Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department has taken to (a) promote and (b) support education exports.

Answered by Robert Halfon

The department has taken a number of steps to promote and support education exports, including the launch of the UK’s International Education Strategy in 2019. The strategy outlined the department’s ambition to increase the value of education exports to £35 billion per year by 2030. The department is on track and continues working towards meeting this ambition with £25.6 billion revenue in 2020.

The department will continue to support education exports by hosting the Education Sector Advisory Group, bringing together industry and government to achieve its export ambitions. The UK’s International Education Champion, Professor Sir Steve Smith, has promoted UK education export growth in key markets, addressing barriers and creating opportunities for education exporters across the UK’s education sector.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of the income to the public purse from international students in each of the last three years.

Answered by Robert Halfon

The department does not collect or estimate the impact of international students to the exchequer. International tuition fee income at higher education (HE) providers can be found on the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) at: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/finances/income.

The benefits and costs of international HE students to the UK economy and the Exchequer can be found in the Higher Education Policy Institute/Universities UK International/Kaplan report at: https://hepi.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Full-Report-Benefits-and-costs-of-international-students.pdf.

The total net impact on the UK economy of the cohort of first year international students enrolled at UK HE Institutions in the 2021/22 academic year was estimated at £37.4 billion across the duration of their studies. The economic impact is spread across the entire UK, with international students making a £58 million net economic contribution to the UK economy per parliamentary constituency across the duration of their studies. This is equivalent to £560 per member of the resident population.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent progress she has made with Cabinet colleagues on implementing the International Education Strategy.

Answered by Robert Halfon

I refer the right hon. Member for East Antrim to the answer of 7 March 2024 to Question 16186.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to increase girls' access to mental health services.

Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)

Health policy is devolved to the Northern Ireland Executive. In England, through the NHS Long Term Plan, the Government is providing record levels of investment and increasing the mental health workforce, to expand and transform National Health Service mental health services in England. Almost £16 billion was invested in mental health in 2022/23, enabling 3.6 million people to be in contact with mental health services, a 10% increase on the previous year. Of these, nearly 560,000 were females under the age of 18 years old, a 12% increase on the previous year.

We are rolling out mental health support teams to schools and colleges in England. There are now around 400 mental health support teams in place, covering 3.4 million children, or approximately 35% of pupils. We estimate that this will increase to 44% by April 2024, and we are working to increase this coverage to 50% of pupils by March 2025.

In addition, we announced in October 2023 that £4.92 million would be available for 10 early support hubs in England. We are now providing an additional £3 million to expand the number of hubs to 24 across the country. This £8 million overall package will improve access for children and young people to vital mental health support, offering early interventions to improve wellbeing before their condition escalates further.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to improve girls' health.

Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)

Health policy is devolved to the Northern Ireland Executive. The Women’s Health Strategy for England sets out our plans for boosting the health and wellbeing of women and girls. It takes a life course approach, focused on understanding the changing health and care needs of women and girls across their lives, from adolescents and young adults to later life. We recently set out our priorities for 2024, which include actions to improve girls’ health, such as improving care for menstrual problems like endometriosis, continuing to roll out women’s health hubs, and boosting research.

In addition, the Department and the National Health Service have a number of universal public health interventions to improve the health and wellbeing of all children, and respond to further needs and safeguarding concerns. This includes investing approximately £300 million over three years to improve support for families though the Family Hubs and Start for Life programme, the Family Nurse Partnership to support vulnerable young mothers, the Healthy Start scheme to encourage a healthy diet for pregnant women, babies, and young children under four years old from low-income households, and Mental Health Support Teams in schools.

To support our ambition to eliminate cervical cancer, all children aged 12 to 13 years old are offered the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine. Due to the success of the adolescent HPV programme, there has been an 87% reduction in cervical cancers for those vaccinated when compared to previous generations.

Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI)

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Found: Hillier Sir David Davis Alicia Kearns John McDonnell Tim Farron Carol Monaghan Mark Garnier Sammy