Asked by: Dan Aldridge (Labour - Weston-super-Mare)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she plans to review whether the pay of teaching assistants adequately reflects the responsibilities, qualifications and duties of the role, including teaching classes and supporting pupils with complex needs.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
School support staff, including teaching assistants, play a vital role in children’s education, and that is why this government is establishing the School Support Staff Negotiating Body (SSSNB).
The SSSNB will be a new statutory body specifically for school support staff. Its purpose is to bring employers and employee representatives together to negotiate minimum standards for pay and conditions for school support staff in all state-funded schools in England. It will also advise on training and career progression for school support staff. The SSSNB is expected to be established in autumn 2026.
The initial focus of the SSSNB will be on establishing new minimum levels for terms and conditions with incremental changes to contracts that lead to cumulative improvements in support staff terms and conditions each year.
Asked by: Dan Aldridge (Labour - Weston-super-Mare)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what measures the Government is taking to strengthen public confidence in the prioritisation of tackling violence against women and girls through criminal justice system.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) is a top priority for this Government. Our ambition is to halve the levels of these crimes within a decade. To do this we must take steps to reform the police response to VAWG, bring the police closer to the communities they serve and make sure we have the right policing in the right places.
We are committed to strengthening the criminal justice system and empowering victims with specialist support. This includes implementing specialist rape and sexual offence teams in every police force in England and Wales by 2029.
We have established the National Centre for VAWG and Public Protection (NCVPP) to provide coordinated leadership on VAWG within policing, ensuring it is treated as a top priority alongside counter terrorism and serious organised crime. Backed by over £13 million of Home Office funding this year, the NCVPP will work with every force across England and Wales to drive consistent practice and support operational improvements through strengthened training for officers, updated national guidance, and targeted support to improve practice.
We are taking decisive action to revive our criminal courts and address long-standing issues that impact victims of VAWG. After commissioning Sir Brian Leveson to undertake an independent review of our criminal courts, on the 25th of February the Government introduced the Courts and Tribunals Bill. The Bill introduces measures to reduce demand on the Crown Court and modernise our court system, to ensure swifter justice for victims including victims of VAWG offences. It introduces a package of crucial reforms protect victims, particularly victims of sexual offences, from unnecessary and intrusive cross-examination about their personal lives at court.
Asked by: Dan Aldridge (Labour - Weston-super-Mare)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she will review the eligibility criteria for the WaterSure scheme to ensure that households with a medically certified need to use more water are eligible for support regardless of whether they receive qualifying means-tested benefits.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government has committed to reform the WaterSure scheme, including eligibility criteria. These reforms were consulted on July to September 2025. The changes to the scheme will expand eligibility to include households in receipt of non-means-tested disability benefits – meaning a further 53,000 low-income households with a medical need of high-water use are expected to save around £325 per year. Government intends to implement these reforms in early 2027, subject to parliamentary processes. The Government response to the consultation can be found on GOV.UK.
Asked by: Dan Aldridge (Labour - Weston-super-Mare)
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 review national guidance on communication and aftercare following miscarriage, including to (a) ensure consistency and trauma-informed practice across NHS trusts and (b) enable patients with lived experience to contribute to improving standards of care.
Answered by Preet Kaur Gill
As set out in the Renewed Women’s Health Strategy, we will closely review the results of the recent report on the Tommy’s Graded Model of Miscarriage Care pilot study, as part of our wider work on miscarriage care.
My Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, is chairing a Maternity and Neonatal Taskforce to develop a national action plan that will reform maternity and neonatal services to deliver lasting change for women, families, and their babies. They will consider all stages of maternity and neonatal, and the plan will be published by the end of the year.
Asked by: Dan Aldridge (Labour - Weston-super-Mare)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he has made an assessment of the potential impact of treating student maintenance loans as income on Universal Credit claimants seeking to retrain for occupations with workforce shortages.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government) (Equalities)
The primary source of financial support for students comes from the student support system through various loans and grants designed for their needs. Students are unable to claim Universal Credit if they are studying full-time, unless they meet specific exceptions such as being responsible for a child. Where eligible students make a claim for Universal Credit, income available to meet their everyday living costs such as a basic student maintenance loan are taken into account, avoiding duplication of support.
The Department is committed to supporting people to retrain, develop new skills and move into jobs in sectors experiencing workforce shortages. Jobcentre Plus works with employers to provide work experience and training placements, including Sector Based Work Academy Programme, helping people gain the experience and skills to fill these vacancies. In addition, we are offering up to 300,000 additional opportunities with priority referrals for young people as part of the Youth Guarantee.
Asked by: Dan Aldridge (Labour - Weston-super-Mare)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of allowing pregnant women and new mothers diagnosed with cancer to defer statutory maternity leave until the completion of their treatment.
Answered by Andrew Western - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Parental leave and pay entitlements are being considered as part of the Government’s Parental Pay and Leave Review. The Review will report in early 2027 with next steps for taking any reforms forward to implementation.
Asked by: Dan Aldridge (Labour - Weston-super-Mare)
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 through the Men's Health Strategy to improve support given to fathers and partners during the postnatal period and following a traumatic pregnancy or birth.
Answered by Sharon Hodgson
The Government recognises the significant physical and psychological consequences of birth trauma and the devastating impact this can have on women and their families, including men. We remain fully committed to improving the quality and consistency of care throughout pregnancy, birth, and the critical months that follow.
Specialist perinatal mental health services should offer fathers and partners an assessment of their mental health needs and signpost them to relevant services such as Talking Therapies or community mental health services.
Health visiting perinatal mental health support is focussed on the whole family, and some National Health Service trusts also work with Home Start UK’s Dad Matters project to support paternal mental health.
Through Best Start Family Hubs and Healthy Babies we are investing approximately £37 million in 2026/27 in 75 local authorities in England to provide perinatal mental health and parent-infant relationship support, including for fathers.
The funding enables fathers to access a range of groups and services to strengthen their relationship with their child, gain confidence as parents, and for new and expectant fathers to access mental health support, including for traumatic pregnancies or births.
The Men’s Health Strategy recognises fatherhood as a critical life stage. The strategy sets up a strong foundation for improving how we think and act on men's health and we will learn, iterate, and adapt as challenges emerge.
Asked by: Dan Aldridge (Labour - Weston-super-Mare)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has any guidance around restrictions being placed by nurseries on hours during which government funded childcare hours can be accessed, such as limiting provision to specific times of the day.
Answered by Olivia Bailey
The ‘Early Education and Childcare’ statutory guidance states that local authorities should encourage providers to offer flexible packages of free hours, which will enable children to access regular, high-quality provision, while maximising flexibility for parents and ensuring a degree of stability for providers.
Local authorities should enable parents to take up their child’s free place in patterns of hours that stretch their child’s entitlement by taking fewer hours a week over more weeks of the year, where there is provider capacity and parental demand.
Additionally, local authorities should ensure that parents and providers are aware that there is no requirement that free places must be taken on, or delivered on, particular days of the week or at particular times of the day.
Asked by: Dan Aldridge (Labour - Weston-super-Mare)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether students required to resit GCSE Mathematics alongside A-level study are mandated to attend school-delivered resit classes, including in cases where they are receiving private tuition outside of school.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Progress towards and attainment of Level 2 maths and English is essential for helping students seize opportunities in life, learning and work. The 16 to 19 maths and English Condition of Funding ensures students have this opportunity. Students aged 16 to 19 who have not yet achieved a GCSE grade 4 in maths are required to continue studying towards Level 2 maths as part of their study programme. Under the 16 to 19 maths and English Condition of Funding, institutions are required to deliver a minimum of 100 hours in-person, whole class, standalone teaching in maths each academic year for eligible students on 16 to 19 study programmes and T Levels. Any additional support, including remote, online delivery or private tuition can be delivered in addition to the minimum teaching hours.
Asked by: Dan Aldridge (Labour - Weston-super-Mare)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of bringing forward legislative proposals to require the use of digital watermarking on AI images.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Minister of State (Cabinet Office) (Jointly with the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Technology)
The government continues to explore the feasibility of technical solutions for the identification of AI-generated content, such as digital watermarking, to support transparency.
AI is a general-purpose technology with a wide range of applications, which is why the government believes that most AI systems should be regulated at the point of use. In response to the AI Action Plan, the government committed to work with regulators to boost their capabilities. The government has been clear that we will legislate where needed but we will do so on the basis of evidence where any serious gaps are.