Lord Bishop of Leicester

Data on the proportion of fathers taking Paternity and Shared Parental Leave is not available for each year since 2017. The 2019 Parental Rights Survey shows that, of all employee fathers who took any type of leave following the birth of their child, 74 per cent took Paternity Leave and 7 per cent took Shared Parental Leave. The same survey finds that 76 per cent of all fathers that took Paternity Leave took up their full Paternity Leave entitlement.

The Energy Bills Support Scheme (EBSS) for Great Britain publishes transparency data on gov.uk. These show that across October, November and December 2022, 71% of issued vouchers were redeemed in Leicester Local Authority (LA), and 76% in the LAs comprising the rest of Leicestershire. Full breakdown in the table below.

The department publishes national statistics on pupil absence from schools in England. Figures covering the full academic year are available up to 2021/22. Figures for Leicester, Leicestershire and England from 2018/19 to 2021/22 are available in attachment table 1.

Since September 2022 the department has also published attendance statistics based on daily data collected from schools that are signed up to do so. These are not directly comparable with the national statistics but are intended to provide an early indicator. Figures for Leicester, Leicestershire and England for 2022/23 are available in attachment table 2.

We do not have the data to fully measure health and well-being behavioural impacts that may have resulted from the two-child limit.

It is not possible to produce a robust assessment of the impact of the two-child limit.

Child Benefit continues to be paid for all children in eligible families.

Relative poverty sets a threshold as a proportion of the UK median income and moves each year as average income changes.

Typically, a household is in relative poverty if its income is less than 60 per cent of the median household income.

Absolute poverty, by our definition, is a threshold as a proportion of the UK average income in a given year (2010/11) and moves each year in line with inflation.

This government prefers to look at Absolute poverty over Relative poverty as relative poverty can provide counter-intuitive results.

Relative poverty is likely to fall during recessions, due to falling median incomes. Under this measure, poverty can decrease even if people are getting poorer.

The absolute poverty line is fixed in real terms, so will only ever worsen if people are getting poorer, and only ever improve if people are getting richer.

Local Authorities have the local ties and knowledge, making them best placed to identify and help those most in need. County Councils are expected to work together with District Councils to provide support and to ensure the funding meets its objectives by identifying those most in need.

Authorities provide management information to DWP which has been used for all the various household support schemes to evaluate how successful The Fund has been in providing support to households.

The published management information for the Household Support Fund covering the period 6 October 2021 to 31 March 2022 reports total grant allocation and spend, number of awards and the percentage spent on families with children, which relates to the condition that at least 50% of that grant be spent on families with children.

Management information for subsequent schemes will be published in due course.

The Department does not hold the information requested. As the independent regulator of 15 health and care professions, the Health and Care Professions Council is responsible for receiving and handling complaints about practitioners on its register.

The UK is working closely with our partners to raise the profile of the crisis in East Africa to help secure a broad base of donor funding. We are considering all options on how best to do this, building on our existing life-saving aid, international partnerships and work to ensure a robust response from humanitarian and development actors.

The Black Sea Grain Initiative (BSGI) has successfully supported the export of over 23 million tonnes of grain and other foodstuffs from Ukrainian ports since August 2022. The UK works closely with the UN and like-minded partners to ensure the continued success and stability of the initiative. We call on all parties to cooperate to ensure that the potential of the BSGI is maximised.

The UK is also providing £5 million towards the "Grain from Ukraine" initiative launched in Kyiv last November to deliver Ukrainian grain to humanitarian crises. The ship to which we have contributed this humanitarian assistance is currently on its way to East Africa loaded with 30,000 tonnes of much needed grain.

The Government has always been clear that the use of asylum hotels is unacceptable, and that’s why we acted swiftly to reduce the impact on local communities by moving asylum seekers on to barges and former military sites.

Thanks to the actions the Government has taken to maximise the use of existing space and our work to cut small boat crossings by a third last year, the cost of hotels will fall, and we are now closing dozens of asylum hotels every month to return them to communities.

Large sites provide adequate and functional accommodation for asylum seekers and are designed to be as self-sufficient as possible, helping to minimise the impact on local communities and services. They reduce demand on an already pressured private rental market and their larger capacity allows the Home Office to be agile in responding to fluctuations in demand.

It is better value for money for the taxpayer to continue with these sites than to continue using hotels. The latest assessment of value for money, which excludes committed or spent costs in line with the Green Book methodology, shows that large sites would be £153 million cheaper than hotels.

Despite the need to stand up large sites at speed, controls were in place to assure value for money for the taxpayer. Operational challenges at the sites have changed our costs since original estimates. We continue to keep costs under review while developing ways to reduce it.

The latest Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA) review has upgraded the rating of the programme, meaning that the successful delivery of time, quality and cost is feasible.

The Illegal Migration Act received Royal Assent on 20 July 2023. The Act seeks to ensure the only way to come to the UK for protection will be through safe and legal routes and will take power out of the hands of the criminal gangs and protect vulnerable people, including children.

Following the High Court ECPAT judgment and Supreme Court judgment on Rwanda, the Government is carefully reflecting on commencement of the powers in the Act, including those relating to the accommodation and transfer of unaccompanied children.

These powers have not yet been commenced and a decision will be made in due course. The Act does not change a local authority’s statutory obligations to children from the date of arrival and that the best place for an unaccompanied child is in the care of a local authority. This is something the Government was consistently clear about during the Illegal Migration Act’s passage through Parliament.

We are working at pace with Kent County Council, other government departments and local authorities across the UK to ensure suitable local authority placements are provided for unaccompanied asylum seeking children urgently and sustainably.

The wellbeing of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children is our priority. We maintain that the best place for these children to be accommodated is within local authority care.

There are currently no unaccompanied children in hotels and there has never been unaccompanied asylum seeking hotels in Leicester. Nationally all unaccompanied children’s hotel accommodation has been empty since 18 November 2023. Of the 7 hotels which were operational in 2022, 6 of those were closed permanently on 30 November 2023.

We take the safety of those in our care seriously. We have robust safeguarding procedures in place to ensure all young people in emergency interim hotels were safe and supported as we sought urgent placements with a local authority.

The specific data requested cannot be provided as it comes from live operational databases that have not been quality assured.

The most recent published data can be found at Asylum and resettlement datasets - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

The wellbeing of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children is our priority. We maintain that the best place for these children to be accommodated is within local authority care.

There are currently no unaccompanied children in hotels and there has never been unaccompanied asylum seeking hotels in Leicester. Nationally all unaccompanied children’s hotel accommodation has been empty since 18 November 2023. Of the 7 hotels which were operational in 2022, 6 of those were closed permanently on 30 November 2023.

We take the safety of those in our care seriously. We have robust safeguarding procedures in place to ensure all young people in emergency interim hotels were safe and supported as we sought urgent placements with a local authority.

The specific data requested cannot be provided as it comes from live operational databases that have not been quality assured.

The most recent published data can be found at Asylum and resettlement datasets - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

The NAO report into the Asylum & Protection Transformation Programme fully recognises the significance of the transformation programme, and the efforts of the Home Office to reform the asylum and protection system.

The report acknowledges the key work the programme has done to date to tackle the challenges facing the asylum system, but notes concern around securing dispersal accommodation, and the ability of decision makers to clear the backlog. The report suggested three recommendations for the programme to increase its chances of success, all of which are accepted and embedded within our programme approach going forward.

This department has provided funding to the Inter Faith Network since 2006/07 and is grateful to the Inter Faith Network for its work to promote understanding between different faiths and none. The department monitors all funded organisations throughout the lifecycle of their project for the purposes of assessing delivery against workplan targets, compliance and evaluation, in line with best practice for the management of public funding and to ensure value is demonstrated. When making funding decisions, the Government considers a wide range of factors, including government priorities and current budgetary pressures.

The Government published a delivery update on the Implementation Plan on 25 May 2023. The update sets out the comprehensive action taken so far and the next steps.

The Government has received the Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s report; “The Family Court and domestic abuse: achieving cultural change”. We are considering the recommendations made and will publish a full response by early November 2023.