Asked by: Thérèse Coffey (Conservative - Suffolk Coastal)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent progress his Department has made on implementing the Darwin Plus fund.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The UK Government has recently expanded the Darwin Plus programme to better meet the needs of the UK Overseas Territories. In 2023, Defra introduced to Darwin Plus a new local scheme aimed at building capacity and growing local economies in-territory, and a new strategic scheme for fostering greater innovation, ambition and collaboration in and between Territories.
On 22 April 2024, Defra will open the programme to new applications. The longstanding Darwin Plus Fellowships scheme will be rebranded as Darwin Plus People and Skills to appeal to applicants beyond academia. Under its new name, this scheme will welcome applications from Territory nationals and long-term residents for activities which will upskill them and support them to meet long-term strategic outcomes for their natural environments.
The UK Government remains committed to keeping the structure of the programme under review, with a focus on suitability and practical conservation.
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to (a) enable partnership working and (b) increase collaboration between schools, youth organisations and sport providers.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government recognises the importance of encouraging partnership working between schools, youth organisations, and sports providers to provide opportunities for young people. Our current Enrichment Partnerships pilot, which was a joint bid with the Department for Education, is working closely with schools, youth organisations, councils and enrichment and sports providers to test whether greater coordination locally can enhance school enrichment offers and remove barriers to participation, create efficiencies (reducing the burden on school staff resources) and unlock existing funding and provision.
The Government-funded network of 450 School Games Organisers (SGO) works directly with local schools and sports providers to coordinate inclusive sport competitions across 40 different sports and activities. In the 2022/23 academic year, the SGO network provided over 2.2 million opportunities for children to take part in local, inclusive sport and physical activity.
Our updated statutory guidance and peer review programme for Local Authorities aims to encourage best practice of local youth provision and advice on how to create a sufficient and unified approach to out of school provision for young people. We also are providing £320,000 to Regional Youth Work Units across England (RYWUs) over the next two years, to build upon their current practices and ensure a consistent minimum level of regional leadership. The funding will support RYWUs to influence youth policy, develop partnerships, support and grow the youth workforce, ensure young people's voices are heard, and improve collaboration across the regions.
Working with the Young People Foundation Trust, DCMS also encourages and supports local youth partnerships through the Local Partnerships Fund. The fund is designed to encourage productive connections between youth services and councils, schools, local sporting and smaller community based organisations, as well as local businesses and funders so they can provide a more holistic experience for young people.
Asked by: Steve Reed (Labour (Co-op) - Croydon North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of funding available to highway authorities to carry out statutory duties on public rights of way.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The final Local Government Finance Settlement for 2024-25 makes available up to £64.7 billion, an increase in Core Spending Power of up to £4.5 billion or 7.5% in cash terms on 2023-24. This is an above inflation increase.
Local highway authorities themselves are best placed to understand local priorities and allocate funding accordingly to fulfil their statutory rights of way duties.
Asked by: Daniel Kawczynski (Conservative - Shrewsbury and Atcham)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, what diplomatic support he is providing to Burundi after the closure of that country's border with Rwanda in January 2024.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
The UK regrets the impact that the closure of the border between Burundi and Rwanda is having on local communities and hopes to see it reopened. Most recently, the British Ambassador raised these concerns with the Burundian Foreign Minister on 19 March. We encourage the Government of Burundi to engage with Rwanda on this issue and support further dialogue to enable a swift political solution.
Asked by: Peter Gibson (Conservative - Darlington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of using recovered monies from the proceeds of crime to provide adaptive sports equipment for police officers.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
Funds recovered under the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) are distributed under the Home Office’s Asset Recovery Incentivisation Scheme (ARIS). The objective of ARIS is to provide agencies with incentives to use POCA powers to recover more criminal assets, with the overall aim of cutting crime and delivering justice.
Under the scheme, a proportion of the assets recovered using powers under POCA are redistributed to the agencies involved in the recovery, based on their relative contributions. The current allocation sees ARIS receipts split 50:50 between central government and operational partners.
In the spirit of the Scheme, the Government encourages agencies to use ARIS funds to increase asset recovery and, where appropriate, fund local crime fighting priorities for the benefit of the community. However, the use of ARIS allocations/payments is a matter for each agency and is left to their discretion. Further information on ARIS and how funds are spent can be found at: Asset Recovery Statistical Bulletin: Financial years ending March 2018 to March 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Andy Carter (Conservative - Warrington South)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how many grants were made to local newspapers under the Future News Fund pilot; and what the value was of each grant.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Future News Fund sought to invest in new technological prototypes, start-ups and innovative business models to explore new ways of sustaining the industry in this changing landscape. In 2019, Government invested £2 million in the Future News Fund, which received 178 applications. Grants were awarded to 19 projects, ranging from funding to support the trial of a digital wallet model where publishers were able to offer the option to readers to pay for news on a casual basis, to funding to a local news publisher to build a new system to involve members and the local community in the reporting of local news.
It was designed to be open to as wide a range of innovations as possible, including those from existing news publishers. The government was not involved in deciding which organisations should receive funding. Nesta made these decisions independently with advice from industry experts. Nesta’s evaluation of the Fund was completed in 2020, and can be found alongside further information on the grantees here: https://www.nesta.org.uk/project/future-news-fund/
Asked by: Tracey Crouch (Conservative - Chatham and Aylesford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether the Government provides support for young people who have been arrested for rough sleeping under the Vagrancy Act.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government has made the unprecedented commitment to end rough sleeping within this Parliament and to fully enforce the Homelessness Reduction Act. We have already embarked on a strategy to shift the focus to prevention and move vulnerable individuals into multi-agency support, backed by £2.4 billion over three years.
The government’s ‘Ending Rough Sleeping for Good’ strategy published in 2022 recognises that young people face particular challenges in accessing and maintaining accommodation. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities is funding £2.5 million is being provided through the Rough Sleeping Initiative 2022-25 to fund youth services in local areas. The youth interventions provide funding to 8 local authorities across England to develop specialist youth support such as outreach workers, prevention officers and specialist housing for those under 25. The Single Homelessness Accommodation Programme (SHAP) is also delivering over 2,000 homes by March 2025, including 650 homes for young people sleeping rough or at risk of rough sleeping and funding for wrap-around support tailored to individual needs.
Where anyone is arrested, Liaison and Diversion (L&D) services have been introduced into police custody, to seek to ensure that vulnerable people are identified and offered access to the help they may need. A key component of these schemes is to provide referrals to community treatment and support services and to provide advice to police custody staff on how best to support people with these vulnerabilities.
In certain circumstances, local authorities have a duty to provide accommodation to young people in their area aged under 18 deemed ‘in need’ under the Children’s Act 1989.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
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 potential impact of trends in the level of average waiting times for receiving NHS mental health (a) treatment and (b) other support services on the (i) wellbeing and (ii) employment of patients requiring those services.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
While no such assessments have been made, through the NHS Long Term Plan the Government is providing record levels of investment and increasing the mental health workforce, to expand and transform National Health Service mental health services in England, helping to reduce waiting times. The NHS is also working towards implementing new waiting time measures for people requiring mental healthcare in both accident and emergency and in the community, to increase transparency, drive improvements in the quality of data, promote timely access to the most appropriate and high-quality support, and drive accountability in local systems.
The 2023 Spring Budget contained a package of over £400 million to support the long-term sick and disabled in remaining in or entering employment. This included approximately £75 million for the expansion of the Individual Placement and Support scheme, to help people with severe mental illness into employment. At the 2023 Autumn Statement, we announced a further £795 million of funding to increase the number of sessions per course of Talking Therapies treatment and broaden access, leading to an expected additional 384,000 people completing a course of treatment by 2028/29. It will also fund an additional 100,000 Individual Placement and Support places over five years, which will help people with severe mental illness gain and retain paid employment.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
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 with Cabinet colleagues of the impact of trends in the number of patients waiting for mental health treatment on the economy.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
While no such assessments have been made, through the NHS Long Term Plan the Government is providing record levels of investment and increasing the mental health workforce, to expand and transform National Health Service mental health services in England, helping to reduce waiting times. The NHS is also working towards implementing new waiting time measures for people requiring mental healthcare in both accident and emergency and in the community, to increase transparency, drive improvements in the quality of data, promote timely access to the most appropriate and high-quality support, and drive accountability in local systems.
The 2023 Spring Budget contained a package of over £400 million to support the long-term sick and disabled in remaining in or entering employment. This included approximately £75 million for the expansion of the Individual Placement and Support scheme, to help people with severe mental illness into employment. At the 2023 Autumn Statement, we announced a further £795 million of funding to increase the number of sessions per course of Talking Therapies treatment and broaden access, leading to an expected additional 384,000 people completing a course of treatment by 2028/29. It will also fund an additional 100,000 Individual Placement and Support places over five years, which will help people with severe mental illness gain and retain paid employment.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 19 February 2024 to Question 13342 on Special Educational Needs, if she will allocate additional funding to Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council to help increase its capacity to conduct education health and care plan assessments.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The cost of local authorities’ Education, Health and Care (EHC) needs assessment and planning function is paid from authorities’ general fund from, for example, council tax, business rates or the Revenue Support Grant provided by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC). Any increase in capacity for the EHC needs assessment team must be met from the local authority’s general fund.
Stockport special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) Local Area Partnership’s Accelerated Progress Plan (APP), which has been in place since the Ofsted and Care Quality Commission (CQC) joint area SEND revisit in September 2022, includes actions to address the quality of EHC plans in the area. Department for Education officials and NHS (England) SEND advisers have been providing support, challenge and advice in monitoring the progress of the APP.
Stockport is also one of the 55 local areas which have been invited to join the government’s £85 million Delivering Better Value Programme to support local areas to achieve maximum value for money in delivering SEND provision, whilst maintaining and improving the outcomes they achieve. One of the workstreams being funded by this grant is ‘Governance and Accountability of SEN Support and EHC Needs Assessments’ through which the department is assisting Stockport to improve their EHC plan processes and the quality of plans.
The department wants to ensure that EHC needs assessments, where required, are conducted as quickly as possible, so that children and young people can access the support they need. In March 2023, the government set out its plans to reform and improve the SEND system through its SEND and alternative provision (AP) Improvement Plan. The plan commits to establishing a single national system that delivers for every child and young person with SEND so that they enjoy their childhood, achieve good outcomes and are well prepared for adulthood and employment.
In the short term, the department is working hard to improve the current EHC plan system through a range of measures to improve the SEND system. The department is investing heavily in the SEND system. Examples of the department’s investments include: improving specialist capacity by investing over £21 million to train 400 more educational psychologists from 2024, investing £2.6 billion between 2022 and 2025 to fund new special and AP places and improve existing provision (including announcing 41 new special free schools and 38 special free schools that are currently in the pipeline), investing £30 million to develop innovative approaches for short breaks for children, young people and their families over three years and investing over £7 million to fund extension of the Alternative Provision Specialist Taskforce pilot programme, (delivering now in 22 local authorities) to run until 2025.
The department is also putting in place measures to improve the SEND system in the longer term, so that where an EHC plan is needed they can be issued as quickly as possible, so that children and young people can access the support they need.