Asked by: Tracy Gilbert (Labour - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her department has any plans to extend the restricted list of countries from which adoption is prohibited to also cover surrogacy arrangements.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The Children and Adoption Act 2006 places a statutory duty on my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education to maintain and publish a list of countries in respect of which restrictions on intercountry adoption apply. This Restricted List relates solely to adoption and is intended to safeguard children where there are concerns about the integrity of adoption processes in particular countries.
Surrogacy arrangements do not fall within the remit of the Department for Education. Policy responsibility for surrogacy, including any consideration of regulatory frameworks, rests with the Department of Health and Social Care
Accordingly, the department has no plans to extend the Restricted List to cover surrogacy arrangements.
Asked by: Tracy Gilbert (Labour - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many apprenticeships the Construction Industry Training Board supported in (a) Edinburgh North and Leith constituency and (b) Scotland in (i) 2023 and (ii) 2024.
Answered by Janet Daby
In the Edinburgh North and Leith constituency, the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) supported 36 registered employers in 2023, and 47 registered employers in 2024. A CITB registered employer may access more than one grant or fund, and the cumulative count of support for registered employers within the constituency was 58 and 113 respectively.
Across Scotland, the CITB supported 2,864 registered employers in 2023, and 3414 registered employers in 2024, with 6,683 and 9,076 cumulative counts of support respectively.
The number of apprentices supported is not routinely captured at constituency level, so the CITB is unable to provide this figure from currently available data.
Through the CITB’s contract with Skills Development Scotland, it supported an average of 4,440 apprentices per month in 2023, and an average of 4,500 apprentices per month in 2024.
Asked by: Tracy Gilbert (Labour - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many businesses the Construction Industry Training Board supported in (a) Edinburgh North and Leith constituency and (b) Scotland in (i) 2023 and (ii) 2024.
Answered by Janet Daby
In the Edinburgh North and Leith constituency, the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) supported 36 registered employers in 2023, and 47 registered employers in 2024. A CITB registered employer may access more than one grant or fund, and the cumulative count of support for registered employers within the constituency was 58 and 113 respectively.
Across Scotland, the CITB supported 2,864 registered employers in 2023, and 3414 registered employers in 2024, with 6,683 and 9,076 cumulative counts of support respectively.
The number of apprentices supported is not routinely captured at constituency level, so the CITB is unable to provide this figure from currently available data.
Through the CITB’s contract with Skills Development Scotland, it supported an average of 4,440 apprentices per month in 2023, and an average of 4,500 apprentices per month in 2024.
Asked by: Tracy Gilbert (Labour - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has made an assessment of the potential impact of VAT on private schools on children with special educational needs in Scotland.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.
HM Treasury (HMT) is responsible for UK wide VAT policy. HMT has published its assessment of the impacts of removing the VAT exemption that applied to private school fees. This assessment also considers impacts on Scotland and can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-on-private-school-fees/applying-vat-to-private-school-fees#summary-of-impacts.
While VAT is a reserved tax and the VAT policy will apply across the UK, education policy is devolved. The Scottish government will be able to provide further details of special educational needs support available to pupils in Scotland.