Written questions by Morton.

What assessment he has made of the potential impact of skills funding announced in the Autumn Budget 2025 on the adequacy of engineering, advanced manufacturing, logistics, construction and health and social care skills in Aldridge-Brownhills constituency, Walsall and the West Midlands; and whether his Department plans to publish regional allocations for those programmes.

The budget announced over £1.5 billion of investment in employment and skills sup-port to fund the Youth Guarantee and reform the Growth and Skills Levy over the Spending Review period. The Youth Guarantee means every young person can access support to earn or learn. The Growth and Skills offer will provide greater flexibility to employers and learners and support the industrial strategy. As part of the offer, new foundation apprentice-ships for young people were introduced in August 2025 alongside the ability to under-take shorter duration apprenticeships. These flexibilities will help more people learn new high-quality skills at work and fuel innovation in businesses across the country, including in Aldridge-Brownhills constituency, Walsall and the West Midlands. Further, providers nationwide are already funded to develop training aligned with local needs. In 2025/26, 67% of the £1.44 billion Adult Skills Fund was devolved to 13 Strategic Authorities for locally tailored provision, for example to support the delivery of Sector-Based Work Academies to meet the skilled workforce requirements of a wide range of sectors. As set out in the Skills White Paper we are investing over £1 billion to support tens of thousands of jobs, in construction, defence, digital, engineering through skills pack-ages in key areas identified in the Industrial Strategy. This will help equip the work-force with the skills needed to drive innovation, fill industry shortages, and strengthen the UK’s economic and national resilience. These measures will help to support provision in areas such as engineering, advanced manufacturing, logistics, construction and health and social care skills across the country.

What additional support, will be provided to West Midlands councils in 2025-26, 2026-27 and 2027-28 to manage growing SEND costs.

The government has announced plans to address deficits through making available the High Needs Stability Grant, which will cover 90% of all local authorities‘ high needs dedicated schools grant (DSG) deficits accumulated to the end of the 2025/26 financial year, subject to the authority submitting and securing the department approval for a local special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) reform plan.Safety Valve agreements will come to an end and will be replaced by the new, wider approach to managing DSG deficits and delivering reform across all local areas.For the 2025/26 financial year, total high needs funding for children and young people with complex SEND is over £12 billion. Of that total, the West Midlands is being allocated over £1.2 billion through the high needs funding block of the DSG. Of that amount, Walsall Council is being allocated over £67 million.

Whether the Government will maintain or reform the “safety valve” and “deliverability” programmes for local authorities following the centralisation of SEND funding; and how councils such as Walsall will be supported in the interim years until 2028-29.

The government has announced plans to address deficits through making available the High Needs Stability Grant, which will cover 90% of all local authorities‘ high needs dedicated schools grant (DSG) deficits accumulated to the end of the 2025/26 financial year, subject to the authority submitting and securing the department approval for a local special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) reform plan.Safety Valve agreements will come to an end and will be replaced by the new, wider approach to managing DSG deficits and delivering reform across all local areas.For the 2025/26 financial year, total high needs funding for children and young people with complex SEND is over £12 billion. Of that total, the West Midlands is being allocated over £1.2 billion through the high needs funding block of the DSG. Of that amount, Walsall Council is being allocated over £67 million.

Food and Rural Affairs, when the Flood Resilience Taskforce most recently met; what recommendations it has provided to Ministers since September regarding national readiness for severe weather events; and what assessment she has made of the Taskforce’s impact on improving cross-government coordination during Storm Claudia.

The Floods Resilience Taskforce most recently met in September and held two meetings on the 8th and 15th. The Taskforce discussed actions by members to prepare for, respond to and recover from flooding during autumn and winter. This included improvements to national flood modelling and forecasting and communication of flood warnings. Taskforce members including the Environment Agency, Defra and Natural Resources Wales were in contact throughout Storm Claudia principally through using their existing emergency response arrangements. Taskforce members work on improved national flood modelling helped preparations and response, and facilitated the deployment of the FloodRe Floodmobile demonstration unit, which showcases dozens of property flood resilience measures, to Monmouthshire, to support flood affected residents. The Floods Resilience Taskforce will next meet on 18 December and will discuss learning and recommendations from Storm Claudia.

Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to her Department’s commitment to improve national flood forecasting, (a) what assessment she has made of the performance of the new flood warning system during Storm Claudia, (b) whether any delays or technical issues were recorded in the delivery of alerts to households, and (c) how the enhanced forecasting models developed by the Met Office and Environment Agency contributed to advance warning and local decision-making.

During Storm Claudia, the Environment Agency (EA) sent more than 130 flood warnings and 270 flood alerts. These reached people through text (315,000 messages), email (350,000), and automated calls (225,000). The Floodline recorded information service also handled about 1,500 calls. During Storm Claudia, there were 28 messages delayed by up to 1.5 hours because of a technical problem in the system’s infrastructure. This issue was quickly fixed. These anomalies aside, the system coped well with its first national incident, successfully delivering approximately 890,000 messages to the public. Enhanced flood-forecasting models, jointly developed by the Met Office and the EA, enabled early identification of emerging risks. Using ensemble rainfall forecasts, the Environment Agency produced national-level flood outlooks that were shared with all Category 1 and 2 responders and emergency services three days ahead of the event (13 November) through the daily Flood Guidance Statement.

Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the Government’s commitment to invest £10.5 billion in flood defences by 2036, (a) how much has been allocated to each English region to date, (b) how many of the 151 completed schemes were operational during Storm Claudia, and (c) what assessment she has made of the effect of reprioritising £108 million towards maintenance on improving the condition and reliability of existing assets.

This Government will invest at least £10.5 billion into our flood defences between April 2024 and March 2036 better protecting nearly 900,000 properties. Having benefitted from over £745 million of capital funding in 2024/25, flood defence schemes have received an indicative allocation of over £659 million for 2025/26.Some of the 151 completed flood and coastal schemes are always operational, including during Storm Claudia, due to their fixed presence. Many areas benefitted from these, often combined with other scheme or defences. Whilst it is not possible to identify them individually, all Environment Agency assets operated as expected.This Investment is ensuring that 92.9% of Environment Agency-maintained flood defence assets in high consequence systems (those that protect a large number of properties) were at required condition in October 2025. This is an increase of 0.8% since Q2 in 2024. The investment will also reduce deterioration and target repairs to assets, benefitting an additional 14,500 properties in England.

Communities and Local Government, whether Commissioners for Birmingham provided advice to the council on contingency arrangements ahead of the announcement that agency refuse workers will join the bin strike.

Further disruption to Birmingham’s waste service is in no one’s interest, and we remain in close contact with Commissioners and the Council as we continue to monitor the situation. Birmingham City Council and their contracted agency are independent employers, and the ongoing disputes are local issues and rightly being dealt with by the relevant employers. As such, my department has not held discussions with either Unite or the Council’s contracted agency following a ballot on industrial action among some agency refuse workers. It is for the Council to consider and manage all aspects of any dispute, including the financial impact. The government’s priority is Birmingham’s residents, and we will continue to support the council to keep streets clean during any disputes.A statutory intervention has been in place since October 2023, with Commissioners appointed to oversee and support the Council’s improvement journey. Commissioners continue to support the Council in their operational response to the ongoing dispute, and in developing much needed transformation plans for the waste service. They are experienced local government professionals, and they have powers relating to governance, finance and recruitment as laid out under the statutory directions. These powers can be used according to their expert judgment and discretion. Commissioners provide regular progress reports to the Secretary of State, and my department engages regularly with Councils under intervention. On 1 December my department published the Commissioners’ third report, together with my response, and updated the House via a written ministerial statement.

Communities and Local Government, what steps he will take to ensure that the expanded use of intervention and call-in powers does not weaken legitimate local democratic oversight of planning decisions, particularly in Green Belt-heavy areas such as Aldridge-Brownhills; and whether he will confirm that any called-in application will be assessed with full regard to adopted and emerging Local Plans.

The Written Ministerial Statement of 2012 sets out the circumstances in which the Secretary of State will use his powers to intervene. All called in planning applications and appeals will continue to be considered against adopted local plans, in line with s38(6) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, taking into account material planning considerations, which may include emerging Local Plans. Proposals to determine the appropriate procedure for called-in applications would be introduced by commencing existing provisions in the Planning Act 2008.

Communities and Local Government, whether his Department has undertaken a risk review of the contractual arrangements underpinning the use of agency workers in local authority waste services, and whether such arrangements create vulnerabilities in service continuity during disputes.

Local authorities are independent employers responsible for the management and organisation of their own workforces, including the decision to use agency workers to fill vacancies and the accompanying contractual arrangements.

Communities and Local Government, if he will publish an authority-level assessment of the 2026 business rates retention reset, including (a) the financial implications of increasing the Safety Net to 100 per cent of Baseline Funding Levels before tapering back to existing levels, (b) the effect of the redesigned levy rate on local authorities with differing growth profiles, (c) the modelling behind the proposed approach to tax policy changes affecting specific property cohorts, and (d) the expected timetable for consulting Mayoral Strategic Authorities on the proposed new offer granting them a direct share of business rates growth to support Local Growth Plans.

Local authorities’ new allocations, accounting for the impact of the Reset, will be published at the provisional Local Government Finance Settlement in December. The government has recently published plans for delivering the 2026 Reset: Resetting the business rates retention system from 1 April 2026.As this sets out, raising the safety net will provide increased certainty when authorities’ budget for business rates next year. Protections will be scaled back gradually to smoothly transition back to the standard levels of protection that the system has provided since 2013-14. To ensure safety net protections are affordable, a newly designed levy will continue to be applied to business rates growth, now applying to all local authorities proportionally as new growth builds. Again, as we have set out, the outcome of the 2026 business rates revaluation will be incorporated into the remeasurement business rates each local authority expects to collect from 1 April 2026.As confirmed in the Budget, the government will work with Mayoral Strategic Authorities to co-develop a new offer, starting in the coming months.

Communities and Local Government, with reference to his proposal to determine certain called-in applications by written representations rather than inquiry, what assessment he has made of the implications for the level of scrutiny applied to large or complex applications on Green Belt land; and if he will issue criteria ensuring that proposals with significant Green Belt or environmental impacts will continue to receive a full inquiry where appropriate.

The Written Ministerial Statement of 2012 sets out the circumstances in which the Secretary of State will use his powers to intervene. All called in planning applications and appeals will continue to be considered against adopted local plans, in line with s38(6) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, taking into account material planning considerations, which may include emerging Local Plans. Proposals to determine the appropriate procedure for called-in applications would be introduced by commencing existing provisions in the Planning Act 2008.

Communities and Local Government, if he will publish an assessment of the cumulative impact on the protection of Green Belt land of reducing the number of planning applications requiring advice from statutory consultees such as National Highways and Active Travel England; and what steps he will take to ensure that streamlining does not reduce the scrutiny of infrastructure, transport, or environmental pressures in constituencies such as Aldridge-Brownhills.

On 17 November 2025, my Department published a consultation on reforms to the statutory consultee system. That consultation closes on 13 January 2026 and can be found on gov.uk here.A consultation will also be carried out in due course seeking views on plans to amend and expand the 2024 Consultation Direction currently in force.

Communities and Local Government, whether the Commissioners appointed to Birmingham have been granted additional powers to intervene in operational waste decisions during periods of industrial action.

Further disruption to Birmingham’s waste service is in no one’s interest, and we remain in close contact with Commissioners and the Council as we continue to monitor the situation. Birmingham City Council and their contracted agency are independent employers, and the ongoing disputes are local issues and rightly being dealt with by the relevant employers. As such, my department has not held discussions with either Unite or the Council’s contracted agency following a ballot on industrial action among some agency refuse workers. It is for the Council to consider and manage all aspects of any dispute, including the financial impact. The government’s priority is Birmingham’s residents, and we will continue to support the council to keep streets clean during any disputes.A statutory intervention has been in place since October 2023, with Commissioners appointed to oversee and support the Council’s improvement journey. Commissioners continue to support the Council in their operational response to the ongoing dispute, and in developing much needed transformation plans for the waste service. They are experienced local government professionals, and they have powers relating to governance, finance and recruitment as laid out under the statutory directions. These powers can be used according to their expert judgment and discretion. Commissioners provide regular progress reports to the Secretary of State, and my department engages regularly with Councils under intervention. On 1 December my department published the Commissioners’ third report, together with my response, and updated the House via a written ministerial statement.

Communities and Local Government, what discussions his Department has had with (a) Unite the Union, (b) Job & Talent and (c) Birmingham City Council following the ballot result confirming that agency refuse workers will join official strike action from 1 December 2025.

Further disruption to Birmingham’s waste service is in no one’s interest, and we remain in close contact with Commissioners and the Council as we continue to monitor the situation. Birmingham City Council and their contracted agency are independent employers, and the ongoing disputes are local issues and rightly being dealt with by the relevant employers. As such, my department has not held discussions with either Unite or the Council’s contracted agency following a ballot on industrial action among some agency refuse workers. It is for the Council to consider and manage all aspects of any dispute, including the financial impact. The government’s priority is Birmingham’s residents, and we will continue to support the council to keep streets clean during any disputes.A statutory intervention has been in place since October 2023, with Commissioners appointed to oversee and support the Council’s improvement journey. Commissioners continue to support the Council in their operational response to the ongoing dispute, and in developing much needed transformation plans for the waste service. They are experienced local government professionals, and they have powers relating to governance, finance and recruitment as laid out under the statutory directions. These powers can be used according to their expert judgment and discretion. Commissioners provide regular progress reports to the Secretary of State, and my department engages regularly with Councils under intervention. On 1 December my department published the Commissioners’ third report, together with my response, and updated the House via a written ministerial statement.

Communities and Local Government, what estimate he has made of the potential financial cost to Birmingham City Council of agency refuse workers joining official industrial action from 1 December; and what assessment he has made of the impact on the council’s recovery plan.

Further disruption to Birmingham’s waste service is in no one’s interest, and we remain in close contact with Commissioners and the Council as we continue to monitor the situation. Birmingham City Council and their contracted agency are independent employers, and the ongoing disputes are local issues and rightly being dealt with by the relevant employers. As such, my department has not held discussions with either Unite or the Council’s contracted agency following a ballot on industrial action among some agency refuse workers. It is for the Council to consider and manage all aspects of any dispute, including the financial impact. The government’s priority is Birmingham’s residents, and we will continue to support the council to keep streets clean during any disputes.A statutory intervention has been in place since October 2023, with Commissioners appointed to oversee and support the Council’s improvement journey. Commissioners continue to support the Council in their operational response to the ongoing dispute, and in developing much needed transformation plans for the waste service. They are experienced local government professionals, and they have powers relating to governance, finance and recruitment as laid out under the statutory directions. These powers can be used according to their expert judgment and discretion. Commissioners provide regular progress reports to the Secretary of State, and my department engages regularly with Councils under intervention. On 1 December my department published the Commissioners’ third report, together with my response, and updated the House via a written ministerial statement.

Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the risk that the combination of expanded intervention powers and reduced statutory consultee involvement may incentivise speculative applications in small Green Belt communities such as Aldridge-Brownhills; and whether he will consider bespoke protections for such areas in the forthcoming revised National Planning Policy Framework.

On 17 November 2025, my Department published a consultation on reforms to the statutory consultee system. That consultation closes on 13 January 2026 and can be found on gov.uk here.A consultation will also be carried out in due course seeking views on plans to amend and expand the 2024 Consultation Direction currently in force.

Communities and Local Government, with reference to his written statement of 20 November 2025 on a more active use of ministerial call-in and recovery powers, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of these changes on local authorities with significant areas of Green Belt, including Walsall Council; and whether he will publish guidance confirming that the protection of Green Belt land in constituencies such as Aldridge-Brownhills will be treated as a material consideration of substantial weight in any called-in decision.

The Written Ministerial Statement of 2012 sets out the circumstances in which the Secretary of State will use his powers to intervene. All called in planning applications and appeals will continue to be considered against adopted local plans, in line with s38(6) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, taking into account material planning considerations, which may include emerging Local Plans. Proposals to determine the appropriate procedure for called-in applications would be introduced by commencing existing provisions in the Planning Act 2008.

Communities and Local Government, what estimate he has made of the number of local authorities that will (a) require 100 per cent income protection, (b) receive real-terms protection, and (c) fall within the 95 per cent funding floor due to being assessed as significantly above their Fair Funding Allocation; and whether he will publish (i) the assumptions used to determine the 2025–26 income baseline, including the treatment of locally retained business rates growth since 2013–14, (ii) the modelling used to calculate the cumulative impact of phasing in new allocations in thirds over the three-year Settlement, and (iii) the projected year-by-year funding changes for each authority once transitional protections, council tax flexibility assumptions, and business rates reset adjustments have been applied.

We expect the vast majority of local authorities with social care responsibilities will see their Core Spending Power increase in real terms over the multi-year Settlement, and most other authorities will see their income increase in cash terms.We will support local authorities to manage their updated funding positions through a package of transitional arrangements. We will introduce changes over the multi-year Settlement and protect councils’ income, including locally retained business rates growth, through a range of funding floor levels appropriate to specific groups of authorities’ circumstances.Further details on the proposed operation of these transitional arrangements, including the detail of the income baseline, is set out in the local government finance policy statement 2026-27 to 2028-29. Plans for delivering the business rates retention reset were also published alongside the policy statement. This sets out a full method of how current business rates income will be measured for the 2025-26 income baseline.We will publish multi-year local authority allocations, including funding for transition and year-on-year Core Spending Power changes, at the upcoming provisional Local Government Finance Settlement later this month.

Food and Rural Affairs, whether she intends to issue updated guidance to local councils on maintaining minimum service levels in waste operations during periods of industrial disruption.

Defra does not plan to update guidance to local councils on prioritising services in periods of disruption in waste operations. Defra’s current guidance can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/waste-collection-services-guidance-for-local-authorities/waste-collection-services-guidance-for-local-authorities.

Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the potential environmental impact of prolonged interruptions to refuse collection in Birmingham, including consequences for air quality, pest control, and neighbourhood cleanliness.

Defra has not made an assessment of the potential impact of prolonged interruptions to refuse collection in Birmingham. The ongoing waste dispute is a local issue and rightly being dealt with by Birmingham City Council. Commissioners appointed by the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government continue to support the Council in their recovery and improvement journey and provide regular progress reports to the Secretary of State.