Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many representations her Department has received from Manchester City Council on the (a) funding and (b) quality of SEND provision in Greater Manchester in the last five years.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The information is not readily available and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
This government’s ambition is that all children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) or in alternative provision receive the right support to succeed in their education and as they move into adult life. The department is committed to taking a community-wide approach in collaboration with local area partnerships, improving inclusivity and expertise in mainstream schools, as well as ensuring special schools cater to children and young people with the most complex needs.
Manchester City Council (MCC) is one of ten local authorities making up Greater Manchester. Following their SEND inspection, which found no Written Statement of Action was necessary in November 2021, the department has continued to liaise with MCC through regular meetings updating on any key issues or risks in the area. MCC are a lead partner of the SEND Change Programme and provide insights to the department including sharing learning on SEND provision in Manchester.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to help reduce poverty for people on the lowest incomes.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We are committed to tackling poverty and supporting people into good work will be the foundation of our approach. Our plan to Make Work Pay will tackle poor working conditions, poor job security and low pay.
To take crucial steps towards the creation of a genuine living wage that supports families the Government increased the National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage rates on 1 April 2025, delivering a pay rise to over three million workers.
Our Get Britain Working White Paper, backed by £240 million investment, will target and tackle economic inactivity and unemployment and join up employment, health and skills support to meet the needs of local communities.
Alongside this, we are committed to reviewing Universal Credit to make sure it is doing the job we want it to do, to make work pay and tackle poverty. We have begun this work with the announcement of the Fair Repayment Rate in April, giving 1.2 million of the poorest households an average of £420 per year. Furthermore, in the Pathways to Work Green Paper, we announced that we will improve the adequacy of the standard allowance with the first sustained above inflation rise in the basic rate of Universal Credit since it was introduced.
To further support struggling households, funding of £742 million has been provided to enable the extension of the Household Support Fund from 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026 in England, plus additional funding for the Devolved Governments through the Barnett formula to be spent at their discretion.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of (a) climate change and (b) new oil and gas production on the economy.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
Illustrative analysis in the OBR's 2024 Fiscal Risks and Sustainability Report suggests that UK GDP could be around 3% lower by 2074 under a below 2°C warming scenario and around 5% lower under a below 3°C warming scenario.
For decades, the North Sea’s workers, businesses and communities have been at the heart of Britain’s energy future - something they will continue to do for decades to come. This Government will not revoke existing licences and will partner with businesses and workers to manage our existing fields for the entirety of their lifespans
This Government is engaging industry via the ‘Building the North Sea’s Energy Future’ consultation to develop and set out the next steps for the overarching objective for the North Sea. Scaling up industries that will shape the future of the North Sea (including offshore wind, carbon capture and storage, hydrogen, and decommissioning), will be vital for delivering the best outcomes for workers and communities, energy security, and sustainable economic growth.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether she will consider including funding for homelessness services as part of the Comprehensive Spending Review.
Answered by Darren Jones - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
HMT will consider departmental budget requests as part of the Spending Review process and set out funding for future years at Phase 2 of the Spending Review. The government has already made steps to tackle homelessness through: funding at Autumn Budget 2024 where we announced an additional £233 million of resource funding for services in 2025/26; a commitment to the delivery of the biggest increase in social and affordable housebuilding in a generation and building 1.5 million new homes over the next parliament and through protecting renters by abolishing Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of trends in the level of poverty among people in receipt of social security; and if she will introduce a statutory poverty reduction target.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Statistics on the number of people living in absolute and relative poverty in the UK are published annually in the “Households Below Average Income” publication at Households below average income: for financial years ending 1995 to 2024 - GOV.UK. Tables giving the percentage of individuals in relative poverty by state support received by the family are published in “table 5.9db” of “workingage-hbai-detalied-breakdown-2023-24-tables”, “table 6.6db” of “pensioners-hbai-detailed-breakdown-2023-24-tables”, and “table 4.6db” of “children-hbai-detailed-breakdown-2023-24-tables”. The latest statistics published on 27 March 2025 are for the financial period 2023/24.
The latest available data can also be found on Stat-Xplore: https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/. Guidance on how to use it can be found here: https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/User-Guide.html.
The Child Poverty Taskforce is continuing its urgent work and is exploring all available levers to drive forward short and long-term actions across government to reduce child poverty.
Our metrics must also reflect the experience of poverty in households across the UK and the urgent need to focus on those children experiencing the most severe and acute forms of poverty. The Taskforce will consider how best to measure this as the strategy develops, including through our work on the material deprivation measure following the recent review of the material deprivation survey questions carried out by the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to help improve access to sports facilities for disabled people in Greater Manchester.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government is dedicated to making sport in this country accessible and inclusive for everyone. The Government has announced a further £100 million in funding to deliver new and improved multi-sport grassroots facilities and pitches across the whole of the UK. The Multi-Sport Grassroots Facilities Programme’s aims include regular, weekly use by under-represented groups, including disabled people, so that everyone has the opportunity to participate. In 2024/25 the programme invested £2,706,842 in Greater Manchester.
Sport England, the Government’s Arm’s Length Body for grassroots sport, is committed to increasing participation in sport and physical activity for disabled people and improving their access to sport facilities. Sport England also has partnerships with organisations such as Disability Rights UK, Activity Alliance, Aspire, and Sense, to help more disabled people get active.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Scotland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, what recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero on next steps in relation to the (a) Rosebank and (b) Jackdaw oil fields.
Answered by Ian Murray - Secretary of State for Scotland
This Government recognises that oil and gas will continue to play an important role in the UK’s energy security for decades to come. The Government has consulted on revised environmental guidance to take into account emissions from burning extracted oil and gas, and is working towards publication of finalised guidance as soon as possible.
Scotland Office Ministers remain in regular contact with DESNZ Ministers regarding the issue. We also continue to engage with the industry and listen to companies’ specific concerns.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to promote the adoption of (a) digital technologies and (b) AI to support the transition of healthcare from treatment to prevention.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Health Service is already home to world-first digital innovation, with NHS England supporting the rollout of key products, many of which support the shift to prevention and early diagnosis. Examples include the world's first certified autonomous artificially intelligent (AI) diagnostic tool, which can triage patients with suspected skin cancer, as well as digital innovations supporting people struggling with mental health and musculoskeletal issues to gain or remain in employment.
NHS England, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, and the Department are developing a rules based pathway (RBP) for medical technology in the NHS. The RBP aims to create a clear, consistent, and efficient process for evaluating and adopting medical technologies, including digital technologies, in the NHS.
The Early Detection using Information Technology in Health, or EDITH trial, announced in February 2025, is backed by £11 million of Government support via the National Institute for Health and Care Research. It is the latest example of how British scientists are transforming cancer care, building on the promising potential of cutting-edge innovations to tackle one of the United Kingdom’s biggest killers.
Between October 2021 and May 2023 funding was invested in a risk-stratification tool to identify women who are at most risk of developing life-threatening and life-altering complications of pre-eclampsia.
Between October 2020 and September 2023, the Department invested £1.9 million in an AI stroke technology, capable of automatically processing acute stroke computed tomography or magnetic resonance imaging scans, which can provide real-time, clinically useful information in the acute stroke setting, leading to faster decisions.
Between October 2020 and September 2021 funding was invested towards generating a toolkit prototype which can automatically generate placental metrics from a 3D-US scan. These can be combined with other known risk factors and blood results to generate a multi-factorial screening test for fetal growth restriction, which is the single most common cause of stillbirth.
The deployment of AI in the NHS is still at a relatively early stage, with many AI tools being used in a research capacity. To address this, the Department is carrying out work, with NHS England, to assess the barriers of safe, ethical, and effective adoption, and improve the way AI tools are deployed and used in the NHS across England.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to increase levels of (a) diagnosis and (b) early disease detection through the adoption of AI.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has provided £113 million, through the NHS AI Health and Care Awards, to 86 artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, which have been live in 40% of National Health Service acute trusts in England and hundreds of primary care networks across the United Kingdom. This funding is helping us to generate the evidence needed to deploy effective AI tools across the NHS and improve the lives and health outcomes of our population.
Many of these AI technologies are being tested and evaluated to aid healthcare diagnostics. For example, AI is being used to analyse and interpret acute stroke brain scans, to support doctors making treatment decisions in 100% of stroke units in England. In addition, the Department is focusing the £21 million AI Diagnostic Fund on the deployment of technologies in key, high-demand areas such as chest X-ray and chest computed tomography scans, to enable faster diagnosis of lung cancer in over half of acute trusts in England.
Despite these exciting examples of AI use, deployment of AI in the NHS is still at a relatively early stage. To address this, the Department is carrying out work to assess the barriers of effective adoption and improve the way AI tools are deployed across the NHS.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure NHS Trusts meet digital capability targets.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England has supported over 160 trusts with digital transformation, which includes the implementation of Electronic Patient Records. Currently, we have achieved a 91% rollout of Electronic Patient Records, with work underway to provide tailored support to the remaining 19 trusts that do not yet have an Electronic Patient Record.
The Digital Maturity Assessment was also successfully completed in May 2024, with a 100% response rate from secondary care organisations and integrated care systems. This assessment provides a baseline and a holistic view of digital maturity across National Health Service trusts in England. The assessment will be run yearly to track progress and identify areas for improvement.