Alex Easton

The Government is not in favour of using Solar Radiation Modification. Given the significant uncertainty around the possible risks and impacts of deployment on the climate and environment, the Government is not deploying SRM and has no plans to do so.

The Department works closely with the international research community to evaluate the latest research on Solar Radiation Modification including participating in forums such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The UK Government is committed to reaching clean power by 2030 and restoring nature. We need to ensure that our marine ecosystems are healthy, and capturing and storing carbon too. This means that new energy infrastructure needs to be planned and developed in a way that protects the natural environment and supports nature recovery.

Assessment and mitigation of environmental impacts are a core part of our planning processes, and future spatial plans will support rebuilding our natural infrastructure at the same time as building the new energy infrastructure we need for the twenty first century.

Collaboration between the UK Government and Devolved Governments is essential to accelerate Net Zero and deliver the Clean Energy Superpower Mission. The Government is working closely with governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to help work towards delivery of our respective climate targets and carbon budgets and Ministers from this department and the Devolved Governments met on 17 October in Edinburgh to discuss this.

The Government will work with the private sector to radically increase the deployment of onshore wind, solar and offshore wind by 2030. Changes to permitted development rights rules will mean more homeowners and businesses will be able to install solar panels on their roofs without going through the planning system. The Government is working to support household renewables through community benefits, energy efficiency schemes and the Smart Export Guarantee.

The Independent Pornography Review looked at the relationship between online pornography and violence against women and girls; its findings and recommendations continue to be assessed in detail by the government.

The Review found violent pornography is common and widely accessible on mainstream pornography platforms, leading to acts like strangulation becoming normalised in real-life sexual encounters, with women and girls being the main victims.

Through the Crime and Policing Bill, the government will make pornography depicting acts of strangulation illegal and from 25 July the Online Safety Act will prevent children from accessing pornography through highly effective age assurance.

The Government is committed to supporting the uptake and development of alternative methods to the use of animals in science. We are currently engaging with partners from sectors with interests in animal science as to how we will take this commitment forward, including the publishing of a strategy to support the development, validation and uptake of alternative methods. This has included discussions between ministers from DSIT, the Home Office and Defra. We expect to publish this strategy later this year.

All user-to-user and search services in scope of the Act must tackle illegal content and, where relevant, protect children from harm. Ofcom is the independent regulator for this regime and takes a proportionate and risk-based approach to regulation. Ofcom must ensure burdens on providers are proportionate to their risk factors, size, and capacity.

I have held regular meetings with Ofcom, both on their own and with others, when these and many other issues have been discussed.

Governing bodies must ensure that the arrangements they put in place are sufficient to meet their statutory responsibilities and that policies, plans, procedures and systems are properly and effectively implemented. This includes the duty under Section 100 of the Children and Families Act 2014 to make arrangements for supporting pupils with medical conditions and the duties under the Equality Act 2010.

Statutory guidance, ‘Supporting pupils at school with medical conditions’, recommends the use of individual healthcare plans as good practice. They can help schools support pupils with medical conditions, providing clarity about what needs to be done, when and by whom. The school, healthcare professionals and parents should agree, based on evidence, when a healthcare plan would be appropriate. ‘Supporting pupils at school with medical conditions’ can be found at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5ce6a72e40f0b620a103bd53/supporting-pupils-at-school-with-medical-conditions.pdf.

This government’s ambition is that all children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) receive the right support to succeed in their education and as they move into adult life.

High-quality teaching is central to ensuring that all pupils, including those with dyslexia or other types of SEND, are given the best possible opportunity to achieve. To support all teachers, the department is implementing a range of teacher training reforms to ensure teachers have the skills to support all pupils to succeed. From September 2025, Initial Teacher Training and Early Career Teacher induction training must be based on the Initial Teacher Training and Early Career Framework (ITTECF) which contains significantly more content on adaptive teaching and supporting and improving inclusivity for pupils with SEND. From September 2025, the department has also enhanced the requirement on providers of early career teacher training to develop training materials that support the needs of children with SEND.

This academic year, Reading Ambition for All, a continuous professional development programme was launched. The programme explores the appropriate teaching, support and provision for the lowest attaining children in reading, with a particular focus on those with SEND. It is delivered by English Hubs and is primarily aimed at reading leaders, special educational needs and disabilities co-ordinators and senior leaders.

Reading Ambition for All draws on the latest research about how children learn to read and explores effective approaches to teaching those who need specific adaptations to make progress.

Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.

The department is committed to supporting the UK net-zero carbon targets. Since 2021, our own building standards require that all new school buildings we deliver are net-zero carbon in operation and are adapted to climate change​.

The department is providing support for all schools and colleges to start on their journey towards net zero via our new online sustainability support for education platform and our climate ambassador programme. Where schools are considering options to become more sustainable, including considering decarbonisation of their energy supply, our ‘Get help for buying’ service provides support to ensure that schemes procured are of high quality and value to the sector. More information can be found at: https://gethelpbuyingforschools.campaign.gov.uk/.

​Details of other government funding available to public bodies for sustainability, prepared by the Crown Commercial Service can be found at: https://www.crowncommercial.gov.uk/social-value/carbon-net-zero/funding-and-grants.

Capital funding allocated to the school sector each year can also be used for projects that improve the energy efficiency and sustainability of school buildings, as well as improving the condition of the estate to keep schools safe and operational.

The department has allocated £2.1 billion in condition funding for the 2025/26 financial year, which is £300 million more than the previous year.

In addition, the department is working with Great British Energy, as part of their solar programme, and investing a total of £80 million to install solar and other related interventions in 200 schools and colleges. This is targeting areas of deprivation, to reduce emissions and energy bills, whilst also combining it with a behaviour change and skills programme that seeks to inspire young people to take up career and training opportunities in clean energy and construction.

Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.

This government’s ambition is that all children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) receive the right support to succeed in their education and as they move into adult life.

Following the 2024 Autumn Budget, the department is providing an increase of £1 billion for high needs budgets in England in the 2025/26 financial year, bringing total high needs funding for children and young people with complex SEND to £11.9 billion.

The department is keeping the high needs funding arrangements under review as we progress wider SEND reforms.

The National Careers Service provides free, up to date, impartial information, advice and guidance on careers, skills and the labour market in England, helping customers make informed choices about their career options.

Adults with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) are one of the priority groups for the service and can access in-depth tailored support, drawing on localised labour market information, including face-to-face support from community-based careers advisers, information and advice through webchat, telephone helpline and website.

Prime contractors delivering community-based support are required to comply with all relevant legislation and must develop strategies to encourage people from identified priority groups, including those with learning difficulties or disabilities, to use the community-based service and ensure they meet the specific needs of these customers.

The National Careers Service website provides education advice and job support for people with SEND and content is accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018. The education advice is available here: https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/careers-advice/education-advice-disabled-special-educational-needs. The job support is available here: https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/careers-advice/career-and-job-support-for-people-with-a-disability/.

As outlined in the Get Britain Working White Paper, Jobcentre Plus will be brought together with the National Careers Service in England, to create a new Jobs and Careers Service, transforming the experience for all users.

Part of the digital offer of the new service will include exploring how assistive technology can be used to aid in the accessibility and inclusiveness of the service.

I refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the hon. Member for York Central, Rachael Maskell, on 8 October 2025, PQ UIN 76016.

The food strategy will identify root causes of key problems such as food poverty and unhealthy diets and articulate the outcomes we want from the food system, enabling the Government, civil society, and the food industry work to shared goals and priorities. Health is one of our four priority areas. A key outcome will be more easily accessible and affordable, safe, nutritious, healthy food to tackle diet-related ill health, helping to give children the best start in life and help adults live longer healthier lives, including people on low and middle incomes. Delivering the food strategy means changing the way the food system works for the better and replacing the junk food cycle’ identified by Henry Dimbleby with a ‘good food cycle’.

The food strategy is aligned with and supports the Government programme, Plan for Change and Missions. The food sector has a crucial role to play in supporting our health Mission by tackling diet-related ill health and addressing poor diets. The Government respects individual autonomy in making dietary choices and also wants to encourage food manufacturers to provide nutritious, sustainable food options and empower consumers to make informed decisions about their diets, to deliver better health outcomes for consumers.

To help enable growth, Defra supports the conservation of livestock and equines, including the Dartmoor Pony, by monitoring populations of native breeds, with data published in the annual UK National Breed inventory. Defra also protects eligible native breeds at risk from culling during notifiable disease outbreaks. Defra can utilise the Zootechnical animal breeding legislation to support the recognised breed society to meet the aim of their approved breeding programme.

Actions will be available in Countryside Stewardship for grazing with both cattle and ponies. The Dartmoor Pony is listed on the Native Breeds at Risk list so are eligible for payments under the native breeds supplements. Defra have also made it clear within the new offer that ponies are exempt from stock removal requirements, in recognition that removal of ponies from moorland is neither feasible nor desirable in most circumstances.

For those with existing Sustainable Farming Incentive agreements and those currently working with Natural England on new Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier applications, the new moorland offer will be subject to monitoring and evaluation, particularly in the first year. Any change in the pony population during this time will be investigated and further mitigations will be explored if necessary.

At present Defra are focussed on developing a new and improved SFI offer, more information will be available in due course.

I refer the hon. Member to the reply previously given the hon. Member for North Down, Alex Easton, on 13 November, PQ UIN 12673.

Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging (EPR) will move the cost of dealing with household packaging waste away from taxpayers and onto the packaging producers (applying the ‘polluter pays principle’). This will give producers responsibility for the costs of the packaging they use throughout its life cycle, encouraging businesses to reduce their use of packaging and use packaging which is easier to recycle and reuse.

The Government is not currently considering the adoption of a units-based metric for EPR fees. Extender Producer Responsibility disposal fees for packaging are calculated in £ per tonne of household packaging placed on the market in accordance with the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging and Packaging Waste) Regulations 2024. Whilst producers report the packaging they supply on a weight basis, the costs for managing different material types, such as glass, are apportioned according to relevant cost drivers for their collection and management, including the volume of the container in bins and collection vehicles. This ensures the fair apportionment of costs between material types in line with the regulations.

The Armed Forces Covenant is a promise by the nation that those who serve, or have served, in the Armed Forces, and their families, including the bereaved, will be treated fairly and not disadvantaged in accessing public and commercial goods and services as a result of their military service. It also allows for special provision, when justified, for those who have sacrificed the most, such as the bereaved and injured. The Covenant Legal Duty helps promote better outcomes for the Armed Forces community when accessing key public services of healthcare, housing, and education, and this will soon be extended to transport.

The Department for Transport is well-equipped to meet its obligations under the Armed Forces Covenant Legal Duty, ensuring that armed forces personnel and their families do not face undue disadvantage when accessing transport services.

The Department will continue to work with the Ministry of Defence (MoD) on the Covenant’s Statutory Guidance and implementation.

In 2022, Active Travel England was established as an executive agency to the Department for Transport, with the strategic aim of enabling people to walk, wheel and cycle and protecting them when they do by reducing road danger through the creation of safe infrastructure. The agency has been supporting the development of designs and the assessment of design quality through the use of recently published active travel design assistance and scheme review tools. Officials use these tools for ongoing design assurance and to identify critical safety issues that are associated with an increased risk of collisions for people walking, wheeling, or cycling, and work with local authorities to remove or mitigate them.

To further improve road safety for cyclists, we are investing up to £30 million this year to scale up Bikeability training to over 500,000 more children, and will announce further funding for Bikeability training in the coming months.

The Government is committed to accelerating the roll-out of charging infrastructure so that everyone, no matter where they live or work, can make the transition to an electric vehicle (EV). As of November, there are over 71,000 publicly available charging devices in the UK. The £381 million Local EV Infrastructure (LEVI) Fund currently supports local authorities in England to work with industry to transform the availability of EV charging for drivers without off-street parking and will support the installation of tens of thousands of local chargers.

The Government also confirmed in the October 2024 Budget that it will continue to support the uptake of EVs by investing over £200 million in 2025/26 to accelerate EV chargepoint rollout.

Currently, claimants can opt-in to having their Personal Independence Payment assessment recorded. Audio recording is available for face-to-face and telephone assessments with all the Department’s assessment providers. These arrangements are publicised on providers’ websites and in assessment invitation letters.

We announced in the Pathways to Work Green Paper our intention to change this approach to one where we record all health assessments as standard, with a process for claimants to opt-out of a recording should they choose. By doing so, we hope to improve people’s trust in the health assessment process, and we are currently developing our plans to implement this measure. We have not yet issued guidance to Capita or any health assessment provider about recording assessments as standard.

The Department is committed to monitoring the impacts of its policies. This includes monitoring the impact of audio recording health assessments as standard for disability benefits.

We are committed to actively consider and reflect on what we have heard regarding the Pension Protection Fund and Financial Assistance Scheme rules on the indexation of pre-1997 pension accruals. We understand that it is an important issue for affected members.

The department works closely with all the Devolved Governments, including the Northern Ireland Executive, on a range of policy matters.

Proposals for reform to the system of health and disability benefits were set out in the Pathways to Work Green Paper published on 18 March 2025. The consultation will run for a full 12 weeks, once all accessible versions are published. Social security and employment support are transferred in Northern Ireland, although the UK Government and the Northern Ireland Executive work closely together to maintain parity between their respective social security systems, to the extent agreed between them. We welcome comments on the consultation from individuals and organisations in Northern Ireland, which will then be shared with the Department for Communities in Northern Ireland.

The Government published the OBR-certified costings of individual measures on the day of the Spring Statement on 26 March.

We will work closely with the Northern Ireland Executive to ensure we are helping people in Northern Ireland into work and off benefits, and on the interactions between reserved and devolved areas of responsibility as a result of these proposals.

We published the framework ‘Tackling Child Poverty: Developing Our Strategy’ on 23 October and will explore all available levers to deliver an enduring reduction in child poverty in this parliament, as part of a 10-year strategy for lasting change.

The Child Poverty Strategy will look at levers across four key themes of increasing incomes, which includes considering social security reforms, reducing essential costs, increasing financial resilience, and better local support especially in the early years. This will build on the reform plans underway across government and work underway in Devolved Governments.

The Child Poverty Taskforce continues its urgent work to publish the Strategy in Spring 2025.

This government believes there is a strong case to change the system of health and disability benefits across Great Britain so that it better enables people to enter and remain in work, and to respond to the complex and fluctuating nature of the health conditions many people live with. The system must also work to reduce poverty for disabled people and those with health conditions and support disabled people to live independently.

We want to engage with disabled people, and others with expertise and experience on these issues, to consider how to address these challenges and build a better system. We will be working to develop proposals for reform in the months ahead and will set them out for consultation and engagement in a Green Paper in spring 2025. This government is committed to putting the views and voices of disabled people at the heart of all that we do, so we will consult on these proposals with disabled people and representative organisations.