Written questions by Lavery.

How many people receiving the standard level of PIP did not score four points in any of the ten descriptors in (a) Blyth and Ashington constituency, (b) Northumberland, (c) the North East and (d) England.

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, with some information published alongside the Spring Statement. These publications can be found in ‘Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper’. A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

How many people claiming the standard level of the Personal Independence Payment who did not score four points in any of the 10 descriptors have a claim where someone else receives Carer's Allowance in (a) Blyth and Ashington constituency, (b) Northumberland, (c) the North East and (d) England.

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, with some information published alongside the Spring Statement. These publications can be found in ‘Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper’. A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

How many people receiving the enhanced level of PIP did not score four points in any of the ten descriptors allowing someone else to receive carers allowance in (a) Blyth and Ashington constituency, (b) Northumberland, (c) the North East and (d) England.

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, with some information published alongside the Spring Statement. These publications can be found in ‘Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper’. A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

How many people claiming the standard level of the Personal Independence Payment who did not score four points in any of the 10 descriptors have a claim where someone else receives the carers component of Universal Credit in (a) Blyth and Ashington constituency, (b) Northumberland, (c) the North East and (d) England.

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, with some information published alongside the Spring Statement. These publications can be found in ‘Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper’. A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

How many people under the age of 16 are claiming Disability Living Allowance in (a) Blyth and Ashington constituency, (b) Northumberland, (c) the North East and (d) England.

The latest available data on the number of children claiming Disability Living Allowance can be found at https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/. The requested data can be found in the ‘DLA: Cases in Entitlement’, which allows you to view the number of individuals that are entitled to DLA. To filter for information related to children only, this can be found by expanding ‘Client Type’ and selecting ‘Children’. The specific areas requested can be found by expanding ‘Westminster Parliamentary Constituency 2024’ or ‘National – Regional – LA – OAs’. Guidance on how to use Stat-Xplore can be found here: https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/index.html. An account is not required to use Stat- Xplore, the ‘Guest Login’ feature gives instant access to the main functions.

How many people claiming the enhanced level of the Personal Independence Payment who did not score four points in any of the 10 descriptors have a claim where someone else receives the carers component of Universal Credit in (a) Blyth and Ashington constituency, (b) Northumberland, (c) the North East and (d) England.

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, with some information published alongside the Spring Statement. These publications can be found in ‘Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper’. A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

How many people receiving the enhanced level of PIP did not score four points in any of the ten descriptors in (a) Blyth and Ashington constituency, (b) Northumberland, (c) the North East and (d) England.

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, with some information published alongside the Spring Statement. These publications can be found in ‘Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper’. A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

What steps she is taking to help reduce the workload of teachers.

Teacher and leader workload is unacceptably high. This is why the department is committed to working with the sector to eliminate unnecessary workload.We know that reducing teacher workload will play a key role in recruiting and retaining excellent school staff and will support the government’s mission to transform the education system so that all children and young people get the skills, care and opportunities they deserve.Work is underway across the department to help reduce burdens, including through the reform of accountability, curriculum and assessment and the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system and through the government’s child poverty taskforce.We are working with the sector to identify where we can go further to address unnecessary workload, including through the Improving Education Together agreement.Our ‘Improve workload and wellbeing for school staff’ service, developed alongside school leaders, contains a range of supportive resources for schools to review and reduce workload, and improve staff wellbeing.The department worked in partnership with the education sector and mental health experts to develop the Education Staff Wellbeing Charter.The charter sets out commitments from the department, Ofsted, and schools and colleges to protect and promote the wellbeing of staff, including an explicit commitment to continue to support schools to drive down unnecessary workload. Over 4,000 schools and colleges have signed up to the charter.In addition, we are working with a group of colleges to pilot a suite of funding and audit simplifications to make the system more efficient and less bureaucratic to support the further education (FE) workforce to reduce burdens. We have given these colleges more flexibility by reducing FE funding rules, simplifying funding calculations, and removing some individual ringfences within adult skills funding and 16-19 funding. We are testing how we can make audit and assurance processes simpler, make it easier for colleges to deliver Skills Bootcamps, and are testing improvements to apprenticeships.

What steps she is taking to help reduce the divide in attainment between the north and south of England; and what the barriers are to reducing that divide.

All children and young people should have every opportunity to succeed, no matter who they are or where they are from. However, we know that too many children and young people face barriers to learning. This is not acceptable, which is why the Opportunity Mission will break down barriers and the unfair link between background and success, helping all children achieve and thrive wherever they are in the country. High and rising standards in every school are at the heart of this mission. The department aims to deliver these improvements through excellent teaching and leadership, a high-quality curriculum, and a system which removes the barriers to learning that hold too many children back. To ensure all children and young people have expert qualified teachers driving high and rising standards across our schools and colleges, the department is committed to recruiting 6,500 new expert teachers. Teaching School Hubs have been established across the country, which provide approved high-quality professional development to teachers at all stages of their careers. These Hubs play a significant role in delivering initial teacher training, the Early Career Framework, national professional qualifications and Appropriate Body services. Three Rivers Teaching School Hub is a centre of excellence which delivers teacher training and development across Newcastle upon Tyne, North Tyneside and Northumberland. We have also launched the Curriculum and Assessment Review that will look closely at key challenges to attainment, and the barriers which hold children back from the opportunities and life chances they deserve. The department is strengthening our tools for faster and more effective school improvement by launching the new Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellence (RISE) teams. Supported by over £20 million, these teams will provide both mandatory, targeted intervention for schools identified by Ofsted as needing to improve, and a universal service, acting as a catalyst for a self-improving system for all schools. The department has also introduced the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to give every family the certainty that they will be able to access a good local school for their child, where they can achieve and thrive, regardless of where they live. Absence is one of the biggest barriers to success for children and young people. Missing school regularly is harmful to a child’s attainment, safety and physical and mental health, which limits their opportunity to succeed. This government is determined to tackle this and have a comprehensive strategy in place. This includes our attendance mentoring programme, which multiple areas in the north, including Middlesborough, Blackpool and Hartlepool, are benefiting from. Backed by over £15 million investment, the programme provides targeted one-to-one support for students who are persistently absence. To enable the sharing of good practice across the sector, we also have a network of Attendance Hubs led by a school with good attendance practices. Each hub has a broad geographical spread, and schools are clustered with similar schools. There are currently 31 hubs across England working with 2,000 schools.

What the life expectancy is for (a) women and (b) men in each local area in the UK.

The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority. A response to the Hon gentleman’s Parliamentary Question of 25th February is attached.

What steps he is taking to help tackle shortages of medications due to supply issues in the North East of England.

The Department monitors and manages medicine supply at a national level so that stocks remain available to meet regional and local demand. Information on stock levels within the North East of England is not held centrally.Most supply issues can be managed to avoid shortages, and while we can’t always prevent supply issues from occurring, we do have a range of well-established processes and tools to manage them when they arise, to mitigate risks to patients.The resilience of the United Kingdom’s supply chains is a key priority, and the Department and NHS England are committed to helping to build long term supply chain resilience for medicines. We are continually learning and seeking to improve the way we work to both manage and help prevent supply issues and avoid shortages. The Department, working closely with NHS England, is taking forward a range of actions to improve our ability to mitigate and manage shortages and strengthen our resilience. As part of that work, we continue to engage with industry, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, and other colleagues across the supply chain as we progress work to co-design and deliver solutions.

How many contracts his Department has awarded to Altrad since 2022; what the value of those contracts is; and how many of those contracts relate to the removal of asbestos.

We do not hold any contracts for this supplier “Altrad”.

What the statistics are for poverty related death per local area in each of the last five years.

There are no official published statistics on poverty-related deaths. Statistics on deaths from specific causes are based on the medical causes of death recorded on a death certificate, which are coded using the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). Although poverty is included within the ICD it is rarely coded as a cause of death.Estimates of the number of deaths due to some factors that influence mortality but are not always stated as a cause of death, such as smoking, can be made. However, there is no agreed definition of a poverty-related death for use within Government, and no official statistics on potential numbers.

How many children were living in poverty in (a) Northumberland, (b) the North East and (c) nationally in (i) 2022-23 and (ii) 2023-24.

In 2022/23 in Northumberland there were 10,858 children living in relative poverty before housing costs. Figures on an after housing costs basis are not available below region level. Source: Children in Low Income Families statisticsIn 2022/23 in the North East there were 0.1m children living in relative poverty on a before housing costs basis and 0.2m children living in relative poverty on an after housing costs basis. Source: Households Below Average Income statisticsIn 2022/23 in the UK there were 3.2m children living in relative low poverty on a before housing costs basis and 4.3m children living in relative poverty on an after housing costs basis. Source: Households Below Average Income statistics2023/24 figures will be published in March 2025.

What steps she is taking to tackle the decline in pupils achieving the expected standard in (a) reading, (b) writing and (c) maths by age 11 in Northumberland.

High and rising school standards, with excellent foundations in reading, writing and mathematics, are at the heart of the government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and give every child the best start in life.Attaining proficient standards in language development and the reading and writing of English are the keys to unlocking the rest of the curriculum and key indicators for future success in further education, higher education and employment.The English Hubs programme was launched in 2018 with the aim of improving the teaching of reading, with a focus on phonics, early language development and reading for pleasure. So far, over £90 million has been invested in the English Hubs programme, and a further £23 million has been committed for academic year 2024/25.One Excellence English Hub (formerly St Michael’s Church of England English Hub) supports schools in Northumberland. The hub has intensively supported 81 schools in their region since the start of the programme, including a number of schools in Northumberland. It has delivered over 700 days of intensive literacy specialist support and has funded over 120 schools to purchase phonics programmes and resources. In addition, it has supported over 1,300 schools across its region with reading teaching training, with over 40 of these schools being in Northumberland specifically.The Reading Framework, published in 2023, provides guidance to help schools improve reading for all pupils so they leave primary able to engage confidently with reading in all subjects at secondary school. The department’s Maths Hubs are providing local school to school expertise, advice and training on how to strengthen outcomes in mathematics. This programme aims to improve the teaching of mathematics through the provision of continuing professional development, as the department knows that the quality of teaching is the biggest educational factor in determining children’s outcomes. This includes through the Mastering Number programme, which helps children in the first years of primary school master the basics of arithmetic, including number bonds and times tables. The Great North Maths Hub supports schools in Northumberland and has worked with 91% of primary schools in in the area, with 64% having participated in the Mastering Number programme.The government has established an independent Curriculum and Assessment Review, which will look closely at the key challenges to attainment for young people, in line with the government’s ambition for a curriculum that delivers excellent foundations in reading, writing and mathematics.The review group will publish an interim report in early 2025 setting out their interim findings and confirming the key areas for further work. The final review with recommendations will be published in autumn 2025.Regional Improvement for Standards of Excellence (RISE) teams will be in place early this year, offering a targeted and bespoke service to schools that Ofsted identify as needing to improve. RISE teams and supporting organisations will work collaboratively with the school and their responsible body to rapidly and sustainably put in place targeted interventions, based on the school’s particular circumstances.To improve standards, all schools will also be able to draw on RISE teams for help in understanding the most effective practice, with RISE teams encouraging schools in their local area to work together and learn from one another.

How many exclusions there were in each school in Blyth and Ashington constituency in the academic year (a) 2022-23 and (b) 2023-24.

The department publishes figures from the school census on suspensions and permanent exclusions from state-funded schools in England. The most recent release, covering the 2023/24 autumn term, can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/suspensions-and-permanent-exclusions-in-england. School level data is available in this release in the data catalogue section, in the file ‘Suspensions and permanent exclusions – full year school level’. This file includes the school URN number, local authority establishment (laestab) number, school name and local authority. Parliamentary constituency can be identified by using the Get Information About Schools website, available here: https://get-information-schools.service.gov.uk/. This website gives many details of schools, including the school URN number, laestab number and Parliamentary constituency. Suspension and permanent exclusion data is not yet available for the 2023/24 academic year, this is expected to be published in July 2025.

How many people who reoffended were homeless in each of the last three years.

Accommodation outcomes for prison leavers are recorded against the categories of settled accommodation, other housed, bail/probation accommodation, homeless (not rough sleeping) and rough sleeping, rather than ‘no fixed address’. Outcomes against these accommodation categories in 2023-24 can be found in Table 2 of the ‘Housed on Release from Custody Data Tables’ which form part of the Offender Accommodation Outcomes publication (Offender Accommodation Outcomes, update to March 2024 - GOV.UK).  The notes that accompany the tables provide definitions for each accommodation category.Data on the number of people who re-offended who are homeless are published as part of the Proven Reoffending Quarterly Statistics Bulletin. Details can be found in Table C3 at the link below:https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/671f7c4b34853837d7fc4097/proven-reoffending-oct22-dec22-3-monthly.ods.Prison leavers at risk of becoming homeless and who are supervised by probation can be offered up to 12 weeks of basic accommodation on release by HM Prisons and Probation Service, with support to move to settled accommodation. This programme has been gradually rolled out nationwide since July 2021 and since then has supported over 12,200 prison leavers who would otherwise have been homeless.

How many prisoners were released without details held of a fixed address is the last 12 months.

Accommodation outcomes for prison leavers are recorded against the categories of settled accommodation, other housed, bail/probation accommodation, homeless (not rough sleeping) and rough sleeping, rather than ‘no fixed address’. Outcomes against these accommodation categories in 2023-24 can be found in Table 2 of the ‘Housed on Release from Custody Data Tables’ which form part of the Offender Accommodation Outcomes publication (Offender Accommodation Outcomes, update to March 2024 - GOV.UK).  The notes that accompany the tables provide definitions for each accommodation category.Data on the number of people who re-offended who are homeless are published as part of the Proven Reoffending Quarterly Statistics Bulletin. Details can be found in Table C3 at the link below:https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/671f7c4b34853837d7fc4097/proven-reoffending-oct22-dec22-3-monthly.ods.Prison leavers at risk of becoming homeless and who are supervised by probation can be offered up to 12 weeks of basic accommodation on release by HM Prisons and Probation Service, with support to move to settled accommodation. This programme has been gradually rolled out nationwide since July 2021 and since then has supported over 12,200 prison leavers who would otherwise have been homeless.

If she will make an assessment of the potential merits of temporarily housing acquitted remand prisoners who are homeless.

The Government inherited a prison system in crisis, in which the remand prison population has risen to record highs. We are committed to working with partners across the criminal justice system to ensure this is effectively managed, including looking at resettlement support to those who have served a period of time on remand and were subsequently acquitted. The rehabilitation contracts for specialist accommodation support have been extended to include remanded and unsentenced people in prison, including those who are un-convicted, held on remand and then acquitted. We know that a settled place to live is key to help people reintegrate with communities and reduce the likelihood of reoffending, as prison leavers without settled accommodation on release are almost 50 percent more likely to reoffend than those with settled accommodation.Data on accommodation outcomes on release from prison are published annually and include total releases and settled accommodation outcomes. Monthly and annual data for the period April 2019 – March 2024 is in the ‘Housed on Release from Custody’ tables, available here: Offender Accommodation Outcomes, update to March 2024 - GOV.UK. The data for April 2024 - March 2025 is due for publication in July 2025.Accommodation outcomes for prison leavers are recorded against the categories of settled accommodation, other housed, bail/probation accommodation, homeless (not rough sleeping) and rough sleeping, rather than ‘no fixed address’. An individual’s risk of serious harm level is determined in accordance with the Risk of Serious Harm guidance, available here: Risk of Serious Harm Guidance. In the year to March 2024, 4.7% of the total caseload of offenders were high risk of harm offenders and released homeless or rough sleeping.Prison leavers at risk of becoming homeless and who are supervised by probation can be offered up to 12 weeks of basic accommodation on release by HM Prisons and Probation, with support to move to settled accommodation. This programme has been gradually rolled out nationwide since July 2021 and since then has supported over 12,200 prison leavers who would otherwise have been homeless.

How many prisons were rated good for rehabilitation and release planning by inspectors from April 2023 to April 2024.

This Government has inherited a prison system in crisis, and this has been reflected in the inspections conducted by His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons. Between 1 April 2023 and 30 April 2024. Prior to the arrival of the current Government, His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons published eight adult prison inspection reports that scored ‘good’ against the preparation for release (formally rehabilitation and release planning) Healthy Prison Test (HPT) and one under 18 establishment received a score of ‘good’ against the equivalent youth HPT outcome of resettlement. This is out of a total of 49 published inspections during that period.