Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what support and training will be provided to teachers to deliver financial education, as part of the Government response to the Curriculum and Assessment Review.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The government has made a commitment to strengthen pupils’ foundational understanding of financial education in mathematics and citizenship, with digital resources to support teaching.
The department will engage with sector experts and young people in working out how best to reflect this in the updated curriculum. There will be a public consultation on the updated curriculum programmes of study in 2026, to seek views on the content before they are finalised.
To support schools with teaching now and longer-term, Oak National Academy, an independent Arm’s Length Body, provides adaptable, optional and free curriculum support for schools, which can be found here: https://www.thenational.academy/ . The department will be examining what further support and training may be needed to help deliver the new financial education curriculum.
No decision has yet been made on whether to participate in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Programme for International Student Assessment financial literacy assessment and will confirm a decision in due course.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she plans to participate in the OECD PISA financial literacy assessment to benchmark pupils’ financial education.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The government has made a commitment to strengthen pupils’ foundational understanding of financial education in mathematics and citizenship, with digital resources to support teaching.
The department will engage with sector experts and young people in working out how best to reflect this in the updated curriculum. There will be a public consultation on the updated curriculum programmes of study in 2026, to seek views on the content before they are finalised.
To support schools with teaching now and longer-term, Oak National Academy, an independent Arm’s Length Body, provides adaptable, optional and free curriculum support for schools, which can be found here: https://www.thenational.academy/ . The department will be examining what further support and training may be needed to help deliver the new financial education curriculum.
No decision has yet been made on whether to participate in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Programme for International Student Assessment financial literacy assessment and will confirm a decision in due course.
Asked by: Imran Hussain (Labour - Bradford East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment her Department has made on the adequacy of funding for children with special educational need in Bradford.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
We are committed to reforming the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system to deliver an excellent, inclusive education for every child and young person, with a world-class curriculum and highly trained, expert staff at every phase of learning.
High needs funding for children and young people with complex SEND was increased by over £1 billion, or 11%, in 2025/26 and funding will continue at this increased level in 2026/27.
Total high needs funding will be well over £12 billion in 2026/27. Of that total Bradford City Council will be allocated over £139 million through the high needs funding block of the dedicated schools grant.
Local authorities will receive at least £3 billion for high needs capital between 2026/27 and 2029/30, and we will publish allocations for 2026/27 in the spring. This builds on £740 million for high needs capital in 2025/26, of which Bradford Council has been allocated approximately £7.3 million.
When the Schools White Paper is published early in 2026, we will set out further details on additional funding for both local authorities and schools to drive forward reform of the SEND system.
Asked by: Imran Hussain (Labour - Bradford East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department plans to increase funding for Bradford City Council to support children with SEND.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
We are committed to reforming the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system to deliver an excellent, inclusive education for every child and young person, with a world-class curriculum and highly trained, expert staff at every phase of learning.
High needs funding for children and young people with complex SEND was increased by over £1 billion, or 11%, in 2025/26 and funding will continue at this increased level in 2026/27.
Total high needs funding will be well over £12 billion in 2026/27. Of that total Bradford City Council will be allocated over £139 million through the high needs funding block of the dedicated schools grant.
Local authorities will receive at least £3 billion for high needs capital between 2026/27 and 2029/30, and we will publish allocations for 2026/27 in the spring. This builds on £740 million for high needs capital in 2025/26, of which Bradford Council has been allocated approximately £7.3 million.
When the Schools White Paper is published early in 2026, we will set out further details on additional funding for both local authorities and schools to drive forward reform of the SEND system.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 29 January (HL13801), whether they plan to collect data on respiratory syncytial virus related hospital admissions of infants under one year old in weekly surveillance reports; if not, for what reason this data is being omitted.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Numbers of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) admissions in infants are reported by a sentinel network of approximately 15 to 20 National Health Service trusts in England to the Severe Acute Respiratory Infections-Watch Surveillance at the UK Health Security Agency. Participation in this surveillance is completely voluntary for NHS trusts. Therefore, the number of participating trusts can vary from week to week, and comparisons based on simple counts may be misleading.
To provide appropriate context for reported weekly data, weekly admission rates are calculated to monitor trends over time. This uses trust catchment populations published by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, which are estimated for under five-year-olds, but which have not been estimated specifically for the under one year old age group, or infants.
Therefore, published rates are based on the available denominator data for the under five-year-olds, and these are publicly available in the national surveillance weekly reports and corresponding datafile at the GOV.UK website.
Further surveillance data and a programme impact assessment will be included in the annual surveillance report on RSV, due to be published in summer 2026. Please refer to the 2024/25 annual surveillance report for a summary of the previous winter season, which is available at the GOV.UK website.
Surveillance reports use hospital admission data and the Office for National Statistics’ mid-year estimates to model catchment populations for hospital trusts. Modelled catchment populations use hospital data, aggregated over three years and resident populations in five-year age bands.
Asked by: Baroness Redfern (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to work with Young Lives vs Cancer to deliver the travel fund for young cancer patients.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department knows that the cost of travel is an important issue for many young cancer patients and their families across the United Kingdom.
Through the National Cancer Plan, the Government is committing up to £10 million a year to a new fund open to all children and young people in England with cancer and their families regardless of income, to support them with the cost of travelling to and from treatment. This commitment sits alongside wider action to transform cancer care for children and young people.
The Department has worked closely with the Children and Young People (CYP) Cancer Taskforce, to develop ambitious commitments on CYP cancer in the National Cancer Plan. The taskforce brought together experts across a range of fields to identify ways to improve outcomes and patient experience for young cancer patients and has been committed to ensuring the voices of key charity stakeholders and patients are included.
That’s why the Government assembled a Charity Sub-Group and Patient Experience Panel to ensure this expertise fed directly into the work of the taskforce.
The Government is committed to continuing its work with key cancer partners, including Young Lives vs Cancer, to deliver the commitments outlined in the National Cancer Plan.
Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 30 January (HL13777), when they will publish the results of the consultation on proposals to extend the medicines responsibilities of four professions.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The consultation for proposals to extend medicines responsibilities for paramedics, physiotherapists, operating department practitioners, and diagnostic radiographers closed on 28 October 2025. Our team is currently analysing the large number of respondents received and a Government response detailing next steps will be published in due course.
Non-medical prescribing remains a keen area of interest since the Government took office in 2024, and we support the expansion of professional groups being able to use legal mechanisms to supply, administer, and prescribe medicines to patients, where it is safe to do so, within their scope of practice.
Asked by: Baroness Walmsley (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether NHS England's forthcoming quality strategy will include a new model for financial incentives in the NHS, including specialised, secondary, primary and community care.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The new NHS Quality Strategy will build on the 10-Year Health Plan and Dr Penny Dash’s review of patient safety across the health and care landscape. The 10-Year Health Plan commits to using sharper financial incentives to deliver value and improve outcomes. We expect the NHS Quality Strategy will reference, alongside other interventions, how the Department and NHS England will develop these incentives to ensure they drive high quality care across the National Health Service.
Asked by: Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many yellow card reports of Post 5-Alpha Reductase Inhibitor Syndrome the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency has received each year since 2019; and what medications those reports were tied to.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is responsible for ensuring that medicines, medical devices, and blood components for transfusion meet applicable standards of safety, quality, and efficacy. The MHRA rigorously assesses available data, including from the Yellow Card scheme, and seeks advice from the Commission on Human Medicines, the MHRA’s independent advisory committee, where appropriate, to inform regulatory decisions including amending the product information.
The MHRA has received a total of four United Kingdom reports through the Yellow Card scheme associated with the reaction term Post 5-Alpha Reductase Inhibitor Syndrome from 1 January 2019 up to and including 4 February 2026. The following table shows a yearly breakdown of reports associated with Post 5-Alpha Reductase Inhibitor Syndrome:
Year | Number of Reports |
2023 | 1 |
2025 | 3 |
Total | 4 |
In addition, the following table shows a yearly breakdown of reports received by substance associated with Post 5-Alpha Reductase Inhibitor Syndrome:
| Year | |
Substance Group Name | 2023 | 2025 |
FINASTERIDE | 1 | 3 |
RAMIPRIL |
| 1 |
FLUVASTATIN |
| 1 |
TAMSULOSIN |
| 1 |
Please note that each report may list more than one suspect drug. Therefore, the total number of reports received cannot be accurately derived from the figures presented in the above table.
It is important to note that anyone can report to the MHRA’s Yellow Card scheme and the recording of these reports in the Yellow Card database does not necessarily mean that the adverse reactions have been caused by the suspect drug. Many factors must be considered in assessing causal relationships, including temporal association, the possible contribution of concomitant medication, and the underlying disease. We encourage reporters to report suspected adverse reaction reports, as the reporter does not have to be sure of a causal association between the drug and the reactions, a suspicion will suffice.
The number of reports received cannot be used as a basis for determining the incidence of a reaction, as neither the total number of reactions occurring, nor the number of patients using the drug, is known.
Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to his Department's press release entitled Student skills investment to boost UK defence industry, published on 5 February 2026, what plans his Department has to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of the funding competition to increase student places on strategically-relevant defence courses.
Answered by Luke Pollard - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
On 5 February the Ministry of Defence (MOD) announced that, as part of the Defence Industrial Strategy skills package, it is directly investing £80 million into the Higher Education sector to increase the capacity on key defence-related courses and invest in new facilities and cutting-edge technology to ensure we have the skilled workforce the sector requires in the future.
This funding will be distributed by the Office for Students (OfS) as part of a Strategic Priorities Grant competition which all eligible Higher Education institutions in England will be able to apply for. We have worked with the OfS to help shape the competition criteria to ensure that institutions receiving this funding will be networked into the defence industry and wider sector and are able to support students to consider a career in the defence industry.
The OfS will monitor the institutions and the specific projects that receive this funding and we are working with them to ensure that this monitoring aligns with the MOD’s strategic aims for this funding.