Written questions by Holden.

How many cases of (a) HIV and (b) AIDS have been diagnosed due to mandatory opt-out testing in hospitals.

The bloodborne viruses (BBVs) opt-out testing in emergency departments programme has identified 391 people with new HIV diagnoses between April 2022 and December 2023. In addition, 314 people were identified with HIV who had been previously diagnosed. Data on AIDS is not collected via the emergency department opt-out BBV testing programme. The published report is available at the following link:https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hiv-monitoring-and-evaluation-framework/hiv-action-plan-monitoring-and-evaluation-framework-2024-report

Whether club memberships are paid for from the public purse for (a) staff, (b) contractors and (c) other employees.

The Cabinet Office does not pay for staff membership fees for any clubs.

What assessment he has made of the potential impact of changes to the eligibility criteria for the Winter Fuel Payment on (a) primary care, (b) hospitals and (c) Pharmacy First.

We know that patients are struggling to access their general practice (GP), especially throughout the winter period when demand is higher. We committed to restoring the front door of the National Health Service by shifting the focus of the NHS out of hospitals into the community. We know that when patients are not able to get a GP appointment, they end up in accident and emergency, which is worse for the patient, and more expensive for the taxpayer. That is why it is key that we increase the capacity of GP appointments. We have already committed to recruiting over 1,000 newly qualified GPs from October 2024 through an £82 million boost to the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme, which will increase the number of GP appointments delivered.In line with the requirements of the Public Sector Equality Duty, the Department for Work and Pensions produced an equality analysis as part of the ministerial decision-making process. This was published on 13 September 2024, and is available at the following link:https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/responses-to-freedom-of-information-requests-on-equality-impact-assessments-produced-for-targeting-winter-fuel-payment/dwp-freedom-of-information-responseThe Department for Work and Pensions will continue to monitor and review the impact of the policy, using this to inform any future decisions.

Pursuant to the Answer of 27 November 2024 to Question 15241, if he will make an estimate of the number of veterans who are (a) eligible for Pension Credit and (b) have an income of less than £12,500 a year.

The information is not held in the format requested. We currently do not have the data to allow us to make such estimates.

How long after the end of the relevant month ministerial (a) gift and (b) hospitality data will be published.

The Government will publish, monthly, a register of ministers’ gifts and hospitality. Work on the new register is progressing and further details will be published in due course.

Pursuant to the Answer of 9 October 2024 to Question 5574 on Lord Alli, whether any political receptions held in Downing Street have been billed through the Cabinet Office and recharged to the governing party since 5 July 2024.

I refer the Rt Hon Member to my answer of 09 October 2024, Official Report, PQ 5574.

If she will make an assessment of the potential impact of changes made to agricultural property relief and business property relief at the Autumn Budget 2024 on discretionary trusts.

The Government published information about the reforms to agricultural property relief and business property relief at www.gov.uk/government/publications/agricultural-property-relief-and-business-property-relief-reforms. It is expected that up to around 2,000 estates will be affected in 2026-27 by the changes to APR and BPR, with around half of those being claims that involve AIM shares. Almost three-quarters of estates claiming agricultural property relief (or those claiming agricultural property relief and business property relief together) are expected to be unaffected by these reforms. In accordance with standard practice, a tax information and impact note will be published alongside the draft legislation before the relevant Finance Bill.

What changes have been made to the planned delivery date of the Rosa Renewal Project since inception.

The Rosa Renewal Project remains on track to complete by March 2025. It is an agile project planned to ensure the resilience of HMG’s existing shared service capability for working on very sensitive information, and managed under the Government Major Projects Portfolio.

If she will make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing further skills boot camps to help tackle specific sectoral shortages.

Skills Bootcamps remain an important offer in the skills landscape, and in the longer term the department intends to fund Skills Bootcamps through funding Mayoral Combined Authorities (MCAs) and local areas directly. MCAs and the Greater London Authority have the flexibility to use up to 50% of their grants to test Skills Bootcamps in additional sectors. As of the 2024/25 financial year, two trailblazer areas, the West Midlands Combined Authority and Greater Manchester Combined Authority can use 100% of their grants to this effect. More broadly, the department is introducing Skills England to develop a coherent picture of our national and regional skills needs and to shape the technical education needed to meet that demand. Our levy-funded growth and skills offer will deliver greater flexibility for learners and employers, aligned with the government’s industrial strategy, creating routes into good, skilled jobs in growing industries and helping to address skills shortages.As a first step, this will include shorter duration and foundation apprenticeships in targeted sectors, helping more people learn new high-quality skills at work, fuelling innovation in businesses across the country, and providing high-quality entry pathways for young people. Skills England is currently engaging with employers over this autumn on how these apprenticeships can support them to develop their workforces and fill skills gaps. We will receive their findings in the new year which will help to inform our offer, and we will set out more detail on the offer in due course.

Whether she plans to take steps to ensure that pay rates of teachers in sixth form colleges match those of school teachers.

This government is committed to ensuring that there is a thriving further education (FE) sector, which is vital to its missions to break down the barriers to opportunity and boost economic growth. The government is not responsible for, and plays no role in, setting or making recommendations about teacher pay in FE colleges. It is for individual colleges and providers to set the pay of their staff. At the Autumn Budget, my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer set out an additional £300 million revenue funding for FE in 2025/26 to ensure young people are developing the skills this country needs, as well as £300 million new capital funding to address condition and capacity issues in the FE estate. The department will set out how this funding will be distributed in due course.

What plans she has to increase the number and proportion of pupils attaining a pass grade in GSCE (a) maths and (b) English by the age of (i) 16 and (ii) 18.

High and rising school standards are at the heart of the government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and give every child the best life chances.The government has established an independent Curriculum and Assessment Review which will seek to deliver, amongst other things, an excellent foundation in core subjects of reading, writing and mathematics. The reformed curriculum will drive high and rising standards in schools, ensuring children are prepared for life, work and the future. The review will look closely at the key challenges to attainment that children and young people face, in particular those with SEND, as it seeks to ensure that all pupils benefit from a broad curriculum. This will also include looking at how the assessment system can be improved.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.High-quality teaching is the most important in-school factor supporting pupils’ attainment and outcomes. The department is committed to recruiting an additional 6,500 new expert teachers in secondary schools, special schools and colleges to drive high standards for children and young people. Our measures will include getting more teachers into shortage subjects, supporting areas that face recruitment challenges and tackling retention issues. Additionally, in October the department introduced a teacher retention incentive of £6,000 for teachers in secondary schools and colleges in shortage subjects including science, technology, engineering and mathematics.The department’s English and Maths Hubs are providing school to school expertise and advice on how to strengthen outcomes in these subjects.From early 2025, new Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellence (RISE) teams will support all state schools by facilitating networking, sharing best practice and enabling schools to better access support, including for English and mathematics, and learn from one another. For schools requiring more intensive support, RISE teams and supporting organisations will work collaboratively with their responsible body to agree bespoke packages of targeted support, based on a school’s particular circumstances.The department considers level 2 English and mathematics to be essential for enabling students to realise their potential, and seize opportunities in life, learning and work. That is why we have the mathematics and English condition of funding (CoF), which enables all students on 16-19 study programmes or T Levels who have not yet attained grade 4+ GCSE (or equivalent) in English and mathematics to access support that leads to the best outcomes for them. A GCSE pass grade includes students with a prior attainment of grade 9-1, but a pass below grade 4 is not a level 2 pass which is why those students are supported by this policy.The department has announced updates to the CoF requirements to help more students without a level 2 pass to progress in English and mathematics, the updated requirements ensure all students are offered a minimum number of teaching hours for English and/or mathematics. These are three hours for English and four hours for mathematics per week for 2024/25 academic year, and 100 hours for English and 100 hours for mathematics for the 2025/26 academic year. This support must be delivered as in-person, whole class, stand-alone teaching. The 2024/25 requirements are ‘best efforts’, whereas the updates from 2025/26 are mandatory. We also encourage providers to offer an extra 35 hours of mathematics teaching in the 2025/26 academic year, continuing their best efforts in delivering these. We are also reducing the tolerance by which providers may opt out students from these requirements to 2.5% in 2025/26 (from its current level of 5%) so as many students as possible get support for English and mathematics.

What comparative assessment he has made of the potential impact of (a) importing coal from overseas and (b) mining coal in the UK on the environment.

On 14th November 2024 the Government announced its intention to restrict the licensing of new coal mines: https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2024-11-14/hcws215 The Department has not undertaken an assessment of the environmental impact of mining coal domestically set against importing product from overseas but notes that imports fell 45 per cent in comparison with 2022 to 3.4 million tonnes in 2023. This is a trend expected to continue following the closure of the last coal fired power station at the end of September, which reduced coal’s contribution to UK electricity supply to 0%’.

How much funding her Department plans to provide for level seven apprenticeships in each of the next three financial years; and on what categories of apprenticeship this funding will be spent.

Spending on apprenticeships, including the categories of apprenticeship, is demand led as apprenticeships are a job with training and therefore employers and their needs determine which opportunities are available to learners.The government will be asking more employers to step forward and fund level 7 apprenticeships themselves, outside of the levy-funded growth and skills offer. This will enable better targeting of funding and help more people to get on at the start of their working lives instead of subsidising qualifications for those already established in their careers. The department will set out more detail in the new year.

What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to collate a national register of pupils with (a) parents and (b) primary carers in prison.

The department knows growing up with a parent or primary carer in prison can have a devastating impact on a child’s life chances. The government has a key mission to break down the barriers to opportunity for every child, which is why the department has committed to identifying children of prisoners and ensuring they get the support they need to thrive. The department acknowledges the complexities of this issue and the wide range of family circumstances there may be. We must consider the implications the imprisonment of a child’s primary carer has on the child, regardless of whether they have legal responsibility for the child and/or are a blood relative. This is why the Better Outcomes through Linked Data (BOLD) programme report, published by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) in July this year, used multiple data sources to capture the breadth of parental relationships. The MoJ is leading on the work to better identify children with a parent or primary carer in prison. At present, alongside the department, the MoJ is working to determine how to effectively identify these children so they are provided with the support they need to thrive. Parental imprisonment is a sensitive issue, and we are working with a range of stakeholders to ensure this is handled in the most child-centred, trauma-informed and age-appropriate way. Exact details of how this will work in practice are to be confirmed. The department will make sure it considers how best to support all children affected by this issue as part of its wider reforms to children’s social care. We are clear that the support these children receive should be based on their individual needs, not solely the characteristic of having a parent or primary carer in prison.

Pursuant to the answer of 4 October 2024 to Question 4668 on Government Communication Service, for what reason the Government will not provide this information.

The audit contains the personal information of circa 6,500 communicators across government. Even if the data was anonymised, there is still a risk that individuals could be identified.

Innovation and Technology, how much funding he plans to allocate to Innovate UK in each of the next three years.

Earlier this year, the Chancellor launched a multi-year Spending Review, the first phase of which was completed and announced at this year’s Autumn Budget. This set DSIT’s overall R&D budget for 2025/26 at £13.9bn. Further details of how this funding will be allocated, including for UK Research and Innovation, of which Innovate UK is a part, will be announced in due course, and before the start of the financial year.The Budget did not set departmental R&D budgets beyond 2025/26. The second phase of the Spending Review, which will conclude in late Spring 2025, will set out the government’s spending plans for R&D in years beyond 2025/26.

Pursuant to the Answer of 7 October 2024 to Question 5667 on Small Business: Annual Report, what assessment has been made by the Office for Equality and Opportunity of the impact of the Financial Conduct Authority’s proposals on mandatory diversity reporting for firms working in financial services on non-financial reporting requirements.

This Question has been passed to HM Treasury, as the department responsible for financial services regulation. The Financial Conduct Authority is a non-governmental body which is independent from the government. The government does not make assessments of its consultations.

Communities and Local Government, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that (a) Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects and (b) properties built on the grey belt have access to sufficient quantities of water for domestic and business use.

Through the Development Consent process for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects, applicants will undertake water resource assessments for their projects and consultations with water authorities. This ensures that water infrastructure is planned before a Development Consent Order is granted.In our recent consultation on proposed reforms to the National Planning Policy Framework and other changes to the planning system, we consulted on a definition of grey belt land. The consultation closed on the 24 September and officials in my department are currently analysing responses with a view to publishing a government response before the end of the year that will include a final definition of grey belt land and detail on the operation of the concept.

Pursuant to the Answer of 7 October 2024 to Question 5121 on Employment, whether he has made an estimate of the potential cost to public authorities of the Government’s procurement reforms on (a) new social value requirements and (b) trade union recognition and access requirements.

The Employment Rights Bill was published in October along with a full Impact Assessment. The government will also publish a new National Procurement Policy Statement that will set how we will ensure that public procurement supports the Government’s missions, drives value for money and delivers social value.

What estimate the Office for National Statistics has made of the size of (a) the UK population and (b) net immigration in each year to 2046.

The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority. A response to the Hon. Gentleman’s Parliamentary Question of 27 November is attached.