Asked by: Virginia Crosbie (Conservative - Ynys Môn)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of bringing forward legislative proposals to make housing more affordable for young people.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
We are building the homes our country needs and helping a new generation to own their own home – and making sure young people are not priced out of their area.
We are investing over £12 billion in affordable housing over 5 years, the largest investment in affordable housing in a decade. This includes our new £11.5 billion Affordable Homes Programme which will leverage up to £38 billion of private finance and deliver up to 180,000 homes should economic conditions allow. Half of these homes will be for affordable home ownership, supporting aspiring homeowners to take their first step on to the housing ladder. This includes our new, fairer model for Shared Ownership and 1,500 First Homes for first-time buyers and key workers.
First Homes are homes which are sold to first-time buyers with a discount of at least 30 per cent from full market value, making both deposits and mortgage requirements cheaper and opening up the dream of home ownership to even more people. The discount will be funded by developers themselves as part of their contributions through planning obligations, without a direct cost to central Government or local authorities.
Crucially, the discount will be passed on to all future purchasers in perpetuity, so these homes will keep helping first-time buyers onto the property ladder for generations to come.
In future, 25 per cent of all affordable homes delivered by developers as part of their obligatory contributions will be First Homes. This new First Homes Requirement means that there will be a steady and sustained supply of these homes, helping first-time buyers across England.
This is in addition to our Help to Buy: Equity Loans, which have helped over 257,000 first-time buyers into homeownership since its launch in 2013 to 1 December 2020. The new Help to Buy: Equity Loan scheme opened on 1 April 2021 and will run to March 2023. It is targeted at first-time buyers only and has regional property price caps based on average first time buyer property prices.
The mortgage guarantee scheme launched on 19 April 2021 and will be available until December 2022, enabling lenders to offer 95% loan-to-value (LTV) mortgages to both first-time buyers and existing homeowners, throughout the whole UK, on homes up to £600,000 in value. 95% mortgages supported through the scheme are open to all adults, including young adults.
For renters, in response to Covid-19 pressures, the Government has put in place an unprecedented support package to help renters and ensure they can continue to afford their housing costs, including retaining the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and Universal Credit uplift until September.
In the long run we need to build more homes to tackle affordability. This is why we are bringing forward an ambitious near-£20 billion investment to underpin the Government’s long-term housing strategy. We are also pushing forward with our planning reforms to establish a simpler, faster and more predictable system and ensure that the right homes are built in the right places where they are needed.
We are making good progress towards achieving our supply ambitions of delivering 1 million homes this Parliament and building 300,000 homes a year over the longer term. Last year, around 244,000 homes were delivered – the highest level for over 30 years and the seventh consecutive year that net supply has increased.
Asked by: Anna McMorrin (Labour - Cardiff North)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, when his Department plans to publish the 2021-22 Official Development Assistance funding allocation for the United Nations Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Answered by Nigel Adams
The Foreign Secretary's Statement to Parliament on 21 April 2021 set out preliminary details of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office's ODA spending plans for Financial Year 2021-2022. We have prioritised our aid to be more strategic and remain a force for good across the world. Following a thorough review, the FCDO's aid budget has been allocated in accordance with UK strategic priorities against a challenging financial climate of COVID. The FCDO is now working through what this means for individual partners and programmes, in line with the priorities identified. The funds for individual agencies and programmes will be published on DEVtracker and in Statistics on International Development.
The portfolio agreed by the Foreign Secretary will focus our investment and expertise on issues where the UK can make the most difference and achieve maximum strategic coherence, impact, and value for money. The UK will spend more than £10 billion in aid this year, including more than a billion pounds fighting the international causes and consequences of climate change and more than a billion pounds improving global health systems to build back better after the coronavirus pandemic.
Asked by: Lord Roberts of Llandudno (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the findings of the Independent Chief Inspector, published on 8 March, of the asylum accommodation at (1) Napier Barracks, and (2) Penally military training camp.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration announced an inspection of contingency asylum accommodation on 25 January 2021.
The department acknowledges the ICIBI’s decision to publish on 8 March the initial findings from site visits to Napier Barracks and Penally.
The ICIBI’s inspection continues and a full inspection report will follow.
The duration of the inspection is a matter for the ICIBI and upon its conclusion, following standard procedure set out in the UK Borders Act 2007, the Department will issue a formal response alongside the inspection report as it is laid before Parliament and published on Gov.UK.
197 people accommodated at Napier tested positive for coronavirus earlier this year. There have been no recorded cases at Penally.
Asked by: Lord Roberts of Llandudno (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many asylum seekers have contracted COVID-19 while staying at (1) Napier Barracks, and (2) Penally military training camp.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration announced an inspection of contingency asylum accommodation on 25 January 2021.
The department acknowledges the ICIBI’s decision to publish on 8 March the initial findings from site visits to Napier Barracks and Penally.
The ICIBI’s inspection continues and a full inspection report will follow.
The duration of the inspection is a matter for the ICIBI and upon its conclusion, following standard procedure set out in the UK Borders Act 2007, the Department will issue a formal response alongside the inspection report as it is laid before Parliament and published on Gov.UK.
197 people accommodated at Napier tested positive for coronavirus earlier this year. There have been no recorded cases at Penally.
Asked by: Zarah Sultana (Labour - Coventry South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of introducing phased returns for school children of different ages.
Answered by Nick Gibb
As my right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister, set out in his statement to Parliament on 22 February, based on the Government’s assessment of the current data against its four tests for relaxing restrictions, it was possible for children to return to schools from 8 March 2021. All secondary pupils will be offered testing from 8 March and those who consent to testing should return to face to face education following their first negative test result. The Government has prioritised education as we cautiously begin to relax restrictions. It is vital for all pupils to attend school to minimise the longer-term impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on their education, wellbeing, and wider development.
Opening schools to all pupils is a national priority. As a result of the efforts the country has made, it is now possible for schools to welcome back pupils in all year groups, in addition to the vulnerable children and young people and the children of critical workers who have continued to attend face to face education since the start of the spring term. At every stage since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, our decisions have been informed by the scientific and medical evidence, both on the risks of COVID-19 infection, transmission, and illness, and on the known risks to children and young people not attending school and college, balancing public health and education considerations. The Government has published its COVID-19 children, young people and education settings evidence summary which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/evidence-summary-covid-19-children-young-people-and-education-settings.
To prepare for full reopening, schools should update their risk assessment and ensure they are implementing the system of controls in order to minimise the risk of infection. The system of controls is described in full within the published schools guidance which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/actions-for-schools-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak/schools-coronavirus-covid-19-operational-guidance.
The Government’s Roadmap is a step-by-step plan to ease restrictions in England cautiously, starting with schools and colleges, taking into consideration the scientific evidence. The Roadmap sets out indicative, “no earlier than” dates for the steps which are five weeks apart. These dates are driven by the data; before taking each further step, the Government will review the latest data on the impact of the previous step against its four tests. The Government’s Roadmap can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/963491/COVID-19_Response_-_Spring_2021.pdf.
Asked by: Mike Penning (Conservative - Hemel Hempstead)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment he has made of the extent to which expert advice provided to Government is directly accountable to Parliament; whether he plans to ensure that SAGE and its sub-committees are directly accountable to Parliament; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt - Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons
The Government is committed to sharing information and data that informs decision-making. The minutes of SAGE meetings and the evidence considered by SAGE are routinely published on GOV.UK.
Asked by: Mike Penning (Conservative - Hemel Hempstead)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment he has made of the importance of ensuring that expert advice is publicly accountable; and what steps he is taking to ensure that SAGE and its sub-committees can be held accountable to Members of Parliament.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt - Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons
The Government is committed to sharing information and data that informs decision-making. The minutes of SAGE meetings and the evidence considered by SAGE are routinely published on GOV.UK.
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham, Hodge Hill)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what (a) policies and (b) grant and funding programmes his Department has introduced to provide support to individuals and organisations in response to the covid-19 outbreak; and what funding has been allocated to each of those programmes in the 2020-21 financial year.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department is continuing to fund nurseries and schools as normal and provide 16-19 funding allocations to further education (FE) colleges as usual throughout the COVID-19 outbreak.
A) Policies
Schools
This has been a challenging time for teachers and school leaders, and the Government has supported them since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak. We have regularly published and updated guidance to ensure that it reflects the most up-to-date medical and scientific information to make sure that teachers, parents, and young people are as well informed as possible in the current rapidly changing circumstances. The latest guidance for schools is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/actions-for-schools-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak.
On 3 February 2021, the Government confirmed the appointment of Sir Kevan Collins as the education recovery commissioner. He will advise on the approach for education recovery, with a particular focus on helping students catch up on education lost because of the COVID-19 outbreak.
The Department will be working in collaboration with the education sector to develop short, medium, and long-term plans to make sure children and young people have the chance to make up their education over the course of this Parliament, further details will be made available in due course.
Vulnerable Children
During the period of national lockdown announced on 4 January 2021, primary, secondary, alternative provision, special schools, and FE colleges have remained open to vulnerable children and young people. We expected schools to offer a place to all vulnerable children. Those who are vulnerable include those who have a social worker, those with an education health and care plan or those who have been deemed to be otherwise vulnerable by local authorities or education providers.
Where vulnerable children and young people cannot attend education provision (including post-16), we have asked local authorities, schools, and colleges to ensure they have systems in place to keep in touch with them.
Throughout all restrictions to date, children’s social care services and early help services have continued to support vulnerable children and young people and their families. We will continue to ensure this is the case during this period of national restrictions.
Temporary secondary legislation was laid in April 2020 to support the delivery of services and allow local authorities to focus on child protection issues. As the COVID-19 outbreak continued and following public consultation, a small number of flexibilities from those regulations remained in place from 25 September 2020. These regulations are due to expire on 31 March 2021. A public consultation seeking views on extending the flexibilities for a further six months ran until 28 February 2021.
B) Grant and Funding Programmes
Early Years
We are funding nurseries as usual and all children are able to attend their nurseries in all parts of England. Where nurseries do see a drop in income from either parent-paid fees or income from the Department for Education, they are able to use the furlough scheme.
We will fund local authorities in the 2021 spring term based on their January 2021 census. If attendance rises after the census is taken, we will top-up councils to up to 85% of their January 2020 census level, where a local authority can provide evidence for increased attendance during the spring term. This will give local authorities additional financial confidence to pay providers for increasing attendance later in the spring term.
We have provided £5.3 million to existing early years voluntary and community sector (VCS) partners on the home learning environment and EYSEND to support disadvantaged early children’s development and well-being and early years providers to help children catch up and transition back into early education in the context of the COVID-19 outbreak.
We have invested £9 million on improving the language skills of reception age children who need it most this academic year. Working with the Education Endowment Foundation, we are providing training and resources for the Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI), free of charge, to schools that would particularly benefit.
In January 2021, we announced £18 million to support language development in the early years next academic year – £8 million to offer the NELI to many more schools and £10 million for a pre-reception early language catch up programme.
Schools and Catch up
The Government is providing a comprehensive package of support, including the £170 million Covid Winter Grant Scheme, enabling councils to support those families in need.
The Government announced a significant expansion of the Holiday Activities and Food Programme with funding of up to £220 million, reaching all local authority areas from Easter 2021.
Last year Edenred reported that over £380 million worth of voucher codes had been redeemed into supermarket eGift cards by schools and families through the scheme as of 19 August 2020.
Edenred also reported that over 20,350 schools placed orders for the scheme.
During the period of school opening restrictions, schools have continued to provide meal options for all pupils who are in school. Meals should be available free of charge to all infant pupils and pupils who are eligible for benefits-related free school meals who are in school. Schools are also continuing to provide free school meal support to pupils who are eligible for benefits-related free school meals and who are learning at home.
We have been providing £3.50 top-up funding per eligible pupil per week for schools providing lunch parcels and £15 per eligible child per week for vouchers. Extra costs incurred will be claimed retrospectively by schools and all valid claims will be paid in full.
In June 2020 we announced a catch-up package worth £1 billion, including a ‘Catch Up Premium’ worth a total of £650 million to support schools to make up for lost teaching time and £350m for the National Tutoring Programme.
In January 2021 we also committed to a further programme of catch up which will involve £300 million of new money to early years, schools and providers of 16-19 further education for high-quality tutoring.
The Government is investing over £400 million to support access to remote education and online social care services, including securing 1.3 million laptops and tablets for disadvantaged children and young people.
As of Monday 1 March, over 1.2 million laptops and tablets have been delivered to schools, trusts, local authorities, and further education colleges.
The Government has set out further measures to support education recovery in the written ministerial statement of Wednesday 24 February, which includes a new one-off £302 million Recovery Premium for state primary and secondary schools, building on the Pupil Premium, to further support pupils who need it most.
Further Education
16-19
Part of the skills recovery package included the high value courses for school and college leavers one year offer for 18- and 19-year-olds. This is to encourage and support delivery of selected Level 2 and 3 qualifications in specific subjects and sectors that enable a more productive economy and support young people to remain engaged with education, employment and training. This is a one-off intervention in response to the COVID-19 outbreak and supports 18- to 19-year-olds leaving school or college to find work in high-demand sectors like engineering, construction, and social care. We will provide £100 million to create more places on Level 2 and 3 courses for the 2020-21 academic year.
We are supporting the largest ever expansion of traineeships, providing an additional 30,000 places in the 2020-21 academic year, to ensure that more young people have access to high-quality training. To encourage this, we have introduced £1,000 incentive payments for employers who offer traineeship work placement opportunities between 1 September 2020 and 31 July 2021. As part of the Plan for Jobs, an additional £111 million has been made available for traineeships in the 2020-21 financial year.
The 16 to 19 tuition fund was set up to provide one-off funding, for the 2020-21 academic year only. We are providing £37 million to support the 16-19 tuition fund for the remainder of the 2020-21 academic year as part of the wider COVID-19 catch up package. This is ring fenced funding for schools, colleges and all other 16-19 providers to help mitigate the disruption to learning arising from COVID-19.
19+
We are continuing to invest in education and skills training for adults through the Adult Education Budget (AEB) £1.34 billion in 2020-21.
In response to COVID-19, we have introduced a change to the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) AEB Funding Rules for the 2020-21 academic year, to enable providers to use their learner support funds to purchase IT devices for students (aged 19+) and to help them meet students’ IT connectivity costs, where these costs are a barrier to accessing or continuing in their training.
Last year, due to COVID-19, we lowered the AEB reconciliation threshold for grant funded providers to 68%, based on provider’s average delivery during the 2019-20 academic year. In view of the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 outbreak, including the transfer to remote education and the reduced attendance on-site with effect from 5 January, we are currently reviewing the end of year reconciliation position for 2020-21. Any changes to the published arrangements will be communicated in the ESFA’s Weekly Update (published on gov.uk) in due course.
We welcome my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s announcement of an additional £17 million in the 2020-21 financial year to support an increase in the number of sector-based work academy programme (SWAP) placements. In England, the pre-employment training element of SWAPs is generally funded by the Department for Education through the AEB, which in several regions is managed by the relevant mayoral combined authority (MCA).
In devolved areas, it is for MCAs (or the Greater London Authority) to determine funding arrangements for adult education for their residents.
Higher Education
We recognised that the COVID-19 outbreak would make this a challenging year for higher education (HE). This is why, alongside access to the business support schemes, we brought forward £2 billion+ worth of tuition fee payments, provided £280 million grant funding for research and established a loan scheme to cover up to 80% of a university’s income losses from international students for the academic year 2020-21 up to the value of their non-publicly funded research activity support research.
The Department has worked with the Office for Students (OfS) to clarify that universities are able to use existing funds, worth around £256 million for academic year 2020-21, towards hardship support. We are also making available an additional £50 million of hardship funding this financial year. In total we have made £70 million of funding available for student hardship including the £20 million made available to universities in December. Alongside this we have worked with the OfS to provide student space, which has been funded by up to £3 million by the OfS to support student mental health.
Apprenticeships
Following the COVID-19 outbreak, we introduced policy flexibilities to support apprentices and employers to continue with, and complete, their programmes and we encouraged providers and assessment organisations to deliver training and assessments flexibly, including remotely, to enable this. Our guidance provides further detail: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-apprenticeship-programme-response.
To help employers offer new apprenticeships, as part of the Government's Plan for Jobs, they are able to claim £2,000 for every apprentice they hire as a new employee under the age of 25, and £1,500 for new apprentices aged 25 and over between 1 August 2020 and 31 March 2021. Incentive payments are funded from the overall annual, apprenticeship budget. In the 2020-21 financial year, funding available for investment in apprenticeships in England is almost £2.5 billion, double what was spent in the 2010-11 financial year.
Vulnerable Children
The Government has provided £4.6 billion of funding to support councils through the COVID-19 outbreak, this is part of an unprecedented level of additional financial support in recent times. The Government has also allocated funding to children’s voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations. This funding aims to ensure charities can continue to provide services that safeguard vulnerable children and protect them from harm.
The Government has provided £40.8 million this year for the Family Fund to help over 80,000 low-income families who have children with disabilities or serious illnesses. This includes £13.5 million specifically in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will allow schools to spend their allocation of the Coronavirus catch up premium funding beyond the 2020-21 school year, given that schools have been closed for the spring term to date.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Schools are able to choose to use a proportion of their catch up premium to support catch up in the next academic year.
The Department recognises that it may be challenging for schools to deliver effective catch up measures during school closures. We have asked for schools to strategically plan the catch up support required for their pupils when schools reopen fully. The Education Endowment Foundation has published resources to help schools implement a catch up strategy using evidence based approaches. These resources are available here: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/covid-19-resources/guide-to-supporting-schools-planning/.
In January 2021, my right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister, committed to working with parents, teachers and pupils to develop a long term plan to help pupils make up their learning over the course of this Parliament. As an immediate step to support early years, schools, and colleges, on 24 February 2021 the Department committed an additional £700 million to support summer schools, tutoring, early language interventions, and a new one-off recovery premium. Further detail on this support and funding will be shared in due course.
Asked by: Wes Streeting (Labour - Ilford North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 29 January 2021 to Question 131337 on Students: Coronavirus, what the terms of reference are for the group monitoring and advising on lost and differential learning due to the covid-19 outbreak; when the members were appointed to that group; if he will publish the membership of that group; how many times that group plans to meet; and when that group plans to report.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department recognises that school closures have had a significant impact on the education of young people across the country, and that disruption will have been felt differently by individual students, depending on their circumstances. We will work in collaboration with the wider education sector to develop a long-term plan to make sure children and young people have the chance to make up their education over the course of this Parliament. Sir Kevan Collins, in his role as Education Recovery Commissioner, will work with Government and the Department’s stakeholders on assessing and addressing the impact of differential learning loss for students.
To support students to catch up with their education, the Government has announced a catch-up package worth £1 billion to support children and young people. This includes a ‘Catch up Premium’ worth £650 million and a £350 million National Tutoring Programme for disadvantaged pupils. The Department has also announced that we will provide a further programme of catch up. This will involve a further £300 million for early years, schools and colleges for tutoring and we will work in collaboration with the education sector to develop specific initiatives for summer schools and a COVID Premium to support catch up.