Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of introducing non-repayable maintenance grants for higher education students from the least advantaged backgrounds.

Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)

The government believes that income contingent student loans are a fair and sensible way of financing higher education (HE). It is only right that those who benefit from the system should make a fair contribution to its costs. The government have continued to increase maximum loans and grants for living and other costs for undergraduate and postgraduate students each year, with a 2.8% increase for the 2023/24 academic year and a further 2.5% increase announced for 2024/25.

In addition, the government have frozen maximum tuition fees for the 2023/24 and 2024/25 academic years. By 2024/25, maximum fees will have been frozen for seven successive years. The department believe that the current fee freeze achieves the best balance between ensuring that the system remains financially sustainable, offering good value for the taxpayer, and reducing debt levels for students in real terms.

The government understands the pressures people have been facing with the cost of living and has taken action to help. The government have already made £276 million of student premium and mental health funding available for the 2023/24 academic year to support successful outcomes for students including disadvantaged students.

The government have also made a further £10 million of support available to help student mental health and hardship funding for the 2023/24 academic year. This funding will complement the help universities are providing through their own bursary, scholarship and hardship support schemes. For the 2024/25 financial year, the government have increased the Student Premium (full-time, part-time, and disabled premium) by £5 million to reflect high demand for hardship support. Further details of this allocation for the academic year 2024/25 will be announced by the Office for Students in the summer.

Overall, support to households to help with the high cost of living is worth £108 billion over 2022/23 to 2024/25, which is an average of £3,800 per UK household. The government believes this will have eased the pressure on family budgets, which will in turn enable many families to provide additional support to their children in HE to help them meet increased living costs.

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of updating the National Planning Policy Framework to enable local planning authorities to use the most recent Office for National Statistics household projections in the standard method of calculating local housing need.

Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)

A review of the standard method formula was undertaken in 2020. As part of the consultation, we asked if we should incorporate more recent household projections data into the formula. Following careful consideration of the responses received, to provide stability and certainty for local authorities and other stakeholders we decided to retain the existing formula.

We have kept the standard method under review. Through a consultation on changes to national policy held in 2022/23 we committed to review our approach to assessing housing needs once new household projections data, based on the 2021 Census, is released in 2025.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department has issued recent guidance to integrated care boards on their role in assessing the mental and emotional health of young people entering care using a person qualified to assess mental health as part of the initial health assessment.

Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)

The statutory guidance, Promoting the health and wellbeing of looked after children, published in 2015, reflects the requirement that the relevant local authority must make arrangements for the initial health assessment to be carried out by a registered medical professional who is suitably qualified to assess a young person's physical, emotional, and mental health needs.

Price cap on baby milk formula

Found: Q343 Rosie Duffield: Do you think it is clear to invent farms?

Found: Tuesday 7 March 2023 Members present Sir Robert Goodwill, in the Chair Rosie Duffield Dr Neil

Found: Saville Roberts Charlotte Nichols Tracey Crouch Dr Dan Poulter Rachel Hopkins Matt Warman Rosie

Found: Saville Roberts Charlotte Nichols Tracey Crouch Dr Dan Poulter Rachel Hopkins Matt Warman Rosie

Found: Saville Roberts Charlotte Nichols Tracey Crouch Dr Dan Poulter Rachel Hopkins Matt Warman Rosie

Found: Saville Roberts Charlotte Nichols Tracey Crouch Dr Dan Poulter Rachel Hopkins Matt Warman Rosie

Found: Saville Roberts Charlotte Nichols Tracey Crouch Dr Dan Poulter Rachel Hopkins Matt Warman Rosie

Found: Saville Roberts Charlotte Nichols Tracey Crouch Dr Dan Poulter Rachel Hopkins Matt Warman Rosie

Found: Saville Roberts Charlotte Nichols Tracey Crouch Dr Dan Poulter Rachel Hopkins Matt Warman Rosie

Found: Saville Roberts Charlotte Nichols Tracey Crouch Dr Dan Poulter Rachel Hopkins Matt Warman Rosie

Found: Saville Roberts Charlotte Nichols Tracey Crouch Dr Dan Poulter Rachel Hopkins Matt Warman Rosie

Found: Saville Roberts Charlotte Nichols Tracey Crouch Dr Dan Poulter Rachel Hopkins Matt Warman Rosie