Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many teachers there were in Suffolk Coastal constituency in (a) 2019 and (b) 2024.

Answered by Damian Hinds - Shadow Secretary of State for Education

Information on the school workforce, including the number of teachers in each school, is published in the ‘School workforce in England’ statistical publication. The publication can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england.

As at November 2022, and according to the latest data available, there were over 468,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) teachers in state funded schools in England, which is an increase of 27,000 (6%) since 2010. This makes the highest number of FTE teachers since the School Workforce Census began in 2010.

As at November 2019, there were 570 full-time equivalent (FTE) teachers in state funded schools in the Suffolk Coastal constituency.

School workforce figures for 2024 have not been collected yet. In November 2022, and according to the latest data available, there were 568 full-time equivalent teachers in state funded schools in the Suffolk Coastal constituency. Figures for November 2023 will be published in June 2024.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 22 April 2024 to Question 21018 on Holiday Accommodation: Taxation, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of the abolition of the furnished holiday lettings tax regime on business resilience and diversification of farms.

Answered by Nigel Huddleston

The Government recognises the important role that Furnished Holiday Lets (FHLs), including those located on farms, have in the visitor economy. This measure does not penalise or prohibit the provision of FHLs and brings their tax treatment in line with other rentals.

The Government will publish draft legislation, explanatory notes, and a tax information and impacts note in due course. These will set out how the announced changes will apply in practice.

As with all aspects of the tax system, the Government keeps the taxation of property under review and any decision on future changes will be taken by the Chancellor in the context of the wider public finances.

Question to the Leader of the House:

To ask the Leader of the House, pursuant to the Answer of 22 April 2024 to Question 21019 on Transport, if she will make time for a debate on the National Transport Strategy.

Answered by Penny Mordaunt

As Leader of the House I am committed to providing time in the Chamber to the Backbench Business Committee in line with the requirements of Standing Orders and I would encourage the Hon. Member to apply for such a debate through the Committee on this occasion. The Hon. Member will appreciate that there is a significant amount of legislation planned in this session and there is, as always, pressure on the Government’s timetable.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to reduce ambulance waiting times in (a) Suffolk and (b) Suffolk Coastal constituency.

Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Transport

Our Delivery plan for recovering urgent and emergency care services sets out the range of measures being taken to achieve our ambition of reducing average Category 2 ambulance response times to 30 minutes across 2024/25, including in Suffolk. A summary of the progress made, and actions taken in 2024/25 is set out in Urgent and emergency care recovery plan year 2: building on learning from 2023/24, which is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/urgent-and-emergency-care-recovery-plan-year-2-building-on-learning-from-2023-24/

Nationally, ambulance trusts received £200 million of additional funding in 2023/24 to increase deployed hours and reduce response times, and this service capacity is being maintained in 2024/25. This is alongside the delivery of new ambulances, and action to reduce handover delays. With more ambulances on the roads, patients will receive the treatment they need more swiftly.

Since we published our plan, there has been significant improvement in ambulance response times, including in Suffolk. In 2023/24, average Category 2 ambulance response time in the East of England was over 23 minutes faster compared to the previous year, a reduction of over 34%.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what the total value was of grant funding awarded from the Heritage High Street Fund to projects in (a) Suffolk Coastal constituency and (b) Suffolk since 2019.

Answered by Julia Lopez - Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport

The taxpayer-funded High Streets Heritage Action Zones programme ran from 2019 to 2024, operating in England only, and administered by Historic England. The programme has funded the transformation and restoration of over 60 high streets, creating economic growth and improving quality of life in these areas.

There was one programme in Suffolk, in Lowestoft. The total grant funding awarded from 2019 to 2023 was £804,926.

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 support the growth of creative industries in (a) Suffolk and (b) Suffolk Coastal constituency.

Answered by Julia Lopez - Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport

The UK Government has a clear plan to grow the creative industries by a further £50 billion and support another 1 million jobs by 2030. This was set out in June 2023 in the Creative Industries Sector Vision, which was accompanied by £77 million of new funding to support the sector’s growth. This is on top of a range of tax reliefs introduced or expanded since 2010 covering film, television, animation, video games, orchestras, theatres and more.

Creative Industries GVA grew at more than twice the rate of UK GVA between 2010 and 2022 (50.3% vs 21.5%), and helped support more than a million new jobs since 2010.

Measures in the Sector Vision include the £28.4 million Create Growth Programme (CGP) to support high-growth creative businesses in twelve English regions outside London to scale up and become investment ready. The CGP is being delivered in twelve local area partnerships, including Suffolk.

It also includes £1 million for the Creative Careers Programme, which raises young people’s awareness of creative careers and pathways by providing specialist advice and information through a range of industry-led engagement. It is delivered in regions around England, including Suffolk.

The Arts Council England Investment Programme is also investing £444 million each year into arts and culture in England. The Arts Council is providing around £5.36 million per year to cultural organisations in Suffolk, of which over £1.6m allocated to cultural organisations in Coastal Suffolk.

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether he has made a recent estimate of the number of unoccupied dwellings in (a) Suffolk and (b) Suffolk Coastal constituency.

Answered by Lee Rowley

The department publishes live tables on dwelling stock, which includes vacant homes here: Live tables on dwelling stock (including vacants) - GOV.UK(opens in a new tab). This data is collated from Council Taxbase data, collected by local authorities.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of the availability of NHS provision for the diagnosis and treatment of ADHD in Suffolk.

Answered by Maria Caulfield

It is the responsibility of integrated care boards (ICBs) to make available appropriate provision to meet the health and care needs of their local population, including access to assessment and treatment for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), in line with relevant National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidance. The NICE guideline on ADHD does not recommend a maximum waiting time from referral for an assessment of ADHD to the point of assessment or diagnosis.

Whilst the Department has not made a specific assessment, Suffolk and North East Essex ICB advises that it has undertaken a review of children’s ADHD and autism services. As a result of the review, and current demand, the ICB has agreed additional funding of £3.3 million to support the services to not only reduce the time children are waiting for assessment but also increase the service provision to meet future demand. The ICB is also looking at potential new models of delivery and at the current pathways to see how it can utilise them more efficiently to ensure a smoother process for families.

In respect of adult ADHD and autism services, the ICB has worked closely with its local National Health Service provider, Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust, to closely monitor and respond to increases in demand. In March 2024, the ICB agreed to invest £300,000 to support those patients on the waiting list with additional advice and support.

In respect of the adequacy of ADHD service provision nationally, in December 2023, NHS England initiated a rapid piece of work to consider ADHD service provision within the NHS. The initial phase of work identified challenges, including with current service models and the ability to keep pace with demand. Following this initial review, NHS England is establishing a new ADHD taskforce alongside the government, to look at ADHD service provision and its impact on patient experience. The new taskforce will bring together expertise from across a broad range of sectors, including the NHS, education and justice, to better understand the challenges affecting people with ADHD and help provide a joined-up approach in response to concerns around rising demand.

Alongside the work of the taskforce, NHS England has announced that it will continue to work with stakeholders to develop a national ADHD data improvement plan, carry out more detailed work to understand the provider and commissioning landscape and capture examples from local health systems which are trialling innovative ways of delivering ADHD services to ensure best practice is captured and shared across the system.

Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps her Department is taking to support small and medium-sized enterprises in Suffolk.

Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Trade

The Government provides extensive business support for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), with over 40 offers of support available to all business including those in Suffolk.

Businesses in Suffolk can access support through GOV.UK, the Business Support Service and network of Growth Hubs. Government-backed financial support is available from the British Business Bank, including the Growth Guarantee Scheme, which has been extended until the end of March 2026.

The Government set out policy actions in the Prompt Payment and Cash Flow which was published alongside the Autumn Statement in November 2023. These actions include extending Payment Performance Reporting Regulations with legislation being passed earlier this month, ensuring that large businesses are required to report their payment performance.

The Start Up Loans Company provides loans and pre- and post-loan business support and mentoring to new entrepreneurs. Since the programme started in 2012, 917 loans have been awarded to start ups in Suffolk totalling over £9 million.

The Government’s recently launched initiatives supporting business:

• The refreshed Help to Grow campaign and website creating a one-stop shop for SMEs to find the information they need to grow and scale up;
• The Lilac Review to identify the barriers faced by disabled-led businesses and develop an action plan to remove them;
• The Invest in Women Taskforce with the mission of making the UK the best place in the world to be a female founder.

Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps her Department is taking to promote (a) international trade and (b) investment opportunities for businesses based in Suffolk.

Answered by Alan Mak

The Department for Business and Trade works with local stakeholders to promote trade and investment opportunities. Businesses in Suffolk can access the Department's range of export support services through great.gov.uk. This includes online learning and information, the Export Academy, our network of International Trade Advisers, and our International Market Advisors in overseas regions. UK Export Finance also has a network of export finance managers and coverage includes Suffolk.

The Department works in partnership with other Government Departments and locally to attract potential investors and provide support for foreign investors wishing to invest in the area.

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much funding his Department has allocated to the farming sector in Suffolk Coastal constituency since 2022 by (a) funding type and (b) recipient.

Answered by Mark Spencer

We do not hold details of Farming in Protected Landscapes (FiPL) funding by constituency. Details of FiPL funding for projects in the Suffolk & Essex Coast & Heaths National Landscape, which partly overlaps with the Suffolk Coastal constituency, can be found here.

The Rural Payment Agency (RPA) has supported the farming and rural sector through payments under a range of schemes.

Since 1 April 2022, the RPA has released through schemes and grants approximately £20,740,643 in the Suffolk Coastal constituency.

A breakdown of these figures provided below relates to payments released within the specified financial years 2022 to 13 May 2024, irrespective of the scheme year to which individual payments are related, and only covers payments that are provided to farmer businesses by the RPA.

To meet data protection obligations, it is not possible to break this down further by recipient.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what information his Department holds on the amount that local authorities have spent on repairing potholes in (a) Suffolk and (b) Suffolk Coastal constituency in the latest period for which data is available.

Answered by Guy Opperman

In 2023/24, Suffolk County Council received £35 million of capital funding from the Department for Transport, an increase of 30% compared to the previous financial year, with much of the additional funding made possible by the decision to reallocate funding from the HS2 programme. The Department asked all local highway authorities to publish a plan on how they intend to spend the additional funding being provided, and Suffolk County Council’s plan is available on its website.

Under the 1980 Highway Act, it is the responsibility of the local highway authority, in this case Suffolk County Council, to maintain and manage its highway network. The Department for Transport allocates capital funding to local highways authorities to enable them to maintain their highway networks, but decisions on how much of this, and how much of their other income, is spent mending potholes as opposed to maintaining other highway assets are entirely matters for them.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many additional NHS dental appointments have been made available for patients as a result of the Dental Recovery Plan in Suffolk Coastal constituency.

Answered by Andrea Leadsom

Our Dentistry Recovery Plan, backed by £200 million, will make dental services faster, simpler, and fairer for National Health Service dental patients. It will fund approximately 2.5 million additional appointments, or more than 1.5 million additional courses of dental treatment. A New Patient Premium is supporting dentists to take on new patients, and since the end of January 2024, nearly 500 more practices have said they are open to new patients.

We are committed to evaluating the impacts of the measures included in our plan, and we will publish monthly data on progress once available. Dentists have two months from the date of completion of a course of NHS treatment to submit an FP17 claim for payment.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of SEND provision in schools in (a) Suffolk and (b) Suffolk Coastal constituency.

Answered by David Johnston

The department shares the ambition that children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) should receive the vital support they need.

Where local authorities are failing to deliver consistent outcomes for children and young people with SEND, the department works with them using a set of improvement programmes and SEND specialist advisors to address weaknesses.

In March 2024, the department announced Unity Schools Partnership would run a new special education free school in Suffolk for pupils with severe learning difficulties. This is in addition to the six open special free schools in Suffolk already.

The department is opening over 200 special free schools and, in total, providing over 21,000 places for pupils with special educational needs. Over 10,000 of these places have already been delivered.

A joint local area SEND inspection was undertaken by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission in November 2023. The local area partnership received an outcome of ‘widespread and/or systemic failings leading to significant concerns’. The inspection report was published on 30 January 2024. The Local Area Partnership has since produced a Priority Action Plan which sets out how they will address the two Areas for Priority Action and has also updated its strategic SEND Improvement Plan.

Total high needs funding for children and young people with complex special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) is over £10.5 billion in the 2024/25 financial year, which represents an increase of over 60% from the 2019/20 allocations. Of this, Suffolk County Council is due to receive a high needs funding allocation of £113.9 million in the 2024/25 financial year, which is a cumulative increase of 31% per head over the three years from 2021/22. This funding will help local authorities and schools with the increasing costs of supporting children and young people with SEND.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to help increase childcare provision in (a) Suffolk Coastal constituency and (b) Suffolk.

Answered by David Johnston

The department is providing over £4.1 billion by 2027/28 to fund 30 hours of free childcare per week, or 38 weeks per year, for working parents with children aged 9 months to 3 years in England. This will remove one of the biggest barriers to parents working by vastly increasing the amount of free childcare that working families can access. Already, over 200,000 two year olds are now confirmed to have places for 15 hours a week of free childcare, as part of the largest ever expansion of childcare in England, and the rates for the new entitlements have been independently confirmed by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) to be above market rates. The take up nationwide for the validation codes already stands at 87.8%.

Funding will be key to delivering the existing and expanded childcare entitlements, so the department has substantially uplifted the hourly rate paid to local authorities to increase hourly rates paid to childcare providers. In 2024/25 alone, the department expects to provide over £1.7 billion to support local authorities and providers deliver the expansion to the early years entitlements, on top of over £400 million additional funding to deliver a significant uplift to the hourly rate paid to local authorities for the entitlements. Furthermore, to ensure local authorities are fully supported in delivering the new entitlements, the department is funding local authorities an additional four weeks in 2024/25, at an estimated cost of £120 million, for the under 2s working parent entitlement starting in September 2024.

The department’s methodology and the uplift to the rates are informed by data it receives from providers and parents to ensure the department is meeting the pressures faced by the sector. The department regularly surveys a nationally representative sample of over 9,000 providers to gain insights into how they run their provision and the challenges they face. The department also regularly surveys over 6,000 parents to understand their usage of childcare.

For 2024/25, the department’s hourly funding rates for Suffolk are £10.52 for under 2s, £7.74 for 2 year olds and £5.50 for 3 to 4 year olds.

To support the workforce, on 2 February 2024, the department launched ‘Do something Big, work with small children’, which is a new national recruitment campaign to support the recruitment and retention of talented staff to support the expansion of the 30 hours offer. This campaign will raise the profile of the sector, support the recruitment of talented staff and recognise the lifelong impact those working in early years and childcare have on children and their families.

The department is ensuring a phased implementation of the expansion to the 30 hours offer to allow the market to develop the necessary capacity. The department will continue to monitor the sufficiency of childcare places across the sector. The department’s ‘Childcare and Early Years Provider Survey’ shows that both the number of places available and the workforce has increased since 2022.

Local authorities are responsible for ensuring that the provision of childcare is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents in their area. Where local authorities report sufficiency challenges, the department discusses what action the local authority is taking to address those issues and where needed support the local authority with any specific requirements through its childcare sufficiency support contract. Suffolk has not reported any sufficiency challenges.

The department will continue to work closely with the sector on the implementation of these reforms as it delivers this substantial expansion.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking to reduce shoplifting in Suffolk.

Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons

Since 2010 our communities are safer, with neighbourhood crimes including burglary, robbery and theft from the person down 48% and overall violent crime down 44%, and with more police officers on the streets than in 2010.

However, there has been a worrying rise in shoplifting and violence towards retail workers, which we need to address.

Police Recorded Crime figures show shoplifting offences increased by 37% in the 12 months to December 2023. Although, the number of people charged with shoplifting offences in the same period rose by 46%, showing the police are heeding the message and taking action.

The Government has taken a number of recent significant steps to reduce and prevent retail crime. Our plan – "Fighting retail crime: more action" was launched on 10 April, which highlights five areas of work this Government will drive forward to tackle retail crime. This will include us introducing a presumption towards electronic monitoring as part of a sentence served in the community for those who repeatedly steal from shops. We will develop a retail theft electronic monitoring (EM) ‘package’, to offer sentencers starting in a pilot area, a clear community sentence pathway for repeat retail theft offenders.

This builds on the police-led Retail Crime Action Plan, which includes a commitment to prioritise police attendance at the scene where violence has been used towards shop staff, where an offender has been detained by store security, and where evidence needs to be secured and can only be done by police personnel. Figures published by the NPCC show early signs of progress.

Furthermore, we will bring forward legislative changes to introduce a presumption towards electronic monitoring as part of a sentence served in the community for those who repeatedly steal from shops. This legislative change will provide that on the third sentencing occasion, an offender would be electronically monitored as part of any community sentence or post-release for the duration of any licence period.

Under section 176 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, low-value shoplifting (value of £200 or less) is a summary offence, unless an adult elects to be tried in the Crown Court. Where a summary offence is committed, the case can be handled as a police-led prosecution.

Police-led prosecutions were introduced to improve the efficiency of the criminal justice system by allowing for a simpler, more proportionate police-led process in high-volume, low-level, uncontested cases. This route enables cases to be handled more speedily, rather than cases having to go to the CPS and through the Crown Court.

Repealing this would mean victims of shoplifting have to wait longer for cases to come to court.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking to help tackle anti-social behaviour in (a) Suffolk Coastal constituency and (b) Suffolk.

Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons

Last year the Government launched the Anti-social Behaviour Action Plan (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/anti-social-behaviour-action-plan) ensuring the police, local authorities and other relevant agencies have the tools they need to tackle anti-social behaviour.

The plan is backed by £160m of funding. This includes funding an increased police and other uniformed presence to clamp down on anti-social behaviour, targeting hotspots. Initially we worked with 10 police force areas and, following the success of the pilots, we have extended this approach to every police force in England and Wales from April. Suffolk will receive £1,000,000 for the hotspot programme for 2024/25 tackling areas of high incidents of both anti-social behaviour and serious violence.

We are also strengthening police and local authority powers to tackle anti-social behaviour through a number of measures in the Criminal Justice Bill.

Farewell to Jurgen Klopp

Found: Resolved , That Sir James Duddridge and Andrea Leadsom be discharged from the Treasury Committee and Dr Thérèse

Found: Work of the Department Rt Hon Dr Thérèse Coffey MP, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural

Found: Mr John Baron (Conservative, Basildon and Billericay) (added 21 Nov 2022) 1 of 4 (25.0%) Dr Thérèse

Found: Mr John Baron (Conservative, Basildon and Billericay) (added 21 Nov 2022) 24 of 40 (60.0%) Dr Thérèse

Found: Watch the meeting Members present: Angus Brendan MacNeil (Chair); Dr Thérèse Coffey; Vicky Ford; Mark

Found: Watch the meeting Members present: Angus Brendan MacNeil (Chair); Dr Thérèse Coffey; Vicky Ford; Mark

Found: Conservative, West Worcestershire ) John Baron MP (Conservative, Basildon and Billericay ) Rt Hon Dr Thérèse

Found: Watch the meeting Members present: Dame Harriett Baldwin (Chair); Dr Thérèse Coffey; Samantha Dixon

Found: Mark Pritchard Rachel Maclean Andrew Rosindell Daniel Kawczynski Sir Iain Duncan Smith Dr Thérèse

Found: Mark Pritchard Rachel Maclean Andrew Rosindell Daniel Kawczynski Sir Iain Duncan Smith Dr Thérèse

Found: Mark Pritchard Rachel Maclean Andrew Rosindell Daniel Kawczynski Sir Iain Duncan Smith Dr Thérèse

Found: _NC115 Mrs Flick Drummond Dr Thérèse Coffey Rachael Maskell Tim Farron Maggie Throup Sir Iain

Found: Agreed to_1 Dr Thérèse Coffey .

Found: Agreed to_1 Dr Thérèse Coffey .

Found: following Honours upon the undermentioned: Damehood of the Order of the British Empire  The Rt Hon Thérèse