Every parliamentary written question tabled by Liz Jarvis this session, with the full answer and department. See how every department answers, or back to the MP page.
Showing 421–440 of 531 · this parliament
If she will make an assessment of the potential merits of not awarding marks for spelling, punctuation and grammar for exams in subjects other than English.
I refer the hon. Member for Eastleigh to the answer of 12 June 2025 to Question 57812.
If she will make an assessment of the potential merits of establishing a national dyslexia strategy.
I refer the hon. Member for Eastleigh to the answer of 12 June 2025 to Question 57810.
Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to promote (a) human rights and (b) justice in (i) fragile and (ii) conflict-affected states.
The UK is committed to promoting and advancing human rights and the rule of law internationally, securing accountability for those responsible for atrocity crimes, and protecting those most at risk in situations of conflict and crisis. This includes protecting civilians, refugees, internally displaced persons, and humanitarian workers.Lord Collins, as the Prime Minister's Special Representative on Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict, has committed to drive international action to support survivors of conflict-related sexual violence and end impunity. Through UK aid, we support justice by building the capacity of national judicial systems, deploying experts and supporting access to justice for victims.
What steps she is taking to promote take-up of Attendance Allowance.
Attendance Allowance provides support for those with care needs in England and Wales, regardless of income and capital. It also gives rise to an additional disability amount in Pension Credit for those on low incomes. Some advisory organisations and local authorities therefore encourage people with care needs to make a claim to Attendance Allowance ahead of a claim to Pension Credit. Information and advice about entitlement to Attendance Allowance is available from a range of outlets including Jobcentre Plus offices, DWP and other helplines, GOV.UK and other online services, local authorities, public libraries, health clinics, doctors' surgeries, health visitors, and third party organisations such as Citizen’s Advice, Age UK, Age Cymru and Macmillan Cancer Support.
What the average time is for her Department to respond to Mandatory Reconsideration requests.
The median mandatory reconsideration (MR) clearance times have been provided for Universal Credit (UC), Personal Independence Payment (PIP), and Employment Support Allowance (ESA) Work Capability Assessment (WCA) benefit decisions. To provide information across all other DWP administered benefits would incur disproportionate cost. Median clearance times have been provided as the mean can be unduly affected by outlying cases. Universal Credit The median clearance time for UC MRs cleared in the 2024/25 financial year was 33 calendar days. Notes: Each UC claim can have more than one reconsideration registered against it. The above includes all MR decisions (excluding withdrawn and cancelled).The UC MR clearance times are based on the clearance times from the date the MR was registered to the date the MR was cleared.This data on UC MR clearance times is unpublished data. It should be used with caution and it may be subject to future revision.Definition of median: The median time is the middle value if you were to order all the times within the distribution from lowest value to highest value. Personal Independence Payment PIP MR clearance times are published at Personal Independence Payment statistics - GOV.UK. They can be found by accessing the latest release and opening the excel tables. Tables 4A – 4Biii contain information on PIP MR clearance times. Employment Support AllowanceESA WCA MR clearance times are available on Stat-Xplore: https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/. They can be found by going through “ESA Work Capability Assessments”, “Mandatory Reconsideration – Clearances” “Table 4 – Median Clearance Times by Date of Decision”.
If she will exempt people with cystic fibrosis from proposed changes to disability benefits.
The Pathways to Work Green Paper set out a broad package of reforms to health and disability benefits and employment support. We have committed to putting on the face of the Bill strong protections for the most vulnerable. We will protect the income of all people subject to the Special Rules for End of Life (those with less than 12 months to live) and people who meet the severe conditions criteria (SCC) by providing them with the higher rate of LCWRA (Limited capability for work and work-related activity) in line with existing customers. Additionally, people with severe conditions - a health condition or disability which is lifelong, often progressive and incurable - and who are at the end of life will not be reassessed. We are basing our protections on these criteria, rather than on specific conditions, because the functional impact and severity of a condition can significantly vary across individuals. The support a person might need and their ability to work can vary for different people with the same condition. Our reforms will ensure the most vulnerable and severely disabled people are protected, while supporting those who can work to do so. As such, those who have a higher level of functional need in at least one activity - who are unable to complete activities at all, or who require more help from others to complete them – will still receive PIP.
Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether he has produced an impact assessment on the potential impact of reductions in UK Official Development Assistance spending on international programmes that support women and girls.
The UK remains committed to empowering women and girls around the world through our international work. We recognise that supporting women and girls is essential for development and we will continue to do so by using our voice to be a champion for women and girls across the world; working with women's organisations, particularly local organisations; and mainstreaming gender equality to put women and girls at the heart of everything we do.The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) is focused on ensuring that every pound is spent in the most impactful way. Detailed decisions on how the Official Development Assistance (ODA) budget will be used are being worked through as part of the ongoing Spending Review and resource allocation processes. Equality Impact Assessments - which consider impacts on women and girls - are an essential part of how we make decisions on ODA allocations. We intend to publish final 2025/26 ODA programme allocations in the FCDO Annual Report and Accounts this summer.
What steps his Department is taking to reduce waiting lists for audiology assessments.
NHS England is supporting provider organisations and integrated care boards, who are the commissioners of audiology services, to improve performance and reduce waiting lists. This includes capital investment to upgrade audiology facilities in National Health Service trusts, expanding audiology testing capacity via community diagnostic centres, and direct support through a national audiology improvement collaborative.
What assessment he has made of the potential impact of increases in employer National Insurance contributions on (a) levels of staff costs for homecare providers and (b) the delivery of social care services.
The Government assessed the impact of the cost pressures facing adult social care as part of the wider consideration of local government spending within the Spending Review process. This assessment took account of a range of factors that could affect the delivery of social care services, including changes to employer National Insurance Contributions.To enable local authorities to deliver key services such as adult social care, the Government has made available up to £3.7 billion of additional funding for social care authorities in 2025/26. There is also an extra £502 million of support for local authorities in England to manage the impact of changes to employer National Insurance Contributions announced at the Autumn Budget 2024.In addition, the Spending Review allows for an increase of over £4 billion of funding available for adult social care in 2028/29 compared to 2025/26.
Whether her Department plans to review its policy on freezing state pensions for people who move abroad.
The Department has no plans to review such reciprocal social security agreements.
How many specialist SEND nurseries have (a) closed and (b) been replaced by a mobile SEND service since 2015.
The information requested is not held centrally.Under Section 6 of the Childcare Act 2006, local authorities are responsible for ensuring that the provision of childcare is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents in their area. Part B of the ’Early education and childcare’ statutory guidance for local authorities highlights that local authorities are required to report annually to elected council members on how they are meeting their duty to secure sufficient childcare, and to make this report available and accessible to parents. The guidance can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-education-and-childcare--2.The department has regular contact with each local authority in England about their sufficiency of childcare and any issues they are facing.Where local authorities report sufficiency challenges, we discuss what action the local authority is taking to address those issues and where needed support the local authority with any specific requirements through our childcare sufficiency support contract.
Media and Sport, with reference to the press release entitled Prime Minister announces multi-million pound boost for grassroots cricket, published on 5 April 2024, how much and what proportion of that funding was allocated to projects in (a) Eastleigh Borough and (b) Hampshire.
The Future of Cricket fund was publicly announced by the previous Government before the General Election but did not receive formal business case sign off nor any financial commitment.Future funding of sports facilities will be considered as part of the upcoming Spending Review.
How many dedicated mental health professionals are employed in secondary schools in (a) Hampshire and (b) Eastleigh constituency.
This government is committed to improving mental health support for all children and young people. This is critical to breaking down barriers to opportunity and helping pupils to achieve and thrive in education.Information on the numbers of staff employed in schools is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/school-workforce-in-england-november-2023. The department does not collect information on how many dedicated mental health professionals are employed in secondary schools in (a) Hampshire and (b) Eastleigh constituency.The government has committed to providing access to specialist mental health professionals in every school by expanding mental health support teams (MHSTs), so every child and young person has access to early support to address problems before they escalate. The teams act as a link with local children and young people’s mental health services and are trained and supervised by NHS staff.At the end of 2024/25, around 600 NHS-funded MHSTs were operational in 10,100 (41%) schools and colleges in England. At the end of 2024/25, 5 million pupils and learners were covered by MHSTs which equates to 52% coverage of pupils in schools and further education learners in England. In Hampshire local authority, 43% of pupils/learners and 43% of schools/colleges were covered by MHSTs, as at end 2024/25, compared to 52% and 41% nationally, respectively.Around six in ten pupils will have access to a mental health support team by March 2026, with the rollout prioritised based on NHS identification of local need and reaching the most vulnerable children first.The government will also recruit an additional 8,500 new mental health staff to treat children and adults, and open new Young Futures Hubs with access to mental health support workers.
What assessment he has made of the adequacy of waiting times for cardiology services.
The latest data from March 2025 show that 60.9% of waits for cardiology services are within 18 weeks, which is a 1.6% improvement on the same month in the previous year. While this shows progress, we know there is more to do.That is why, as well as our commitment to returning to the 92% referral-to-treatment standard for elective care by March 2029, the Elective Reform Plan commits to significant elective reform in cardiology. This includes a key milestone for 2025/26, as set out in National Health Service operational planning guidance, that by the end of March 2026, 65% of waits will be within 18 weeks, with the expectation of a 5% improvement from each provider.Cardiology is one of five priority specialties identified for significant elective reform in the Elective Reform Plan, due to it being a large volume specialty with waiting list challenges and a high proportion of non-surgical care. Reforms will include increasing specialist cardiology input earlier in patient care pathways, and developing standard and efficient care pathways for common cardiology symptoms. It also includes improving access to cardiac diagnostic tests, including through implementing more straight-to-test pathways, where a general practitioner can refer a patient directly to secondary care for a test, which can reduce unnecessary outpatient appointments and improve waiting times even further for patients across England. These improvements to common cardiology pathways help standardise patient care, reduce inequalities, and improve access to care, especially in the early stages of the pathways, for patients across England.
What steps his Department is taking to help reduce staffing shortages in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services.
This year the Department is investing an extra £688 million in children and young people’s mental health services. This will allow us to hire more staff, deliver more talking therapies, and get waiting lists down through our Plan for Change. Early interventions in mental health support for young people can have positive ramifications for the rest of their lives. We will deliver on our commitment to get every child who needs it access to mental health support within school, and over the course of this year we will roll that support out to nearly a million extra children. Under Government plans, all pupils will have access to mental health support in school by 2029/30. As part of our mission to build a National Health Service that is fit for the future and that is there when people need it, we will recruit 8,500 mental health workers across child and adult mental health services to help ease the pressure on busy services. We continue to work with NHS England to consider options to deliver this commitment, alongside publishing a refreshed workforce plan to deliver the transformed health service we will build over the next decade. In addition, targeted retention work has been undertaken through the NHS Retention Programme which works with trusts to help them understand why staff have left. This has focused on better support for line managers and improved support for new joiners.
If his Department will reintroduce a NHS dementia diagnosis target.
The Government remains committed to recovering the dementia diagnosis rate to the national ambition of 66.7% and agrees that timely diagnosis is vital to ensuring that people with dementia can access the treatment and support they need.The Darzi Investigation found that there were too many targets set for the National Health Service, which made it hard for local systems to prioritise their actions or to be held properly accountable.This is why we have taken a new approach to NHS Planning Guidance this year, reducing the number of national directives from 32 to 18. We will only turn the NHS around by doing things differently. These are the first steps on our journey for the long-term reform of the NHS.NHS Planning Guidance is not an exhaustive list of everything the NHS does, and the absence of a target does not mean it is not an area of focus.
What assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of bank branches moving to a counter-free system on accessibility.
The Government works closely with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the independent regulator of the UK’s financial services sector, to ensure that all customers get the right support with their financial products and services. The FCA requires firms to provide a prompt, efficient, and fair service to all of their customers. This includes special considerations for vulnerable customers, including the elderly and disabled customers. Furthermore, under the Equality Act 2010, banks must make reasonable adjustments to ensure their services are accessible to all.
What estimate she has made of the number of students taking heritage language GCSEs in the academic year 2024-25.
Provisional data on GCSE entries for the 2024/25 academic year will be published by Ofqual on 12 June 2025.The department will publish provisional key stage 4 performance statistics for the 2024/25 academic year in October 2025.
What steps her Department is taking to increase funding certainty for schools over a multi-year period.
The overall core schools budget is increasing by £3.7 billion in the 2025/26 financial year, meaning that it will total £65.3 billion, compared to £61.6 billion in the 2024/25 financial year. This is a 6% overall increase.The government is considering how it can support schools to plan their budgets from the perspective of both their funding and their costs. The teacher pay award this year has been announced two months earlier than last year as part of the government’s ambition to improve the pay round process. This is alongside £615 million of additional funding to support schools with their overall costs, including staff pay awards.Budgets for the 2026/27 financial year and beyond are still to be agreed and this includes the 2026/27 Core Schools Budget. This will be subject to the multi-year spending review, which the department expects to be concluded later this month.
Whether she has considered reviewing Police Remuneration Review Body processes to help increase (a) trust and (b) transparency in that system.
The Police Remuneration Review Body (PRRB) and Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB) make recommendations to the Government on the appropriate level of pay and allowances for police officers. The pay review bodies gather and invite parties to submit evidence to inform their decisions. This includes both written and oral evidence from the Government, police employers and police staff associations. They weigh the evidence, consider independent research, and formulate detailed recommendations. We are committed to the Pay Review Body process and the Government appreciates and values the independent, expert advice and contribution that the pay review bodies make.