Steve Darling

The department launched an initial package of three public consultations last October covering: the application of zero hours contracts measures to agency workers; creating a modern framework for industrial relations; and, strengthening remedies against abuse of rules on collective redundancy and fire and rehire. These consultations closed in December and the department will publish responses in due course. The department does not routinely collate information on the specific cost of running such consultations.

We have committed to full consultation on the implementation of this legislation, and expect this to begin this year, ensuring reforms work for employers and workers alike.

Hospitality businesses are at the heart of our communities and are vital for economic growth.

This is why the Government is creating a fairer business rate system, reducing alcohol duty on qualifying draught products and transforming the apprenticeship levy to support business and boost opportunities. This work will be supported by the publication of The Small Business Strategy Command Paper which will be published later this year.

Through the Hospitality Sector Council, we are addressing strategic issues for the sector related to high street regeneration, skills, sustainability, and productivity.

Post Office continues to provide vital banking services through the Banking Framework to communities and businesses alike and protect access to cash for those who choose to use it. Government understands the importance of face-to-face banking to communities and high streets, and is committed to championing sufficient access for all. Customers can pay in cash, pay cheques, make cash deposits, withdraw money and check their balance at all branches as well as at Banking Hubs operated by the Post Office. Government has committed to work closely with banks to roll out at least 350 banking hubs, which will provide individuals and businesses across the country with critical cash and banking services.

The Government recognises the challenges and worry facing parents whose babies are admitted to neonatal care; we will set out more information on our plans in this area shortly.

The Government is committed to reviewing the parental leave system so that it best supports working families.

The Government greatly values kinship carers who care for children who cannot live with their parents. The Government has committed in the Plan to Make Work Pay to review the system of parental leave to ensure that it best supports all working families. We will set out more information in due course

In relation to legal safeguarding, the Law Commission will carry out a review into the legal statuses and orders for kinship carers, to ensure that the legislative framework is fair, modern, and meets the needs of its users.

The UK has worked closely with international partners to constrain Russian oil revenues while maintaining energy market security. The Government does not speculate on future sanctions measures as to do so could reduce their impact. We continue to monitor the effectiveness of our sanctions.

The Government has no current plans to change the approach to Daylight Savings.

Four, plus a percentage of time from senior colleagues who provide oversight, and from analytical, legal, and digital specialists.

Parliament legislated for a registration scheme for short-term lets in the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act 2023, and we are committed to introducing such a scheme as soon as possible.

We will soon publish the government’s response to the 2023 consultation on how the scheme will work and on the legislative process that will bring the scheme to life.

Volunteering is critical to a vibrant and resilient civil society; it benefits volunteers and the organisations involving them and has transformational impacts on local communities. Government undertakes a range of policy work to enable as many people to volunteer as possible, from developing the wider volunteering ecosystem to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to take part, to supporting the sustainability of the voluntary, community, and social enterprise sector.

This Government recognises the vital role that civil society plays in supporting volunteering, and is committed to resetting the relationship with civil society. Government understands the need to treat civil society as an equal, expert partner who is integral to the delivery of the Government’s vision for national renewal. The first step in rebuilding that relationship is going to be the co-creation of the recently announced Civil Society Covenant.

We currently support people to volunteer nationally through a range of programmes. These include the Know Your Neighbourhood (KYN) Fund, an up to £30 million funding package running until March 2025, designed to widen participation in volunteering and tackle loneliness in 27 disadvantaged areas across England.

We also provide funding to the #iwill Fund, a £66 million joint investment between DCMS and the National Lottery Community Fund, running since 2016, which supports the creation of new opportunities to engage young people in volunteering and community engagement in their local areas.

The Department does not allocate funds to Local Visitor Economy Partnerships (LVEPs) directly, but has allocated £7.15 million in core funding to its arm’s-length body VisitEngland, plus £1.35 million for destination management organisations; and VisitEngland has accredited Devon and partners which can apply for VisitBritain/VisitEngland grant funding programmes.

Short-term lets are an integral part of what the UK has to offer visitors. They can bring a range of benefits to local and national economies, but communities in tourism
destinations, particularly coastal and rural communities, must be able to reap the benefit of thriving tourism without losing the spirit of their community when the holiday season ends.

Parliament legislated for a registration scheme for short-term lets in the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act 2023 and we are working on precisely how to implement that statutory
requirement.

Supporting our expert teachers is critical to the government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and boost the life chances for every child, as the within-school factor that makes the biggest difference to a young person’s educational outcomes is high-quality teaching. This is why the department will recruit 6,500 new expert teachers.

Schools have the autonomy to make staffing and employment decisions as headteachers and school leaders are best placed to make workforce decisions that take into account local context and the needs of their pupils. As such, the department does not hold data on teacher redundancy.

Information on the school workforce, including the number of teachers entering and leaving service in state-funded schools, is published in the ‘School workforce in England’ statistical publication which is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england.

I can confirm that a response to the correspondence dated 3 February 2025 from the hon. Member for Torbay was sent on 26 February 2025.

The department has announced a new National Centre for Arts and Music Education. The National Centre will promote arts education, including signposting to careers guidance and opportunities for children and young people to pursue their artistic and creative interests in school. It will drive excellent arts teaching through a new continuing professional development offer to schools and support partnerships between schools and cultural providers.

To complement the curriculum, the department will also work with experts to develop an Enrichment Framework to be published before the end of the year. This will identify the range of different enrichment activity that pupils should access and reflect best practice in supporting schools to plan a high-quality enrichment offer.

The government has established an independent Curriculum and Assessment Review, covering ages 5 to 18, chaired by Professor Becky Francis CBE.

The Review seeks to deliver a rich, broad, inclusive and innovative curriculum that equips young people with the knowledge, skills and attributes needed to thrive in life and work.

The Review Group has now published its interim findings and set out the next phase of work. The interim report can be accessed at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/curriculum-and-assessment-review-interim-report.

The government will respond to the Review’s final recommendations in the autumn.

Over time, 38 local authorities have been supported to manage their high needs budgets through the Safety Valve programme. We will continue to work with local authorities with Safety Valve agreements to deliver their plans, and to provide the additional funding support set out in those agreements where plans are being delivered. The department has already said that it will not enter into any more Safety Valve agreements, pending wider reform of the whole system to prioritise early intervention, properly supporting councils to bring their finances under control.

The areas taking part in this research are: Barnsley, Croydon, Darlington, Hammersmith and Fulham, Kent, Kirklees, Torbay, Salford, Surrey and York.

Improving the cost, choice, and availability of childcare for working parents is a priority for this government. We want all families to benefit from the childcare support they are entitled to, helping them with the cost of childcare, enabling parents to work and giving children the best start in life. This includes ensuring that after school clubs are available and accessible. The government is improving access to before and after school care through the national wraparound childcare programme.

The programme has provided local authorities with more than £160 million to deliver the expansion of new before and after school places for primary school-aged children. This government’s ambition is that, by 2026, all parents and carers of primary school-aged children who need it will be able to access term-time childcare in their local area from 8am to 6pm.

To support with costs, parents may also be eligible for childcare support through Tax-Free Childcare or Universal Credit Childcare. Parents can check what childcare support they are entitled to via the Childcare Choices website, which can be accessed here: https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk/.

On 23 September 2024, my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced that up to 750 state-funded schools with primary aged pupils will begin delivering free breakfast clubs from April 2025. The funding will allow these schools to run free breakfast clubs for their pupils starting in the summer term as part of a ‘test and learn’ phase to inform delivery of a national rollout. This new offer will also support parents to have more choices on when to work and will support families with the cost of childcare.

The department allocates capital funding to local authorities to support them to meet their statutory duty to provide sufficient school places for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) or who require alternative provision. Earlier this month, the department announced £740 million for high needs capital in 2025/26.

This capital funding can be used to adapt classrooms to be more accessible for children with SEND, to create specialist facilities within mainstream schools that can deliver more intensive support adapted to suit the pupils’ needs, and create special school places for pupils with the most complex needs.

This will be used to deliver this government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and give every child the best life chances while fixing the foundations of the school system.

The department expects to confirm plans to allocate funding for the 2025/26 financial year by the end of March 2025 and will work with valued partners in the sector, schools, trusts and local authorities to ensure that children and young people can access the placements they need and deserve, restoring parents’ trust.

Ensuring schools, including sixth form college academies, have the resources and buildings they need is a key part of the government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and give every young person the best start in life.

Responsibility for keeping school and sixth form buildings safe and well-maintained lies with institutions and their responsible bodies. These are typically local authorities, academy trusts, or voluntary aided school bodies. The department supports them by providing capital funding, delivering major rebuilding programmes and offering guidance and support.

The department has allocated £1.8 billion in condition funding for 2024/25 for schools, including sixth form academies, informed by consistent data on the condition of the school estate. As part of the 2025/26 budget, the department is increasing capital allocations to improve the condition of school buildings to £2.1 billion, £300 million more than this year.

The £1.8 billion of funding allocated in 2024/25 includes £1.15 billion in School Condition Allocations (SCA) for local authorities and other large responsible bodies, including large multi-academy trusts, to invest in maintaining and improving the condition of their school buildings, including any sixth form academies. This funding is calculated formulaically, and paid directly to the responsible bodies, without the need to apply. The department provides guidance on how funding is calculated and how it can be spent at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/school-capital-funding.

Smaller academy trusts and sixth form colleges are able to apply to the condition improvement fund (CIF), instead of receiving SCA. This is a bid-based fund for projects to address condition issues with buildings, with a focus on keeping them safe and in good working order. Guidance on the CIF can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/condition-improvement-fund.

The 2025/26 budget also includes £1.4 billion to support the current school rebuilding programme, reaffirming the department’s commitment to rebuilding or refurbishing 518 schools and sixth form colleges through the programme. Future capital funding for schools beyond 2025/26 will be confirmed following the next multi-year phase of the spending review.

Any responsible body that has a significant safety issue with one of its buildings that cannot be managed through local resources can contact the department directly for advice and support.

This new government will be mission-led, with the Opportunity Mission building opportunities for all by giving every child the best start in life, helping them achieve and thrive, build skills for opportunity and growth and ensure family security.

Building skills for opportunity and growth is key to the Opportunity Mission. The department will ensure every young person around the country, including in coastal areas, can follow the pathway that is right for them. Whether built through high quality apprenticeships, colleges or universities, skills give people the power to progress into good jobs and seize opportunity. We will support the aspiration of every person who meets the requirements and wants to go to university, regardless of their background, where they live and their personal circumstances. Opportunity should be available to all, and it is our aspiration that no groups are left behind.

Local Skills Improvement Plans (LSIPs) support the department’s long term priority to drive local economic growth by reshaping the skills system to better align provision of post-16 technical education and training with local labour market needs and to support learners to gain the skills they need to get good jobs.

Over 50% (20 out of 38) of LSIP areas have coastal towns and communities within their geographies and in these areas, the designated employer representative body leading the LSIP may have engaged with coastal industry businesses and businesses and supply chain links operationally based in coastal towns and communities, as well as relevant local leaders and national sector and trade bodies.

For example, the Dorset LSIP has identified skills gaps within the marine industry and is in consultation with local providers around the introduction of Level 3 Marine Electrician and Marine Engineer Apprenticeships. These qualifications would help to resolve skills and labour shortages in coastal areas and build clusters of expertise in priority local industries.

A Local Skills Improvement Fund (LSIF) was introduced to support local action. For example, the Cornwall and Isle of Scilly LSIP identified a need to improve sustainability skills in the local construction sector. As a result, Truro and Penwith College received £1.07 million to fund the development of a Level 3 Design, Installation and Commissioning of Electrical Energy Storage Systems, as well as the development of an industry-led Higher Technical Qualification for Construction in Cornwall.

In the South West there are a number of colleges within coastal locations or who are close enough to readily attract learners from coastal areas. All colleges have specialisms to complement a general offer delivering programmes from foundation level through levels 1 to 3 and then, in most cases, offering higher education provision. Further education colleges often work in partnership with key employers and stakeholders to ensure specialist provision meets local and regional need.

The government has established an independent Curriculum and Assessment Review, covering ages 5 to 18, chaired by Professor Becky Francis CBE, an expert in education policy, including curriculum and social inequality. The review will look closely at the key challenges to attainment for young people, and the barriers which hold children back from the opportunities and life chances they deserve, in particular those who are socioeconomically disadvantaged, or with special educational needs or disabilities.

The department has collected termly data from local authorities concerning their cohorts of home-educated children since autumn 2022.

The most recent published data shows an estimated 92,000 children in home education in October 2023, a rise of around 12,000 from the previous year. The most common reasons for home education are religious, philosophical, mental health and dissatisfaction with schools. The department has used this data to analyse trends in the growth and motivations behind parents opting to home-educate. This analysis has helped to identify impacts on the school system and local authority resources. For instance, in relation to numbers of school attendance orders issued and types of support offered to home-educating families. It also enables the department to better understand the educational journeys of these children.

The government provides funding through the local government financial settlement, enabling local authorities to carry out their duties toward children not on a school roll. This includes overlap with children’s social care teams, whose work includes those children not in school and their safeguarding.

The government’s elective home education guidance contains information about safeguarding children, as well as the principles of a suitable education. This guidance should be read in conjunction with other documents such as ‘Working together to safeguard children’ and ‘Keeping children safe in education’. The department’s elective home education guidance is currently under review following a consultation and an updated version will be published in due course.

The department’s guidance is clear that parents who choose to home-educate are responsible for the costs of doing so. When a child who is moved into home education has an education, health and care plan, it is the local authority's duty to ensure that the educational provision set out in that plan is provided to the child, unless the child’s parents have arranged for them to receive a suitable education in some other way, in which the responsibility for the educational provision rests with the parents.

The government is committed to a system of registration of children who are not in school, including those who are home-educated. It intends to introduce this system as part of the Children’s Wellbeing Bill, as announced in this year’s King’s Speech. Registers will aid local authorities in their duties to identify those children who are receiving their education otherwise than at school and ensure that those children are receiving a suitable education.

The statutory requirements to maintain registers and provide data to my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education will ensure the department obtains more robust and thorough data on home education issues that will further inform policy development and identification of those children who most need support. The measures in the Bill will include a requirement on local authorities to provide support to those home educating families who request it. A full new burdens assessment will be conducted in anticipation of the measures coming into force, to ensure that local authorities are equipped with the training and resources needed to comply with these new duties.