Asked by: Elsie Blundell (Labour - Heywood and Middleton North)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps she is taking to provide fiscal autonomy to the North West.
Answered by Jim McMahon - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The English Devolution White Paper sets out an enhanced Devolution Framework for both existing and new strategic authorities across England. It creates a consistent approach to providing Mayors with the power to decide what is right for their areas. It includes the ability for all Mayoral Strategic Authorities to use a Mayoral Precept on Council Tax on a full range of functions, and the ability to raise a Mayoral Community Infrastructure Levy to fund strategic infrastructure once a Spatial Development Strategy is in place. It also sets out a clear and transparent pathway for areas to be designated as Established Mayoral Strategic Authorities and therefore become eligible for an Integrated Settlement. These reforms will also give greater fiscal autonomy to Established Mayoral Strategic Authorities, including those in the North West, by removing the funding silos created by Whitehall.
Asked by: Elsie Blundell (Labour - Heywood and Middleton North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to support single parents re-entering the workforce with funding to access high-quality childcare.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Single parents of children aged nine months and over may qualify for 30 hours of funded childcare from September this year, provided they meet the eligibility requirements. Each parent needs to expect to earn the equivalent of 16 hours at National Living Wage and no more than £100,000 per year adjusted net income. This is equivalent to £195 per week or £10,158 per year (in 2025/26).
The Tax-Free Childcare scheme is also available to eligible working parents, including eligible single parents, and aims to help parents work, return to work, and work more when they want or need to. It can save eligible working parents up to £2,000 per year on the cost of childcare, or up to £4,000 for eligible children with disabilities.
Where households (including single parent households) do not meet the eligibility requirements, they may still qualify for support through the 15-hour entitlement for two-year-olds receiving some additional forms of support. All three and four-year-olds are eligible for 15 hours free early education regardless of their parent’s income.
Parents may wish to explore support through Universal Credit childcare. If eligible, parents can receive help with up to 85% of their childcare costs through Universal Credit Childcare which can be used in addition to the early education entitlements to support with the costs of childcare.
Asked by: Elsie Blundell (Labour - Heywood and Middleton North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of early years funding models in supporting (a) parents and (b) guardians who work fewer than 16 hours per week.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Single parents of children aged nine months and over may qualify for 30 hours of funded childcare from September this year, provided they meet the eligibility requirements. Each parent needs to expect to earn the equivalent of 16 hours at National Living Wage and no more than £100,000 per year adjusted net income. This is equivalent to £195 per week or £10,158 per year (in 2025/26).
The Tax-Free Childcare scheme is also available to eligible working parents, including eligible single parents, and aims to help parents work, return to work, and work more when they want or need to. It can save eligible working parents up to £2,000 per year on the cost of childcare, or up to £4,000 for eligible children with disabilities.
Where households (including single parent households) do not meet the eligibility requirements, they may still qualify for support through the 15-hour entitlement for two-year-olds receiving some additional forms of support. All three and four-year-olds are eligible for 15 hours free early education regardless of their parent’s income.
Parents may wish to explore support through Universal Credit childcare. If eligible, parents can receive help with up to 85% of their childcare costs through Universal Credit Childcare which can be used in addition to the early education entitlements to support with the costs of childcare.
Asked by: Elsie Blundell (Labour - Heywood and Middleton North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of single parent family access to high quality childcare settings.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Single parents of children aged nine months and over may qualify for 30 hours of funded childcare from September this year, provided they meet the eligibility requirements. Each parent needs to expect to earn the equivalent of 16 hours at National Living Wage and no more than £100,000 per year adjusted net income. This is equivalent to £195 per week or £10,158 per year (in 2025/26).
The Tax-Free Childcare scheme is also available to eligible working parents, including eligible single parents, and aims to help parents work, return to work, and work more when they want or need to. It can save eligible working parents up to £2,000 per year on the cost of childcare, or up to £4,000 for eligible children with disabilities.
Where households (including single parent households) do not meet the eligibility requirements, they may still qualify for support through the 15-hour entitlement for two-year-olds receiving some additional forms of support. All three and four-year-olds are eligible for 15 hours free early education regardless of their parent’s income.
Parents may wish to explore support through Universal Credit childcare. If eligible, parents can receive help with up to 85% of their childcare costs through Universal Credit Childcare which can be used in addition to the early education entitlements to support with the costs of childcare.
Asked by: Elsie Blundell (Labour - Heywood and Middleton North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that it is financially viable for childcare settings to offer places to three and four year-old children.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
In 2025/26 alone, we plan to provide over £8 billion for the early years entitlements, a more than 30% increase compared to 2024/25. We have announced the largest ever increase to Early Years Pupil Premium since its introduction and will also deliver a significant tranche of supplementary funding of £75 million through the Early Years Expansion Grant.
We are increasing core funding rates. For 2025/26, the national average three and four-year-old hourly funding rate of local authorities is increasing by 4.1%, two-year-old hourly funding rate is increasing by 3.3%, and nine months to two-year-old hourly funding rate is increasing by 3.4%.
Asked by: Elsie Blundell (Labour - Heywood and Middleton North)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether her Department plans to introduce universal signage for electronic vehicle charging points.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
A reliable, accessible public charging network to support electric vehicle (EV) drivers on long journeys is essential. Ensuring this is visible and functional will build consumer confidence, which is vital for mass EV adoption. An EV charging symbol is in use on traffic signs to direct drivers to the growing number of chargepoints. There are now over 5,250 open-access rapid and ultra rapid chargers within one mile of the Strategic Road Network (SRN), having doubled over 18 months.
Government is working with industry, including chargepoint operators, and with National Highways, which manages the SRN in England, to improve signage deployment. This includes looking for opportunities to make it easier to provide signage for EV-only charging hubs.
Asked by: Elsie Blundell (Labour - Heywood and Middleton North)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether her Department plans to take steps to help reduce the cost of using the public electric vehicle charging network.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Government is committed to ensuring that the public charging network is affordable and accessible. The Government’s Public Charge Point Regulations 2023 increase transparency of public charging costs and make it easier for drivers to pay.
Under the regulations, companies are required to clearly provide the price of charging in pence per kilowatt hour. The maximum price cannot increase once a session has started. Whilst this does not cap the cost, it does ensure consistency in the way prices are displayed, making it easy for drivers to compare and understand prices across different public chargepoints. This will allow customers to choose the chargepoint and the price most appropriate for their needs.
The Government will continue to work with other Government departments and industry on measures to keep the cost of EV charging affordable for consumers.
Asked by: Elsie Blundell (Labour - Heywood and Middleton North)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether she plans to incentivise local authorities to provide funding for public electronic vehicle charging points.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Government's £381m Local EV Infrastructure (LEVI) Fund supports local authorities in England to work with industry to transform the availability of public EV charging infrastructure. The funding, which is expected to leverage significant further private investment, will support the installation of at least 100,000 local chargepoints across the country.
Asked by: Elsie Blundell (Labour - Heywood and Middleton North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of making the (a) installation and (b) use of CCTV recordings in private nurseries a formal requirement for Ofsted inspections.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department’s priority is to grow high-quality, affordable and flexible education and care for children whilst ensuring their safety, giving every child the best start to life and delivering on our Plan for Change. For this reason, we continually monitor and review safeguarding requirements for early years settings to make sure children are kept as safe as possible.
The department is responsible for setting the standards which early years settings such as nurseries must follow. These are set out in the early years foundation stage (EYFS) statutory framework. The department has responsibility for policy on inspection and registration, but how it is implemented is for Ofsted to decide whilst also remaining accountable to Parliament.
The decision to install and use camera surveillance equipment in a nursery is a matter for individual providers to determine based on their own risk assessment and policies.
If a nursery uses camera surveillance equipment, they must comply with the regulations in the Data Protection Act 2018 and the UK General Data Protection Regulation and should follow the guidance published by the Information Commissioner’s Office.
Asked by: Elsie Blundell (Labour - Heywood and Middleton North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions she has had with Greater Manchester Police to reduce response times in north Greater Manchester.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
I refer the Hon Member to the response given to UIN 31037 on 28th February 2025.