Asked by: Harpreet Uppal (Labour - Huddersfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking with her Cabinet colleagues to promote equality as part of the Government mission entitled Break Down Barriers to Opportunity.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
All children and young people should have every opportunity to succeed, no matter where they are from. However, we know educational inequalities exists across the country. This is not acceptable in Huddersfield or nationally.
The department is tackling inequalities in the system head-on through our Plan for Change. In September, we rolled out 30 hours of funded childcare for working parents, saving eligible parents using their full entitlement an average of £75,000 a year.
We are also rolling out free breakfast clubs in every state-funded primary school, expanding free school meals to all children on Universal Credit, and have delivered the largest ever uplift to early years pupil premium.
We are recruiting an additional 6,500 expert teachers in our schools and colleges and are making good progress, with over 2,000 more teachers in our secondary and special schools.
The department will spend close to £1.5 billion over the next three years on improving family services and early years education to begin the hard work needed.
We will fund Best Start Family Hubs in every local authority to ensure that children and families who need support the most, especially those from low-income backgrounds or with additional vulnerabilities, can access it. These hubs will be open to all families but will be located in disadvantaged communities where support is most needed, ensuring services are both inclusive and targeted.
Asked by: Harpreet Uppal (Labour - Huddersfield)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to help tackle fly-tipping in Huddersfield constituency.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Local councils are usually best placed to tackle fly-tipping in their areas, and they have a range of enforcement powers to help them do so. These include fixed penalty notices of up to £1000, seizing and crushing of vehicles and prosecution action. We encourage councils to make good use of their enforcement powers and are taking steps to develop statutory fly-tipping enforcement guidance to support councils to consistently, appropriately and effectively exercise these existing powers. We have also announced a review of council powers to seize and crush vehicles of fly-tippers, to identify how we could help them make better use of this tool.
In our manifesto we committed to forcing fly-tippers to clean up the mess that they have created. We will provide further details on this commitment in due course.
In the meantime, Defra continue to chair the National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group through which we work with a wide range of stakeholders, such as local authorities and the National Farmers Union, to share good practice on preventing fly-tipping, including on private land. Various practical tools are available from their webpage which is available at: https://nftpg.com/.
Asked by: Harpreet Uppal (Labour - Huddersfield)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that the social security system provides (a) supportive and (b) compassionate services for people experiencing (i) poverty and (ii) hardship.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This Government believes that the best way of helping people experiencing poverty and hardship is through a system that supports them into good work wherever possible. Through the proposals in our Get Britain Working White Paper we will deliver the biggest reforms to employment support in a generation. This will include reforming Jobcentre Plus and creating a new Jobs and Careers Service across Great Britain that will enable everyone to access good, meaningful work, and support them to progress in work including through an enhanced focus on skills and careers. Our new service will provide personalised support and move away from the one size fits all approach that Jobcentre Plus has today. We will also remove the stigma of going to a Jobcentre, ensuring it is somewhere that people go to receive support, rather than to feel penalised for receiving benefits. At Autumn Budget, we secured £55m to support the first steps to build, test, and trial the new service for 2025/26.
Universal Credit supports people on a low income in or out of work and is claimed by more than 7.5 million people, and we are committed to reviewing it to make sure it is doing the job we want it to, to make work pay and tackle poverty. We are fulfilling this commitment trough specific work on many of Universal Credit's core elements, and the extensive work taking place through the child poverty taskforce, our health and disability reforms and our employment reforms We have already shown our ambition with the changes made to the Fair Repayment Rate, giving 1.2m households an average of £420 per year. In addition, around 4 million households will benefit from the increase in the Universal Credit Standard Allowance from April 2026, the biggest permanent boost to out-of-work support since 1980, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. This increase is estimated to be worth £725 annually by 2029/30 in cash terms - £250 annually above inflation for a single household aged 25 or over.
To further support struggling households, we are providing £742 million to extend the Household Support Fund (HSF) in England until 31 March 2026, enabling local authorities to continue to provide vulnerable households with immediate crisis support towards the cost of essentials, such as energy, water and food. Starting from 1 April 2026, we have announced a further £842 million a year (£1 billion including Barnett consequential) to reform crisis support with the new Crisis and Resilience Fund, supporting our wider mission to reduce child poverty by reducing dependence on food parcels, preventing homelessness and making sure people can access urgent support when they need it.
Asked by: Harpreet Uppal (Labour - Huddersfield)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, on what basis her Department determines locations of Young Futures Hubs; and if any locations have already been decided.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Responsibility for the cross-Government Young Futures Hubs programme transferred from the Department for Education to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport on 1st September.
On Tuesday 15th July, the Prime Minister set out plans to open 50 hubs over the next four years. Up to £2m is being made available for 8 Early Adopters Local Authorities, in areas of high-knife crime and/or antisocial behaviour, so that the first Young Futures Hubs will be operational later this financial year. Early Adopters will select the precise location of their Young Futures Hub based on local needs. More information will be shared in due course.
The design and implementation of the programme in future years will be informed by our work with early adopters.
Asked by: Harpreet Uppal (Labour - Huddersfield)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what plans her Department has to open Young Futures Hubs in every local authority area.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Responsibility for the cross-Government Young Futures Hubs programme transferred from the Department for Education to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport on 1st September.
On Tuesday 15th July, the Prime Minister set out plans to open 50 hubs over the next four years. Up to £2m is being made available for 8 Early Adopters Local Authorities, in areas of high-knife crime and/or antisocial behaviour, so that the first Young Futures Hubs will be operational later this financial year. Early Adopters will select the precise location of their Young Futures Hub based on local needs. More information will be shared in due course.
The design and implementation of the programme in future years will be informed by our work with early adopters.
Asked by: Harpreet Uppal (Labour - Huddersfield)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that regions where cancer outcomes are poorer receive an adequate share of national cancer (a) research investment and (b) clinical trial opportunities.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology invests in cancer research via UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), and the Department of Health and Social Care via the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). UKRI is committed to ensuring research investment is accessible across the UK. NIHR is committed to ensuring the research they support is representative of the populations they serve, with national coverage across the whole of England. The Department of Health and Social Care has increased funding for research infrastructure schemes delivering cancer research outside the Greater South-East.
Asked by: Harpreet Uppal (Labour - Huddersfield)
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 reduce the number of people diagnosed with cancer in an emergency care setting in (a) Yorkshire and (b) England.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
It is a priority for the Government to support the National Health Service to diagnose cancer, as early and quickly as possible, and to treat it faster, to improve outcomes. This will help cancer patients across England, including in Yorkshire.
The Government has now exceeded its pledge to deliver two million extra operations, scans and appointments, having delivered four-and-a-half million additional appointments as a first step to delivering on the commitment that 92% of patients will wait no longer than 18 weeks from referral to consultant-led treatment, in line with the NHS constitutional standard, by March 2029.
To support earlier diagnosis, the NHS is improving referral and diagnostic pathways, including the use of non-specific symptom pathways for patients whose symptoms, such as unexplained weight loss, fatigue, or abdominal discomfort, do not clearly align with a single cancer type. NHS England has also expanded general practice direct access to diagnostic tests, enabling faster investigation of concerning symptoms.
The forthcoming National Cancer Plan for England will have patients at its heart and will cover the entirety of the cancer pathway, from referral and diagnosis to treatment and aftercare. The goal of the Department of Health and Social Care is to reduce the number of lives lost to cancer over the next 10 years.
Asked by: Harpreet Uppal (Labour - Huddersfield)
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 guarantee sustainable funding for hospices in the (a) 2025-26 and (b) 2026-27 financial years.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
In February 2025, I met with key palliative and end of life care and hospice stakeholders, in a roundtable format with a focus on long-term sector sustainability within the context of our 10-Year Health Plan. I have tasked officials to look at how to improve the access, quality, and sustainability of all age palliative care and end of life care in line with the 10-Year Health Plan.
The Government and the National Health Service will closely monitor the shift towards the strategic commissioning of palliative and end of life care services to support a reduction of variation in access and quality. Some difference in provision may be appropriate to reflect both innovation and the needs of local populations.
The Department is considering how to operationalise the required shifts in palliative care and end of life care to enable the shift from hospital to community, including as part of neighbourhood health teams.
We, alongside key partners NHS England, will continue to proactively engage with our stakeholders, including the voluntary sector and independent hospices, on an ongoing basis, in order to understand the issues they face.
Asked by: Harpreet Uppal (Labour - Huddersfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department will provide additional guidance on how hospices will be incorporated into new models of care under the NHS 10-Year Plan.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
In February 2025, I met with key palliative and end of life care and hospice stakeholders, in a roundtable format with a focus on long-term sector sustainability within the context of our 10-Year Health Plan. I have tasked officials to look at how to improve the access, quality, and sustainability of all age palliative care and end of life care in line with the 10-Year Health Plan.
The Government and the National Health Service will closely monitor the shift towards the strategic commissioning of palliative and end of life care services to support a reduction of variation in access and quality. Some difference in provision may be appropriate to reflect both innovation and the needs of local populations.
The Department is considering how to operationalise the required shifts in palliative care and end of life care to enable the shift from hospital to community, including as part of neighbourhood health teams.
We, alongside key partners NHS England, will continue to proactively engage with our stakeholders, including the voluntary sector and independent hospices, on an ongoing basis, in order to understand the issues they face.
Asked by: Harpreet Uppal (Labour - Huddersfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent discussions he has had with hospices on the (a) NHS 10-Year Plan and (b) integrated neighbourhood teams.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
In February 2025, I met with key palliative and end of life care and hospice stakeholders, in a roundtable format with a focus on long-term sector sustainability within the context of our 10-Year Health Plan. I have tasked officials to look at how to improve the access, quality, and sustainability of all age palliative care and end of life care in line with the 10-Year Health Plan.
The Government and the National Health Service will closely monitor the shift towards the strategic commissioning of palliative and end of life care services to support a reduction of variation in access and quality. Some difference in provision may be appropriate to reflect both innovation and the needs of local populations.
The Department is considering how to operationalise the required shifts in palliative care and end of life care to enable the shift from hospital to community, including as part of neighbourhood health teams.
We, alongside key partners NHS England, will continue to proactively engage with our stakeholders, including the voluntary sector and independent hospices, on an ongoing basis, in order to understand the issues they face.