Asked by: Wendy Morton (Conservative - Aldridge-Brownhills)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to strengthen engagement between schools, colleges, universities and engineering businesses of all sizes in the West Midlands to improve awareness of technical education and apprenticeship opportunities.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government is committed to ensuring that young people understand the full range of apprenticeship and technical education (ATE) opportunities available, working with employers to strengthen engagement and develop the skills businesses need.
The Careers & Enterprise Company’s (CEC) national network of 44 Career Hubs bring together schools, colleges and employers, using local data and insight to identify barriers to young people progressing into ATE pathways and target support locally.
In the West Midlands, through the Boosting Skills Pathways Fund, Career Hubs are working with local employers in priority sectors, including engineering and advanced manufacturing, alongside schools, colleges and training providers, to develop employer-led outreach and increase young people’s awareness and uptake of ATE opportunities, including work experience.
Through its Employer Standards, the CEC also encourages employers of all sizes to work with local schools and colleges so young people have information about careers pathways before key transition points.
Asked by: Wendy Morton (Conservative - Aldridge-Brownhills)
Question to the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of Government-backed financial support for Jaguar Land Rover on small and medium-sized businesses in its supply chain.
Answered by Blair McDougall - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade) (Jointly with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Last year, Government backed Jaguar Land Rover with a partial guarantee for a commercial loan of £1.5bn through UK Export Finance, to help JLR unlock commercial financing and ensure liquidity while operations were restored following a cyber-attack.
We continue to work with industry to strengthen the resilience of the UK automotive supply chain. As part of this, the DRIVE35-funded Suppliers Readiness and Transformation Programme, delivered in partnership with the North-East and West Midlands Metro Mayors, has allocated up to £50 million per region to support locally critical components and capabilities.
Asked by: Wendy Morton (Conservative - Aldridge-Brownhills)
Question to the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, what steps his Department is taking to help small and medium-sized automotive suppliers in the West Midlands diversify their customer base.
Answered by Blair McDougall - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade) (Jointly with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Our modern Industrial Strategy launched DRIVE35, the largest government investment in the automotive industry of the post-war era.
Through DRIVE35, we are working with Mayoral Strategic Authorities, including the West Midlands, to strengthen the UK's automotive manufacturing base and build competitive industrial clusters and resilient regional supply chains.
The DRIVE35 Supplier Readiness and Transformation (SRT) programme has invested up to £100 million in the North East and West Midlands to accelerate supply-chain growth and EV readiness. It offers grants to help West Midlands automotive suppliers scale, diversify and build critical EV supply-chain capacity.
Asked by: Wendy Morton (Conservative - Aldridge-Brownhills)
Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to the Young Futures Hubs expansion announced on 15 September 2026, whether Walsall Council was invited to submit an expression of interest; whether an expression of interest was received; and whether the Department will publish its assessment of Walsall during the selection process.
Answered by Vicky Foxcroft - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport)
Walsall Council was not shortlisted to submit an Expression of Interest (EOI) to the Young Futures Hubs and Transformation Programme on this occasion, however they may be eligible for future funding from the Youth Matters: Your National Youth Strategy commitments.
The methodology used to shortlist Local Authorities used a combination of indicators relating to crime, deprivation and community need and mental health. This targeted the programme’s core goals: improving mental health and wellbeing, increasing opportunities, and reducing vulnerability to crime. The top 50 ranked local authorities were invited to submit an EOI to the Young Futures Hubs and Transformation programme.
Further information on the eligibility criteria, methodology and Expression of Interest process has been published on GOV.UK.
While Walsall was not eligible for this targeted funding, the wider Young Futures programme has been committed to sharing the learnings from the programme to support all LAs to improve the youth services.
Asked by: Wendy Morton (Conservative - Aldridge-Brownhills)
Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to the Enrichment Expansion programme area list published on 25 September 2026, if her Department will publish the scores and rankings used to assess (a) Walsall, (b) Birmingham and (c) Sandwell for inclusion in the programme; and for what reasons Walsall was not selected.
Answered by Vicky Foxcroft - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport)
DCMS is committed to making a difference in the places that need it the most, through investing to build social and community cohesion and to enhance opportunity where outcomes are poorest.
Evidence points clearly to economic and social outcomes being systematically worse in places where both deprivation and community need is highest; places experiencing ‘double disadvantage’. For this reason, across our programmes that aim to improve social and community outcomes, we will look to implement a tailored focus on targeting these ‘double disadvantage’ places – to ensure that our funding is concentrated in the communities where we can make the biggest difference. DCMS’ approach to place targeting is publicly available.
The Enrichment Expansion Programme (EEP), a DCMS-funded programme delivered in strategic partnership with DfE, will invest £22.5 million across 3 years to support up to 400 secondary schools to provide a youth led, tailored enrichment offer and help them meet the Enrichment Framework benchmarks.
In order to select local authorities to participate in the programme, lower-layer super output areas (LSOAs) were identified as being in the most deprived 20% nationally on both the Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index (IDACI) and the Community Needs Index (CNI). In this instance IDACI serves a similar purpose to the Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) used in the DCMS wide approach but focuses in particular on deprivation impacting young people. LSOAs meeting both criteria were classified as experiencing double disadvantage. The proportion of double-disadvantaged LSOAs within each lower-tier local authority was then calculated, and local authorities were ranked on this basis, with a minimum number of three areas represented across all nine regions.
Additionally, areas were included to align with DfE’s Mission North East and Mission Coastal. The Place Missions will bring expert support into classrooms and new opportunities beyond the school gates for children in the North East, Hastings and Scarborough.
To ensure each school within the programme receives tailored support from the programme, we intend to group schools into clusters of 5-8 according to geographic proximity. Resultantly, we selected 54 clusters across 59 areas to accommodate 400 schools. Walsall did not rank highly enough to be selected as eligible for the programme. It was also not in scope for clustering given the number of eligible schools within neighbouring eligible areas.
Asked by: Wendy Morton (Conservative - Aldridge-Brownhills)
Question to the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, what assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of Government financial support available to small and medium-sized businesses in Jaguar Land Rover’s supply chain affected by production disruption.
Answered by Blair McDougall - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade) (Jointly with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Last year, Government backed Jaguar Land Rover with a partial guarantee for a commercial loan of £1.5bn through UK Export Finance, to help JLR unlock commercial financing and ensure liquidity while operations were restored following a cyber-attack.
We are working with industry to strengthen the resilience of the UK automotive supply chain and since the cyber-attack we have introduced a new supply chain programme. The DRIVE35 funded Suppliers Readiness and Transformation Programme, delivered in partnership with the Northeast and West Midlands Metro Mayors, has allocated up to £50 million per region to support locally critical components and capabilities.
Asked by: Wendy Morton (Conservative - Aldridge-Brownhills)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate she has made of the cost to the public purse of the NHS reorganisation proposed in the Health Bill.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We estimate there will be a one-off cost of approximately £1 billion to £1.3 billion to transform the centre of the health system in England, including funding for staff exits across DHSC, NHS England, ICBs and Commissioning Support Units. These reforms will remove duplication and bureaucracy, with more than £1 billion a year saved by the end of Parliament. Those savings will more than offset redundancy costs, with savings redirected to frontline care and no cuts to direct NHS or frontline investment.Asked by: Wendy Morton (Conservative - Aldridge-Brownhills)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to the £65 million for rescuing community buildings and businesses announced on 25 September 2026, whether voluntary and community organisations in Aldridge-Brownhills will be able to apply directly for funding; and when applications will open.
Answered by Jim McMahon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
We have announced £65m for communities across the country to rescue and take over the running of important local community assets, saving pubs, clubs and sports fields from closure.
Further details of the fund and how to apply will be set out in due course.
Asked by: Wendy Morton (Conservative - Aldridge-Brownhills)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what consideration she has given to convening a meeting with Network Rail, Wrexham, Shropshire and Midlands Railway and MPs representing communities on the proposed route to discuss the timetable and infrastructure work needed to support a future track access application.
Answered by Keir Mather - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department supported the proposed Wrexham, Shropshire and Midlands Railway services in principle, recognising the potential benefits for passenger choice and connectivity. However, that support was always conditional on the services being accommodated without detriment to network performance, resilience or the rights of other operators.
On 8 October 2026, the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) published its decision not to approve the application, concluding that there is insufficient capacity on the West Coast Main Line and that introducing additional services in the current circumstances would be detrimental to performance and existing users. The Department respects the ORR's decision in its role as the independent rail regulator.
The Department regularly engages with Network Rail, train operators, parliamentarians and other stakeholders on matters relating to rail services and infrastructure. The Department will continue to engage with relevant parties as appropriate on issues relating to rail network performance, capacity and future development.
Asked by: Wendy Morton (Conservative - Aldridge-Brownhills)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to the announcement entitled Boarded-up high streets brought back to life with £210m boost, published on 25 September 2026, what funding she has allocated, or planned to allocate, to Walsall Council from the £125 million Derelict Buildings Fund.
Answered by Jim McMahon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Further details, including allocations and selection methodology, will be published in due course.