Asked by: Tom Morrison (Liberal Democrat - Cheadle)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of a potential link between children going missing and the risk of exploitation, including child criminal exploitation and child sexual exploitation.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
We recognise that missing episodes, especially repeat missing episodes, however brief, can often be a red flag for a number of harms including child sexual exploitation and criminal exploitation.
Each missing child case represents a vulnerable young person at risk, often with complex underlying causes that need to be understood and addressed. We are working to support the NPCC and its rollout of its ‘Children who go Missing from Care’ Framework as another vital tool when tackling head-on the underlying vulnerabilities in children that often lead to missing episodes and further strengthening frontline response.
In addition, the new National Centre for VAWG and Public Protection (NCVPP) launched in April 2025 to improve the response to violence against women and girls and child sexual abuse. The Home Office has already invested £13.1 million into the Centre in 2025-25 and will provide a further £13.9m funding this financial year. The NCVPP will improve the response to missing children by driving up standards; developing best practices and delivering training to officers across a range of vulnerabilities.
We will continue to work closely across Government Departments, with the police and other safeguarding partners, to improve the whole system response to missing children.
Asked by: Tom Morrison (Liberal Democrat - Cheadle)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department are taking to help prevent delays to spinal operations including where infrastructure such as operating room seals are broken leading to operations being cancelled and delayed.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government recognises the significant impact that delays to spinal surgery can have on patients and is taking action to reduce waiting times and minimise cancellations.
As set out in the Elective Reform Plan, we are increasing elective capacity and improving productivity across the National Health Service, including through the expansion of dedicated surgical hubs. These hubs use ringfenced staff and facilities to protect planned operations from urgent and emergency pressures.
NHS England also provides targeted national and regional support to trusts with the greatest waiting list pressures, including through the clinically led Getting It Right First Time programme and their Further Faster programme for spinal services.
Asked by: Tom Morrison (Liberal Democrat - Cheadle)
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 impact of delayed and cancelled spinal operations on patients' lives and b) what support is available to patients awaiting spinal operations for months or years.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government recognises the significant impact that delays to spinal surgery can have on patients and is taking action to reduce waiting times and minimise cancellations.
As set out in the Elective Reform Plan, we are increasing elective capacity and improving productivity across the National Health Service, including through the expansion of dedicated surgical hubs. These hubs use ringfenced staff and facilities to protect planned operations from urgent and emergency pressures.
NHS England also provides targeted national and regional support to trusts with the greatest waiting list pressures, including through the clinically led Getting It Right First Time programme and their Further Faster programme for spinal services.
Asked by: Tom Morrison (Liberal Democrat - Cheadle)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he has made a recent assessment of the potential merits of removing the 4% collection fees for receiving parents using the child maintenance service.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Following a public consultation on wider reforms to consolidate the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) into a single service type where the CMS collects and transfers payments, the Government published its response setting out plans to reform the CMS. This includes plans to reduce fees to 2% for both receiving parents and compliant paying parents, maintaining the 20% rate for non-compliant paying parents on top of their calculated maintenance amount.
The reformed service is expected to improve CMS’s ability to re-establish compliance more efficiently when payments break down. Retaining fees at this substantially reduced level will balance the interests of customers with the need to offset the cost of the service and provide the investment needed to make the reforms, reducing the burden on the taxpayer.
Our intention is to implement these changes as soon as parliamentary time allows.
Asked by: Tom Morrison (Liberal Democrat - Cheadle)
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 help ensure that delays to spinal operations are mitigated against and minimised.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government recognises the significant impact that delays to spinal surgery can have on patients and is taking action to reduce waiting times and minimise cancellations.
As set out in the Elective Reform Plan, we are increasing elective capacity and improving productivity across the National Health Service, including through the expansion of dedicated surgical hubs. These hubs use ringfenced staff and facilities to protect planned operations from urgent and emergency pressures.
NHS England also provides targeted national and regional support to trusts with the greatest waiting list pressures, including through the clinically led Getting It Right First Time programme and their Further Faster programme for spinal services.
Asked by: Tom Morrison (Liberal Democrat - Cheadle)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to improve data sharing between schools, local authorities and safeguarding agencies to support the identification of children at risk of going missing.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government takes the issue of any child going missing, from home or care, extremely seriously and has provided clear guidance about responsibilities for all children who go missing. When a child is found, they must be offered an independent Return Home Interview and local authorities, police and voluntary services should also work together to understand why the child went missing and what support they may need, including with their mental health, in the future to prevent them from going missing again.
The department has announced a £7 million funding boost to early support hubs across England providing drop-in mental health support for young people aged 11 to 25. Alongside this, we are investing an extra £688 million in mental health services this year and are recruiting 8,500 additional mental health workers across children’s and adult services.
Measures from the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill and Crime and Policing Bill, reforms being delivered through the Families First Partnership Programme, supported by £2.4 billion, updates to the Working Together to Safeguard Children statutory guidance, and oversight from the Keeping Children Safe ministerial board will ensure that we better respond when children go missing and intervene earlier to tackle the underlying drivers.
Measures in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill aim to put an end to misconceptions about legal barriers to sharing information, through introducing an Information Sharing Duty and making provision for a Single Unique Identifier to improve information sharing between agencies.
Asked by: Tom Morrison (Liberal Democrat - Cheadle)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of mental health support available to children who are at risk of going missing.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government takes the issue of any child going missing, from home or care, extremely seriously and has provided clear guidance about responsibilities for all children who go missing. When a child is found, they must be offered an independent Return Home Interview and local authorities, police and voluntary services should also work together to understand why the child went missing and what support they may need, including with their mental health, in the future to prevent them from going missing again.
The department has announced a £7 million funding boost to early support hubs across England providing drop-in mental health support for young people aged 11 to 25. Alongside this, we are investing an extra £688 million in mental health services this year and are recruiting 8,500 additional mental health workers across children’s and adult services.
Measures from the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill and Crime and Policing Bill, reforms being delivered through the Families First Partnership Programme, supported by £2.4 billion, updates to the Working Together to Safeguard Children statutory guidance, and oversight from the Keeping Children Safe ministerial board will ensure that we better respond when children go missing and intervene earlier to tackle the underlying drivers.
Measures in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill aim to put an end to misconceptions about legal barriers to sharing information, through introducing an Information Sharing Duty and making provision for a Single Unique Identifier to improve information sharing between agencies.
Asked by: Tom Morrison (Liberal Democrat - Cheadle)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to improve standards in relation to bailiffs.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Government is committed to strengthening the regulation of the private enforcement (bailiff) sector and establishing an independent regulatory framework as soon as parliamentary time allows. Last year, we consulted on how to do so in a way that ensures that regulation is targeted, proportionate, as well as ensuring fair treatment for everyone, including people in vulnerable circumstances. This will build on the excellent work that the Enforcement Conduct Board (ECB) is already doing on a voluntary basis to improve standards in the sector. This includes the recent publication in March 2026 of Vulnerability and Ability to Pay Standards, strengthening expectations on the identification of vulnerability, affordability assessments and the use of sustainable repayment arrangements.
Asked by: Tom Morrison (Liberal Democrat - Cheadle)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is currently taking to improve the training of staff and quality of service for users of the child maintenance service.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) is committed to improving customer experience and are taking significant steps to enhance service quality for customers.
All CMS caseworkers receive extensive technical and soft skills training to ensure they are fully equipped to meet the needs of customers. We are investing in developing, reviewing, and improving new entrant and caseworker training materials and delivery across CMS in order to ensure greater consistency in customer interactions. Our transformed caseworker Smart Instructions ensure guidance is clearer, easier to follow, and more consistent, enabling caseworkers to access up to date instructions more quickly and reliably during customer interactions.
CMS proactively use quality assurance checks, call listening, customer insight from complaints and feedback to identify where caseworkers may need additional coaching or support to deliver a consistent and confident telephony service.
Through our Service Modernisation Programme, we are expanding digital channels and self-service options providing greater choice and flexibility and a faster and more responsive service to our customers. We have enhanced customer communications by increasing the use of SMS text and email and simplifying letters to make them clearer and easier to understand. Our online service My Child Maintenance Case (MCMC), allows parents to access advice and manage their case 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Asked by: Tom Morrison (Liberal Democrat - Cheadle)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps her Department is taking to support research into myalgic encephalomyelitis.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
UK Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) Medical Research Council (MRC) has prioritised research into Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) for many years, investing over £4.65 million since 2020.
MRC is working with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) to deliver on agreed actions from the ME/CFS Final Delivery Plan. This includes funding strategic initiatives to increase research capacity and hosting engagement events to bring together research funders, commercial and academic researchers and patient representatives.
In November 2025, DHSC, NIHR and UKRI, co-hosted a research showcase to discuss and explore the ongoing research in the fields of ME/CFS and long COVID. MRC continues to liaise with the ME/CFS research community to support future applicants.