Written questions by Cane.

Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of proposed reductions to Official Development Assistance funding on the implementation of his Department's disability inclusion and rights strategy, published on 16 February 2022.

The Prime Minister has set out a new strategic vision for government spending on defence and security and Official Development Assistance (ODA). Detailed decisions on how the ODA budget will be used will be worked through as part of the ongoing Spending Review based on various factors including impact assessments.

Whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of prescribing Mounjaro for Cushing's syndrome on the NHS.

The Department has made no assessment. Mounjaro is not licensed as a treatment option for Cushing’s syndrome. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) would consider an evaluation of Mounjaro for Cushing’s syndrome if the company, Eli Lilly, were to apply to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency for a marketing authorisation, or licence, for use in the treatment of Cushing’s syndrome.Clinicians can prescribe medicines outside of their licensed indication, known as “off-label” use, where there is sufficient evidence and/or experience of using the medicine to show its safety, quality, and efficacy, provided there is no suitable alternative licensed medicine, and subject to funding by the National Health Service locally.

What steps her Department is taking to support the mental health and well-being of school students.

I refer the hon. Member for Ely and East Cambridgeshire to the answer of 4 March 2025 to Question 33348.

What steps she is taking to ensure the availability of high-quality childcare.

It is the department’s ambition that parents have access to high-quality, affordable and flexible early education and childcare.Next year alone, we plan to provide over £8 billion for the early years entitlements, which is a more than 30% increase compared to 2024/25, as we roll out the expansion of the entitlements, so eligible working parents of children aged from nine months can access 30 hours of funded childcare.From the start of September 2024, eligible working parents have been entitled to 15 hours a week of early education and care from the term after their child turns nine months. So far, over 320,000 additional parents are now accessing a place. Going further, from September 2025, eligible working parents will be able to access 30 hours of early education and childcare a week, over 38 weeks of the year, from the term after their child turns nine months until they start school.In September 2024, my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education announced that state-funded primary phase schools could apply for up to £150,000 of £15 million capital funding to create or expand on-site nurseries. Schools could apply between 17 October and 19 December 2024 and will be notified of the outcome in this year. This new funding will complement ongoing work to expand provision across the country, including the £100 million capital funding allocated to local authorities in 2023/24 to increase capacity of early years and wraparound provision in local areas.Parents may also be eligible for childcare support through Tax-Free Childcare or Universal Credit Childcare.The department is determined to create change in the approach to early years, focusing on high-quality early education, celebrating and supporting early years careers, and embedding the sector into the wider education system. We are delivering programmes to support the sector to attract talented staff and childminders by creating conditions for improved recruitment, alongside programmes to better utilise the skills of the existing workforce.The department also wants to ensure that parents are aware of and accessing all government-funded childcare support they are eligible for. We are raising awareness of the government-funded childcare support available via the Childcare Choices website to stimulate increased take-up by eligible families, because this could make a significant financial difference to families.

Whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of expanding the eligibility criteria for free school meals.

Under current programmes, 2.1 million disadvantaged pupils are registered to receive benefits-based free school meals (FSM). An additional 1.3 million are eligible for a free meal under universal infant free school meals. The government is committed to delivering an ambitious strategy to reduce child poverty by tackling the root causes and giving every child the best start in life. To support this, a new Ministerial taskforce has been set up to develop a Child Poverty Strategy. The taskforce will consider a range of policies, assessing what will have the greatest impact in driving down rates of child poverty. As with all policies, the government keeps the approach to FSM under review.

What steps her Department is taking to help tackle persistent absence among young carers.

The department wants to ensure that young carers have the best life chances by supporting them in their education. We recognise that absence from school is almost always a symptom of wider needs and barriers that a family is facing. It is often the best early indication of need in a family that may not be in contact with other services. The department’s expectations of local authorities and schools, as set out in the ‘Working together to improve school attendance’ guidance, were made statutory on 19 August 2024. The ‘support-first’ ethos of the attendance guidance is that pupils and families, including young carers, should receive holistic, whole-family support to help them overcome the barriers to attendance they are facing. This includes holding regular meetings with the families of pupils who the school, and/or local authority, consider to be vulnerable, to discuss attendance and engagement at school. Schools are expected to recognise that absence is a symptom and that improving pupil’s attendance is part of supporting the pupil’s overall welfare. Young carers are also now part of the school census, which will improve their visibility in the school system and allow schools to better identify and support their young carers. This will provide an annual data collection to establish long term trends. Separately, the department also publishes daily attendance data on a fortnightly basis and will continue to monitor the quality of data on young carers that is collected via the school register for consideration to include in the daily data collection in the future. Schools can also use pupil premium funding to support other pupils with identified needs, including young carers. Pupil premium funding has increased to over £2.9 billion for the 2024/25 financial year.

What recent assessment she has made of the trends in the level of teacher recruitment.

High-quality teaching is the biggest in-school factor that makes a difference to a child’s education, so having sufficient expert teachers is critical to the government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and boost the life chances for every child. This government has inherited a system with critical shortages of teachers, with numbers not keeping pace with demographic changes.Information on the school workforce, including the number of teachers entering and leaving service in state-funded schools, is published in the ‘School workforce in England’ statistical publication which is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england.Under the previous government, the rates and numbers of entrants to the state-funded teaching profession in England decreased in 2023/24, while the rates and numbers of leavers from to the state-funded teaching profession in England remained stable. While leavers have returned to pre-pandemic levels, entrants have returned to figures similar to the 2021/22 academic year. Each year, the number of teachers entering state-funded schools in England is higher than those leaving.With regards recruitment of trainee teachers, information on the numbers and characteristics of new entrants to initial teacher training (ITT) in England is published in the ‘ITT census’ statistical publication which is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/initial-teacher-training-census.In 2024/25, there were 27,836 new entrants to ITT, a 6% increase compared to the revised figure of 26,376 in 2023/24. This reverses a trend of year-on-year decreases since the pandemic period with a high of 40,377 new entrants in 2020/21. Despite the increase in the latest year, numbers of entrants remain below pre-pandemic levels.Postgraduate ITT targets for 2024/25 were set using analysis from the Teacher Workforce Model which can be viewed here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/postgraduate-initial-teacher-training-targets.The percentage of the postgraduate ITT target achieved for all subjects (secondary and primary) was 69%. This is an increase of 9 percentage points, up from 60% in 2023/24.The department is committed to recruiting an additional 6,500 new expert teachers across our schools, both mainstream and specialist, and our colleges over the course of this Parliament, which is why this government accepted the School Teachers’ Review Body’s recommendation of a 5.5% pay award for teachers and leaders in maintained schools from last September. To further boost recruitment, we announced an ITT financial incentives package for the 2025/26 recruitment cycle worth £233 million, a £37 million increase on the last cycle. This includes a range of measures, including bursaries worth £29,000 tax-free and scholarships worth £31,000 tax-free, to encourage talented trainees to train in key subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing.

What assessment she has made of the potential merits of increasing the Digital Services Tax.

While the Government keeps all tax policy under review, we have no plans to raise the rate of the Digital Services Tax (DST).The UK remains committed to removing the DST once a global solution on the taxation of the digital economy through Pillar 1 of the G20-OECD Inclusive Framework project is in place.

What assessment she has of the potential merits of introducing a national financial inclusion strategy.

On 5 December, the Government announced its intention to publish a Financial Inclusion Strategy, developed alongside a supporting Committee. The Financial Inclusion Committee’s mission is to tackle barriers to individual and households’ ability to access affordable and appropriate financial products and services. Through this committee, I am working with consumer groups and industry to develop, coordinate and implement interventions to support financial inclusion in the UK, ahead of the publication of a strategy later this year.

Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the reduction in ODA spending on the UK's role in (a) international development and (b) humanitarian aid.

The Prime Minister has set out a new strategic vision for government spending on defence and security, and Official Development Assistance (ODA). Detailed decisions on how the ODA budget will be used will be worked through as part of the ongoing Spending Review on the basis of various factors including impact assessments.

Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of reductions in ODA spending on the effectiveness of the UK's contributions to (a) global health, (b) vaccination and (c) disease prevention initiatives.

The impact on specific programmes is being worked through following the decision to reduce UK Official Development Assistance (ODA) from 0.5% of Gross National Income (GNI) to 0.3% in 2027. We will be taking a rigorous approach to ensure all ODA delivers value for money. Announcements will be made following the completion of the ongoing Spending Review process.

Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of reductions in spending on Official Development Assistance on levels of (a) mortality and (b) disease in countries to which the UK gives aid.

The impact on specific programmes is being worked through following the decision to reduce UK Official Development Assistance (ODA) from 0.5% of Gross National Income (GNI) to 0.3% in 2027. We will be taking a rigorous approach to ensure all ODA delivers value for money. Announcements will be made following the completion of the ongoing Spending Review process.

Commonwealth and Development Affairs, if he will list the global health programmes which will have their UK contributions (a) reduced and (b) cut, in the context of reductions in the level of ODA spending.

The impact on specific programmes is being worked through following the decision to reduce UK Official Development Assistance (ODA) from 0.5% of Gross National Income (GNI) to 0.3% in 2027. We will be taking a rigorous approach to ensure all ODA delivers value for money. Announcements will be made following the completion of the ongoing Spending Review process.

What fiscal steps she is taking to increase growth in rural areas.

Kick starting economic growth, including in rural areas, is the number one mission of this Government so we can put more money in people’s pockets. A prosperous rural economy will be underpinned by strong public services, improvements to rural connectivity and productivity, and a thriving farming sector.To this end, we are restoring stability and investment in our public services as the best way to support economic growth across the country, including in rural areas. We confirmed investment of over £500 million this year to continue to deliver Project Gigabit and the Shared Rural Network, driving the rollout of broadband and 4G connectivity, which will support growth in rural areas across the UK. We confirmed over £650 million of funding for local transport beyond our City Region Sustainable Transport Settlements, in 2025-26, to ensure that transport connections improve in our towns, villages and rural areas.We have also committed £5 billion to the farming budget over two years – which includes the largest ever amount of funding directed at sustainable food production and nature’s recovery in our country’s history.

Communities and Local Government, what recent assessment she has made of the potential implications for her policies of the research by her Department entitled The impact of a change in the maximum park home sale commission, published on 16 June 2022.

The park homes sector is an important part of the housing market.The government recognises that there are longstanding concerns about the requirement to pay site owners a commission upon sale of a park home.We will set out plans in due course to seek further evidence from the sector on the rationale for the commission.

Communities and Local Government, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of delays to the implementation of the Future Homes Standard on home efficiency standards.

The Government understands the urgency of introducing new energy efficiency standards so that as many homes as possible are built to be zero-carbon ready. We are committed to implementing the Future Homes Standard this year, and are taking the time to set the technical requirements at a level which is ambitious and keeps us on track to achieve our net zero ambitions, while also being achievable across all sites.In the meantime, please rest assured that an uplift to the energy efficiency standards in 2021, which came into effect in June 2022, set high standards for home energy efficiency. New homes built between now and the Future Homes Standard coming into force will likely be built to these 2021 standards. They should therefore have excellent fabric quality, including insulation, and are likely to include low-carbon technologies, such as solar panels or heat pumps.

Communities and Local Government, what steps she is taking to review voter identification requirements ahead of the May 2024 local elections.

I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to Question UIN 33335 answered on 27 February 2025.

Communities and Local Government, whether she plans to implement the recommendations of the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities's report entitled The impact of a change in the maximum park home sale commission: executive summary, published on 16 June 2022.

The park homes sector is an important part of the housing market.The government recognises that there are longstanding concerns about the requirement to pay site owners a commission upon sale of a park home.We will set out plans in due course to seek further evidence from the sector on the rationale for the commission.

Communities and Local Government, what steps she is taking to ensure that planning decisions support the Government’s climate targets.

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing the world today, and the planning system can play a powerful role in helping to mitigate and adapt to its effects.The revised National Planning Policy Framework published on 12 December 2024 made some immediate changes to support climate change mitigation and adaptation through increased deployment of renewables and sustainable drainage systems, amendments to transport policy and changes to emphasise the importance of climate considerations in planning.The Framework also makes clear that the need to mitigate and adapt to climate change should be considered in preparing and assessing planning applications.

Whether her Department is taking steps to ensure that chemistry education includes (a) green, (b) digital and (c) transferrable skills alongside technical knowledge of the subject.

The government recognises that science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects, such as chemistry, are vital for the UK’s future economic needs and to drive up productivity. Chemistry skills, in particular, are necessary for a range of careers within the green economy, including in growing sectors like carbon capture and hydrogen.The government has established an independent Curriculum and Assessment Review, covering ages 5 to 18, chaired by Professor Becky Francis CBE. The review will seek to deliver a curriculum that readies young people for life and work, building the knowledge, skills and attributes needed to thrive. The review group will publish an interim report in early spring and will publish its final report with recommendations this autumn. The department will take decisions on what changes to make to the curriculum in light of these recommendations.Oak National Academy, an independent arm’s length body which provides free, high quality, optional and adaptable curriculum resources for schools, has recently published new curriculum sequences and associated lesson resources in science from key stages 1 to 4, including chemistry. Within Oak’s science curriculum, it provides a broad range of resources to support teachers to teach about green skills, climate change and sustainability. This year, Oak is also introducing a new curriculum thread entitled ‘How can we live sustainably to protect Earth for a better future?’. This will form part of its secondary science curriculum and will support the growing emphasis of green skills in chemistry. As well as this, Oak’s chemistry lessons include a variety of data analysis tools to strengthen pupils’ digital competency. Its chemistry lessons include real-life applications of chemistry, such as industrial chemistry, environmental chemistry and material science to strengthen technical knowledge.