Asked by: Simon Opher (Labour - Stroud)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will strengthen legal protections for farmed fish.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
I refer the hon. Member to the reply previously given to the hon. Member for North Herefordshire, Ellie Chowns, on 6 March 2025, PQ 34489.
Asked by: Simon Opher (Labour - Stroud)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, with reference to the United Nations report entitled Report on the 2022 Transforming Education Summit, published in January 2023, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of that report's recommendation that 15-20% of ODA should be allocated to education on the development of his Department's ODA budgets.
Answered by Stephen Doughty - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Official Development Assistance (ODA) allocations and the impact on programmes are being worked through following the decision to reduce UK ODA from 0.5 per cent of gross national income to 0.3 per cent in 2027. Equality Impact Assessments - which consider impacts on women and girls - are an essential part of how we make decisions, including on ODA allocations. We will set out our spending plans following the completion of the spending review.
The UK is committed to empowering women and girls around the world through our international work. Education, especially for girls and women, has wide-ranging benefits. It can unlock the potential of women and girls to tackle inter-generational poverty and create economic growth.
Asked by: Simon Opher (Labour - Stroud)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to ensure the continuation of funding for education initiatives through ODA.
Answered by Stephen Doughty - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Official Development Assistance (ODA) allocations and the impact on programmes are being worked through following the decision to reduce UK ODA from 0.5 per cent of gross national income to 0.3 per cent in 2027. Equality Impact Assessments - which consider impacts on women and girls - are an essential part of how we make decisions, including on ODA allocations. We will set out our spending plans following the completion of the spending review.
The UK is committed to empowering women and girls around the world through our international work. Education, especially for girls and women, has wide-ranging benefits. It can unlock the potential of women and girls to tackle inter-generational poverty and create economic growth.
Asked by: Simon Opher (Labour - Stroud)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of publishing year-round data on the number of patients being treated in temporary care environments.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We continue to keep the data available and published to support improvements to urgent and emergency care services under review.
NHS England has been working with trusts since last year to put in place new reporting arrangements related to the use of temporary escalation spaces, to drive improvement. Subject to a review of data quality this information will be published later in 2025 and we will consider how this data could be published on a more regular basis.
Asked by: Simon Opher (Labour - Stroud)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, which body will administer the proposed merged housing and pension credit.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department is committed to delivering the Government’s goal of bringing together the administration of pensioner Housing Benefit and Pension Credit for new claimants from 2026, so that pensioners receive the support they are entitled to.
We are working closely with local authorities, to ensure reforms meet the needs of current and future pensioners.
In addition, we have already improved how we use existing data to target new pensioner Housing Benefit customers to ensure they are prompted to claim and receive any Pension Credit to which they are entitled.
Asked by: Simon Opher (Labour - Stroud)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what progress she has made on merging pension credit and housing benefit.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department is committed to delivering the Government’s goal of bringing together the administration of pensioner Housing Benefit and Pension Credit for new claimants from 2026, so that pensioners receive the support they are entitled to.
We are working closely with local authorities, to ensure reforms meet the needs of current and future pensioners.
In addition, we have already improved how we use existing data to target new pensioner Housing Benefit customers to ensure they are prompted to claim and receive any Pension Credit to which they are entitled.
Asked by: Simon Opher (Labour - Stroud)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many pensioners in receipt of Housing Benefit are not claiming Pension Credit.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Using the latest published benefit combinations statistics from Stat-Xplore, out of the 1.24m benefit claimants of state pension age in Great Britain receiving Housing Benefit in August 2024, 448,500 were not in receipt of Pension Credit.
A DWP benefit claimant is defined as the individual who is claiming benefit on their own behalf, or in the case of Universal Credit, Pension Credit and Housing Benefit, an individual who is part of a single or couple claim for benefit.
Asked by: Simon Opher (Labour - Stroud)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to integrate his planned updates to the (a) Environmental Improvement Plan and (b) Carbon Budget Delivery Plan.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Nature and climate action must be taken together and will underpin the delivery of this Government’s missions, from clean energy to economic growth.
Our revised Environmental Improvement Plan will set out the vital role of nature in mitigating and adapting to climate change, such as through tree planting and management and peatland restoration, recognising that tackling climate change in turn supports nature’s recovery.
The Government will publish an updated plan that sets out the policy package out to the end of Carbon Budget 6 in 2037 for all the sectors in due course. This will outline the policies and proposals needed to deliver Carbon Budgets 4-6 on the pathway to net zero.
Asked by: Simon Opher (Labour - Stroud)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to support people with lung conditions.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
In collaboration with a number of partners, the National Health Service has developed a package for local systems containing the information and support required to help increase the number of people receiving an early and accurate diagnosis for respiratory disease.
Following a significant drop in the volume of respiratory specific diagnostic tests, such as spirometry, during the pandemic, NHS England has managed to bring these numbers to above pre-pandemic levels.
The Government is committed to a preventative approach to the public’s health and is determined to improve air quality for everyone and address inequalities by working across Government to tackle these issues, including by supporting the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to deliver their comprehensive and ambitious Clean Air Strategy, which will include a series of interventions to reduce emissions so that everyone’s exposure to air pollution is reduced.
In alignment with the Neighbourhood Health Service model, NHS England is leading on the development of an approach for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) management, to support proactive identification and management of rising risk patients in winter, thereby reducing demand on primary and secondary care by identifying at risk patients, optimizing care, and strengthened support. Core20PLUS5 identifies COPD as one of the five clinical areas of focus requiring accelerated improvement to help tackle healthcare inequalities, and plans to improve this area by increasing vaccination uptake, namely for COVID-19, flu, and pneumovax, in people with COPD, and by avoiding exacerbations that could lead to emergency treatment in hospital and inpatient care.
Asked by: Simon Opher (Labour - Stroud)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to support (a) early education and (b) childcare providers.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government is committed to giving children the best start in life and has set the ambition through the government’s Plan for Change for a record proportion of children starting school ready to learn.
The department has set a target for 75% of children to achieve a good level of development by the end of reception, by 2028. This target aims to ensure that children are school-ready and have met their early learning goals by the age of five.
Next year alone, the department plans to provide over £8 billion for early years entitlements, which is a more than 30% increase compared to 2024/25.
The early years pupil premium rate has increased by over 45% compared to the 2024/25 financial year, which is equivalent to up to £570 per eligible child per year. The department is also providing further supplementary funding of £75 million for the early years expansion grant and £25 million through the forthcoming National Insurance contributions grant for public sector employers in early years.
State-funded primary-phase schools have submitted bids for up to £150,000 of capital funding to refurbish spare internal space to create or expand school-based nurseries. This is the first stage in our plan to deliver 3,000 school-based nurseries and will help deliver on the department’s commitment to ensure families across the country have access to high-quality childcare and early education.
The department is also delivering programmes to support the sector to attract talented staff and childminders by creating conditions for improved recruitment, alongside programmes to better utilise the skills of the existing workforce.