Asked by: Lord Porter of Spalding (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they intend to work with local government to develop and implement their proposals for English devolution; and if so, how.
Answered by Viscount Younger of Leckie - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government’s ambition is for full devolution across England including through more devolution deals that level up powers and invest further in infrastructure. That is why it has been working with local authority leaders to unlock the Sheffield City Region and continues discussions with West Yorkshire leaders on a new devolution deal. The Government also engages with a wide range of local government partners on the future of devolution in England and looks forward to continuing this as it develops the English Devolution White Paper.
Asked by: Lord Porter of Spalding (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what discussions they have had with the (1) Local Government Association, and (2) local government, about the role of councils in the upcoming Festival of Britain.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
DCMS has asked the Organising Committee for the Birmingham Commonwealth Games, under the leadership of its Chief Creative Officer, to develop plans for the Festival. The Organising Committee will lead on any discussions with local government.
Asked by: Lord Porter of Spalding (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what discussions they have had with Bridgend County Borough Council about attracting investment for Bridgend and reducing the impact on workers from any closure of the Ford engine plant.
Answered by Lord Henley
Her Majesty’s Government is committed to working closely with the Welsh Government to consider, and where possible, mitigate the impact of Ford’s decision to close its Bridgend Engine Plant. The Welsh Government, the Wales Office, Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy and the Department for International Trade came together with the company, local leaders, unions and Bridgend County Borough Council for the first meeting of the Ford Bridgend Taskforce on 1 July.
Jointly sponsored by Welsh Government Minister for Economy and Transport Ken Skates and my rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales, and chaired by Professor Richard Parry-Jones, the Taskforce has been established to support Ford workers, communities and local economy following the company’s decision to close their operation in Bridgend from Autumn 2020.
Bridgend County Borough Council is expected to have a key role in the activities of this Taskforce, as part of wider joint efforts to support the workers and the wider community.
Asked by: Lord Porter of Spalding (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the decision by Whirlpool UK to recall 500,000 unsafe tumble dryers, what steps they are taking to ensure that there is a regularly updated database of recalled products that can be accessed by the public, retailers, manufacturers and auction houses.
Answered by Lord Henley
The Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS) makes available information on recalled electrical products through its dedicated product recall website.
The Government urges consumers to register their electrical products with manufacturers as the easiest way for consumers to stay informed on any safety issues. Consumers can access the Register My Appliance service through the OPSS product recall site.
Asked by: Lord Porter of Spalding (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government when they expect to issue guidance for local areas to give clarity on the details of the new UK Shared Prosperity Fund.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
The government recognises the importance of reassuring local areas on the future of local growth funding and providing clarity on the UK Shared Prosperity Fund. Therefore, we will consult widely on the Fund.
Decisions on the allocation and quantum of the Fund are due to be made following the Spending Review.
Asked by: Lord Porter of Spalding (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, following the announcement of new school places for special educational needs children on 11 March, how the Department for Education is working with local authorities to ensure that new schools are built where demand for places is highest.
Answered by Lord Agnew of Oulton
Every child in this country, whatever their background, should have the opportunity to get a world class education, giving them knowledge and skills that set them up for life. This includes children with special educational needs and disabilities. To help achieve this ambition, the department has opened 34 new special free schools through the free schools programme, with a further 91 approved to open in the future.
The department’s experience of opening special free schools has shown that the commitment from local authorities is important so that new schools compliment the local education offer and are a close match for what families need. That is why in the recent round, we asked local authorities to set out their case for why a new special free school would benefit their area, including how the new school would help them manage their high needs budget.
This process does not replace the free school presumption process and does not replace a local authority’s duty to secure sufficient appropriate education for children and young people.
If there is significant basic need in an area, the local authority should decide whether a free school presumption competition is needed and if so, they must seek proposals to establish a free school through the presumption process.
Asked by: Lord Porter of Spalding (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, following the findings of the 2019 Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance Survey, published by the Asphalt Industry Alliance in March, which reported that the roads repair backlog stands at over £9 billion, what steps they are taking to (1) resource councils to address this backlog, and (2) provide additional funding for road maintenance budgets as part of the forthcoming Spending Review.
Answered by Baroness Vere of Norbiton - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government is providing over £6.6 billion of capital funding between 2015 and 2021 for local highways maintenance in England, outside of London. This includes funding of over £296 million through a dedicated Pothole Action Fund and £420 million for highways maintenance as announced in the Budget 2018.
Decisions on additional funding for local highways maintenance will be considered as part of the Spending Review.
Asked by: Lord Porter of Spalding (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that local health partners are playing an equitable role alongside local government in supporting children with special educational needs and disabilities.
Answered by Lord Agnew of Oulton
Creating an effective inter-agency approach, where local government works in partnership with health partners to meet needs, is a key feature of the reforms to the Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) system introduced in the 2014 Children and Families Act.
We introduced joint Ofsted/Care Quality Commission local area inspections of SEND services in May 2016 to hold services to account and support them with improving. Where issues with performance are identified, including following a SEND inspection, the Department for Education (DfE), Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England collaborate to drive improvement.
In addition to the inspections, we have strengthened joint accountability through the introduction of a 2-year trial, which began in April 2018, extending the remit of the First-tier Tribunal (SEND) to make non-binding recommendations on health and social care elements of education health care (EHC) plans.
To improve timeliness, the 2017-18 NHS Provider Contract for NHS Trusts included a new requirement to report on meeting the 6-week deadline for health input into EHC plans.
We are clear that strong strategic leadership across health, education and care is key to effective SEND services and we have:
Established a new joint SEND system leadership board, with representatives from education, health and social care, working alongside joint roundtables chaired by Ministers from both DfE and DHSC.
Established a national network for Designated Medical Officers and Designated Clinical Officers, funded a local authority-led regional network and developed resources to support joint self-assessment and peer review.
Funded a consortium of partners, including the Condition Data Collection, to work with health and social care services, including producing guidance on effective joint commissioning and improving EHC plans.
Funded a SEND leadership programme and legal training for all local authorities and their health partners to ensure they are clear on their statutory responsibilities.
We have also re-emphasised the requirement to jointly commission Information, Advice and Support (IAS) Services across health and the local authority through our new minimum standards, backed by £10 million investment through the IAS programme.
Asked by: Lord Porter of Spalding (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that mainstream schools are supported and incentivised to be more inclusive towards children with special educational needs and disabilities.
Answered by Lord Agnew of Oulton
The Children and Families Act 2014 reinforced the presumption of mainstream education for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). The accompanying SEND code of practice provides detailed guidance to schools about how to support children with SEND.
We have announced funding for new training places for over 600 new Educational Psychologists who help ensure that children with SEND get the support they need in school.
We are promoting the increased development of mainstream units and resourced provision through recent capital expenditure and in our guidance to new bidders for mainstream free schools. In December we announced a further £100 million top-up to the Special Provision Capital Fund for local authorities in 2019-20. This takes our total investment to £365 million across 2018-21. This funding can be used for more places in SEND units and resourced provision in mainstream schools, colleges or in special schools.
We are funding the Whole School SEND Consortium to embed SEND into school improvement planning and Continuing Professional Development (CPD). New SEND regional leads are bringing together practitioners and networks in their local area to build a community of practice and facilitate the exchange of knowledge and expertise.
The new Ofsted common inspection framework, introduced from September 2019, will put more focus on SEND, rewarding schools for their work with pupils who need extra support. In addition, local area SEND inspections by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission are considering how effectively the local area identifies, meets the needs of, and improves the outcomes for the wide range of different groups of children and young people who have SEND.
A call for evidence on how the SEND funding system operates was recently announced on 3 May 2019 to help the department understand how the current available funding is distributed, and what improvements to the financial arrangements could be made in future.
Asked by: Lord Porter of Spalding (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what formal consultation they have undertaken with councils as part of their Future Telecoms Infrastructure Review to understand the best option for delivering rural connectivity in (1) coastal, (2) largely rural, and (3) mainly rural, areas.
Answered by Lord Ashton of Hyde
The Government set out its long term national strategy for full fibre connectivity in the Future telecoms Infrastructure review, following a public Call for Evidence, extensive engagement with stakeholders and experts, and evidence from a range of other sources, including external analysis.
The Review committed to an ‘Outside In’ approach to deployment, to support areas which are likely to require additional funding - we expect these to be mostly in rural and remote areas. We are trialling different delivery models in these areas through BDUK’s Superfast Programme and the recently launched Rural Gigabit Connectivity programme and will continue our engagement with Local Authorities throughout the duration of these Programmes.