Maintenance Service collect and pay system in each of the last three years.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department regularly publishes Child Maintenance Service official statistics, with the latest statistics available to September 2025, and detailed quarterly statistics on the number of CMS Arrangements available on Stat-Xplore.
The table CMS Arrangement 1: Service Type and Paying Status by Quarter shows the number of CMS arrangements by service type for each quarter from March 2016 to September 2025. The table provides figures for the number of Collect & Pay arrangements for which the Paying Parent paid some child maintenance during the quarter, and those where no payment was made.
Users can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest and, if needed, can access guidance on how to extract the information required.
Asked by: Sam Rushworth (Labour - Bishop Auckland)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of Unitaid; and what steps she is taking to fulfil funding commitments to Unitaid.
Answered by Chris Elmore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
I refer the Hon. Member to the answer of 20 October 2025 given to question 80764.
Asked by: Sam Rushworth (Labour - Bishop Auckland)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether the interest accrued on the frozen £2.5 billion proceeds from the sale of Chelsea Football Club is intended to benefit the proposed foundation to support victims of the war in Ukraine; and what steps the Government is taking to ensure that no part of these funds benefits sanctioned individuals.
Answered by Stephen Doughty - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Government is determined to see that the frozen proceeds, including the accrued interest, from the sale of Chelsea Football Club reach humanitarian causes in Ukraine. Restrictions imposed through UK sanctions laws will ensure that the proceeds do not benefit sanctioned individuals.
Asked by: Sam Rushworth (Labour - Bishop Auckland)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether the interest accruing on the frozen £2.5 billion proceeds from the sale of Chelsea Football Club is subject to UK taxation.
Answered by Lucy Rigby - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
HM Treasury and His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) are unable to comment on the tax affairs of specific taxpayers. UK source interest is chargeable to UK tax. The quantum and timing of that charge are dependent on the status of the recipient and the precise nature of the arrangements that lead to that interest.Asked by: Sam Rushworth (Labour - Bishop Auckland)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to page 6 of the Strategic Defence Review 2025, published on 2 June 2025, what discussions his Department has had with (a) Durham County Council, (b) the North East Mayor and (c) industry representatives on the potential location of an always-on munitions factory in the North East.
Answered by Luke Pollard - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
We are committed to ensuring the Defence industry is an engine for growth through strengthened industrial relationships and domestic investment. As published in the UK Defence Footprint the North East region has seen £178 million of Defence spending in 2024-25. We have committed £6 billion this Parliament towards munitions, as outlined in the Strategic Defence Review 2025, which supports defence capacity whilst generating local jobs and economic prosperity. This investment includes £1.5 billion for building six new energetics and munitions factories in the UK to deliver an 'always on' pipeline, locations and arrangements of which are being assessed through ongoing work. Whilst it is currently premature to comment on specific site proposals and their assessment, more detail will be available once the necessary preparatory work has been completed.
Asked by: Sam Rushworth (Labour - Bishop Auckland)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to page 6 of the Strategic Defence Review 2025, published on 2 June 2025, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of locating at least one of the proposed always-on munitions factories in County Durham.
Answered by Luke Pollard - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
We are committed to ensuring the Defence industry is an engine for growth through strengthened industrial relationships and domestic investment. As published in the UK Defence Footprint the North East region has seen £178 million of Defence spending in 2024-25. We have committed £6 billion this Parliament towards munitions, as outlined in the Strategic Defence Review 2025, which supports defence capacity whilst generating local jobs and economic prosperity. This investment includes £1.5 billion for building six new energetics and munitions factories in the UK to deliver an 'always on' pipeline, locations and arrangements of which are being assessed through ongoing work. Whilst it is currently premature to comment on specific site proposals and their assessment, more detail will be available once the necessary preparatory work has been completed.
Asked by: Sam Rushworth (Labour - Bishop Auckland)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to page 6 of the Strategic Defence Review 2025, published on 2 June 2025, when he plans to announce the locations of the six new always-on munitions factories; and if he will publish the details of the site-selection criteria allowed by national security.
Answered by Luke Pollard - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
We are committed to ensuring the Defence industry is a powerhouse for economic growth through strengthened industrial relationships and domestic investment. As published in the UK Defence Footprint the North East region has seen £178 million of Defence spending in 2024-25. We have committed £6 billion this Parliament towards munitions, as outlined in the Strategic Defence Review 2025, which supports defence capacity whilst generating local jobs and economic prosperity. This investment includes £1.5 billion for building six new energetics and munitions factories in the UK to deliver an 'always on' pipeline, locations and arrangements of which are being assessed through ongoing work. We plan for construction of the first six new munitions factories to begin in 2026.
Asked by: Sam Rushworth (Labour - Bishop Auckland)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure schools provide mandatory (a) CPR training and (b) defibrillator use; and what systems are in place to monitor implementation across schools.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
All state funded schools are required to teach first aid as part of the statutory health education set out in the relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) statutory guidance. Independent schools are required to cover health education as part of their responsibility to provide personal, social, health and economic education.
The statutory RSHE guidance includes basic first aid for primary school children, for example dealing with common injuries, such as head injuries, and pupils in secondary schools are taught further first aid, for example specifically how to administer CPR and the purpose of defibrillators and how to use them.
Schools also have the autonomy to decide how they teach first aid, including teaching additional topical content and which resources to use. Many schools incorporate additional content, which can include how pupils should deal with a first response emergency situation, including how to respond to knife wounds, drug misuse and road traffic injury.
The department’s defibrillator programme completed in 2023 and was the largest rollout of defibrillators across England to date and provided over 20,000 defibrillators to almost 18,000 schools, ensuring that all state-funded schools in England have access to a device.
Defibrillators are designed so they can be used by anyone with no prior training. As part of the department’s roll out, we provided awareness videos to schools showing how simple defibrillators can be to use, and asked schools to share these videos in staff meetings and assemblies.
Asked by: Sam Rushworth (Labour - Bishop Auckland)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what progress she has made with Cabinet colleagues on implementing the Pride in Place programme.
Answered by James Murray - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
For too long, people have watched their towns and neighbourhoods’ decline. Through the Pride in Place programme, we’re cutting through bureaucracy to put money directly in the hands of local people. As it stands, almost 250 places will receive a share of £5bn from Spring next year to help them reclaim beloved local assets and drive renewal, street by street.