Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to help promote reading for fun in schools.

Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)

I refer the hon. Member for South Shropshire to the answer of 11 March 2025 to Question 35717.

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 ensure that medical students remain in the (a) UK and (b) medical profession after graduation.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

We are committed to listening to the concerns of resident doctors, and to enhancing and improving their working lives.

We are undertaking a range of work to tackle the issues that resident doctors are facing, including improving working conditions and reforming the current system of rotations and placements, working in partnership with the British Medical Association and other partners, as agreed as part of the pay deal last year.

NHS England’s Enhancing Resident Doctors Working Lives programme continues to implement a number of measures to support resident doctors, encouraging them to stay in training and the National Health Service. This includes measures such as less than full time training options, to allow trainees to continue to work in the service and progress with their training on a reduced working pattern, where this benefits their personal circumstances.

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 adequacy of the numbers of GPs in South Shropshire.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

In January 2025, there were 57.8 full time equivalent doctors in general practice (GP) working in the South Shropshire constituency.

The Government is recruiting over 1,000 recently qualified GPs through an £82 million boost to the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS) over 2024/25, as part of an initiative to address GP unemployment and secure the future pipeline of GPs. Newly qualified GPs employed under the ARRS will continue to receive support under the scheme in the coming year as part of the 2025/26 contract.

We have committed to training thousands more GPs across the country which will increase capacity and take the pressure off those currently working in the system.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of training pathways to GP registration in (a) rural areas and (b) general.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Targeted Enhanced Recruitment Scheme was an initiative that formerly offered a one-off payment of £20,000 to General Practice Specialty Trainees committed to working in a select number of training locations in England that either had a history of under-recruitment or were in under-doctored or deprived areas. It is, however, no longer needed as currently all general practice training places are oversubscribed and, therefore, filled. We will keep the distribution of the workforce, particularly in rural areas, under review.

On 18 February 2025, the Chief Medical Officer and the National Medical Director of NHS England jointly launched a review of postgraduate medical training. The review will cover placement options, the flexibility of training, difficulties with rotas, control and autonomy in training, and the balance between developing specialist knowledge and gaining a broad range of skills. The review will be based on feedback from current resident doctors and students, and locally employed doctors and medical educators, with a series of engagement events around the country starting from this March.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to tackle childcare deserts in rural areas.

Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

It is the department’s ambition that all families have access to high quality, affordable and flexible early education and care, improving the life chances for every child and the work choices for every parent.

In the 2025/26 financial year alone, the department plans to provide over £8 billion for early years entitlements, a more than 30% increase compared to the 2024/25 financial year, so eligible working parents of children aged from nine months can access 30 hours of funded childcare from September this year. To support the sector during this period of expansion, the government is providing further supplementary funding of £75 million for the early years expansion grant. We also announced the largest ever uplift to the early years pupil premium, increasing the rate by over 45% compared to the 2024/25 financial year, equivalent to up to £570 per eligible child per year. On top of this, providers will receive £25 million through the forthcoming National Insurance Contributions grant for public sector employers in the early years.

The government’s plan to deliver 3,000 school-based nurseries and will help deliver on our commitment to ensure families right across the country have access to high quality childcare and early education. Funding will be allocated to the first wave of nursery projects in spring 2025 to support delivery for the first cohort of places from September. We know that families in some areas are struggling to find childcare places which meet their needs, so we will be working with schools and local childcare providers to deliver much-needed places across all our communities.

Under Section 6 of the Childcare Act 2006, local authorities are responsible for ensuring that the provision of childcare is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents in their area. Part B of the ’Early education and childcare’ statutory guidance for local authorities highlights that local authorities are required to report annually to elected council members on how they are meeting their duty to secure sufficient childcare, and to make this report available and accessible to parents. The department has regular contact with local authorities in England about the sufficiency of childcare and any issues being faced. Where local authorities report sufficiency challenges, we discuss what action the local authority is taking to address those issues and, where needed, support the local authority with any specific requirements through our childcare sufficiency support contract. We do not currently have any reports of sufficiency issues in any local authority.

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 take steps to focus public sector procurement on locally produced food.

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

The new national procurement policy statement sets out requirements for Government contracts, favouring high-quality products that we believe British producers are well-placed to supply, aiding our ambition for half of food supplied into public sector catering to be from local producers or those certified to higher environmental standards.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps she is taking to support the hospitality sector in South Shropshire constituency.

Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)

The Government is committed to supporting the hospitality sector and we recognise the significant contribution they have on the UK economy.  
  
Delivering on our manifesto pledge, we will introduce permanently lower tax rates for high street retail, hospitality, and leisure (RHL) properties, with rateable values below £500,000, from 2026-27. In the meantime, we have prevented RHL relief from ending in April 2025 by extending it for one year at 40 per cent up to a cash cap of £110,000 per business and frozen the small business multiplier.  
  
The Chancellor also announced a duty cut on qualifying draught products – approximately 60% of the alcoholic drinks sold in pubs. This represents an overall reduction in duty bills of over £85m a year. This reduction increased the relief available on draught products to 13.9%.  
 
 The Government has protected the smallest businesses from the impact of the increase to employer National Insurance by increasing the Employment Allowance from £5,000 to £10,500, which means that 865,000 employers will pay no employer NICs at all next year.  More than half of employers will see no change or will gain overall from this package and eligible employers will be able to employ up to four full-time workers on the National Living Wage and pay no employer NICs.

The Government has funded a wide range of community assets, including pubs, through the Community Ownership Fund. On 23 December 2024, this Government announced the outcome of Round 4 of the Community Ownership Fund, the largest ever round to date, where we awarded £36.2m to 85 projects across the UK, including projects in Shropshire.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to help expedite Pension Credit claims from South Shropshire constituency.

Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

The Government put in place the biggest ever pension Credit take-up drive. To help ensure it has the capacity to assess all claims within reasonable timeframes, the Department deployed over 500 additional staff.

On 27 February 2025 we published Pension Credit Applications and Awards - February 2025 statistics up to 23 February 2025. This shows Pension Credit processing times have improved and outstanding volumes returned to normal levels, 33,700 in February 2025.

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps he is taking to ensure that Government procurement focuses on SMEs in local economies.

Answered by Georgia Gould - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)

The Procurement Act has introduced a number of reforms to make it easier for small businesses to access public sector supply-chains and removing unnecessary burdens and costs, including:

• a new duty on contracting authorities to have regard to their participation and consider whether they can remove barriers to entry;

• greater visibility of upcoming public sector opportunities and early market engagement to explain requirements to better help SMEs prepare to bid; and

• 30-day payment terms will apply throughout the public sector supply chain.

The National Procurement Policy Statement (NPPS) supports Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) and Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSEs), giving them greater opportunities to win public contracts by instructing contracting authorities to maximise their spend with these organisations.

To support implementation of the NPPS, I have announced new rules requiring all government departments and their executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies to set three-year targets for direct spend with SMEs from 1 April 2025, and from 1 April 2026 for VCSEs, and publish progress annually. This will drive greater transparency and accountability for increasing numbers of SMEs and VCSEs delivering public contracts, supporting local economic growth and innovation and creating jobs in local communities up and down the country.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an estimate of the projected savings that will be raised via the police collaboration and efficiency programme.

Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)

In her Written Ministerial statement of 19 November (Statement UIN HCWS232) the Home Secretary set out her intention to work with policing on a package of reforms to ensure it can operate efficiently and effectively, deliver the Safer Streets Mission and support the Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee. In particular, she announced a new Police Efficiencies and Collaboration Programme to deliver commercial efficiencies and make cashable savings.

We continue to work with policing to further develop this programme, identify and unlock immediate cost savings and lay the foundations to deliver hundreds of millions of pounds of efficiency savings by the end of this Parliament.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of the affordability of firearms licences and renewals for (a) game keepers and (b) veterinarians.

Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)

On 5 February 2025, increased fees came into effect for firearms licensing applications processed by police forces. This gave effect to a commitment in the Government’s manifesto.

A full impact assessment was published alongside the Firearms (Variation of Fees) Order 2025, the Statutory Instrument that brought the new fees into effect.

The impact assessment covers the impact of increased fees on game keepers and veterinarians. Any future changes to firearms licensing will be subject to further impact assessments in the normal way.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of increases to employer's National Insurance Contributions on independent specialist schools.

Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

The government has taken the decision to increase the rate of employer National Insurance contributions (NIC) from 6 April 2025 by 1.2 percentage points, from 13.8% to 15%, to ensure it can deliver the investment that public services need.

From April 2025, the government is also increasing the Employment Allowance to £10,500 and expanding this to all eligible employers by removing the £100,000 eligibility threshold. Over half of employers with NIC liabilities will see no change or gain overall from this measure.

The department is allocating an additional £125 million to local authorities for them to pass on to special schools for the extra costs they will incur as a result of the NIC increase. Non-maintained special schools will get this funding directly from the department. These NIC funding allocations will be published in May 2025, for payment later in the year.

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps she is taking to help public libraries expand outreach work.

Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)

Public libraries are funded by local authorities. Each local authority is responsible for assessing the needs of their local communities and designing a delivery model to meet those requirements within available resources. This could include a mobile and or a home library service, as well as other outreach services.

The government is committed to getting local government back on its feet. The final Local Government Finance Settlement for 2025-26 makes available over £69 billion for local government, which is a 6.8% cash terms increase on 2024-25.

The Libraries Improvement Fund (LIF) has enabled library services across England to invest in a range of projects to upgrade buildings and technology so they are better placed to respond to the changing ways people are using them. £20.5 million across three rounds has already supported 95 projects which includes investment in outreach services, such as electric tuk-tuks in Portsmouth. On 20 February the Secretary of State announced a further £5.5 million round 4 of LIF for 2025/26.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent assessment she has made of recent trends in economic growth.

Answered by Emma Reynolds - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)

The independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) are the Government’s official economic forecaster. They published their Economic and Fiscal Outlook (EFO) on 26^th March. They forecast GDP growth to be 1.0% in 2025, 1.9% in 2026, 1.8% in 2027, 1.7% in 2028 and 1.8% in 2029.