Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what her Department's policy is on the publication of the strategic delivery plans for each SEND Change Programme Partnership.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Each of the Change Programme Partnerships (CPP) has developed a Strategic Delivery Plan, which outlines their plan for delivery across their local areas for the duration of the Change Programme.
These plans are specifically for the department to understand how the CPPs will work with each other, the department and delivery partners to deliver the Change Programme. As such, these are internal working documents and are not intended for publication.
The department will be sharing updates on the progress of the Change Programme in due course.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what information her Department holds on the number and proportion of local authorities who have advised their local childcare providers of their hourly rate from 1 April 2024; and what steps she is taking to help ensure that childcare providers have adequate notice to prepare for the expanded roll-out.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The 2024/25 government hourly funding rates for all the early years entitlements for individual local authorities were announced on 29 November 2023 to reflect the funding uplifts and the national living wage increase.
The department is in close communication with local authorities and recognises the need to ensure childcare providers have early confirmation of their early years funding rates for 2024/25. The department now anticipates that all local authorities will have confirmed funding rates that come into force from 1 April 2024 no later than the end of February 2024.
As of 31 January 2024, the department can confirm that over 40 local authorities in England have published their final funding rates for providers. Where local authorities have not yet published the final rates, the vast majority have provided indicative rates to their providers to support in their business planning.
On 2 February 2024, the department also took steps to provide greater funding certainty to nurseries and childcare providers going forwards. Each year, the government sets out funding rates in the autumn, to take effect in the following financial year. A window, likely to be 8 weeks, will be introduced, within which local authorities have to confirm rates, after the point the department announces local authority hourly rates. The department will work with the sector in the coming weeks to finalise the approach.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of children with SEND are (a) persistently and (b) severely absent from school in Blackpool South constituency.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
Information on pupil absence, including breakdowns by pupil characteristics, is published in the ‘Pupil absence in schools in England’ national statistic. This publication for the latest full academic year, 2021/22, is available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/pupil-absence-in-schools-in-england/2021-22.
A pupil is classified as persistently absent if they miss 10% or more of their own possible sessions. A pupil is classified as severely absent if they miss 50% or more of their possible sessions.
The table below shows the numbers and rates of persistently absent and severely absent pupils in Blackpool South parliamentary constituency by Special Educational Need (SEN) status for the latest full academic year available, 2021/22.
| Persistent absentees | Persistent absentee % | Severe absentees | Severe absentee % |
SEN Support1 | 554 | 33.5 | 34 | 2.1 |
Statement or EHCP2 | 189 | 32.6 | 18 | 3.1 |
Source: School Census.
1 Special Educational Need
2 Education, Health and Care Plan.
This table excludes a small number of pupils with unclassified SEN status.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when he plans to bring forward legislative proposals to ban zombie knives.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Offensive Weapons) (Amendment, Surrender and Compensation) Order 2024 was laid in Parliament on 25 January 2024.
Once the legislation has been approved by Parliament, a surrender scheme will be launched this summer to remove these knives from our streets.
Once the surrender scheme has been completed, the manufacture, supply, sale and possession of zombie-style knives and machetes will be outlawed from 24 September.
Additionally, through the Criminal Justice Bill, we are providing more powers for police to seize knives held in private that they believe will be used for unlawful violence, increasing the maximum penalty for the offences of selling prohibited weapons and selling knives to under 18s and creating a new offence of possessing an article with blade or point or an offensive weapon with intent to commit unlawful violence.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what opportunities parents and carers of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) have had to contribute to the development of new professional standards for mediators working with SEND.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
In the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision Improvement Plan, the department committed to work with the Civil Mediation Council (CMC) and the College of Mediators (CoM) to review and build on the existing professional standards for SEND mediators, which was first published in 2018. The standards are owned by CMC and CoM and apply to those listed on their joint register of accredited SEND mediators.
CMC and CoM conducted a review of the existing standards last year and are currently consulting on proposed updated standards. Departmental officials have been working closely with CMC and CoM to ensure that the views of families, local authorities and other stakeholders are considered.
Parents and carers of children with SEND can contribute their views directly by responding to the consultation via the CMC’s website: https://civilmediation.org/send-consultation.
The department has also engaged with the National Network of Parent Carer Forums (NNPCF), which is the national combined strategic voice of parent carer forums working in co-production with the government. All funded local parent carer forums are, by default, members of the NPCF. The department has engaged with NNPCF via the department’s SEND Dispute Resolution Steering Group, where they have had an opportunity to comment and share their views on plans to update the standards. NNPCF have also shared details of the consultation with their network.
The Council for Disabled Children and Contact have also shared details of the consultation.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of Royal Mail’s fulfilment of the Universal Service Obligation in South London in 2023.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
As the independent regulator for the postal sector, it is for Ofcom to monitor Royal Mail’s delivery of the universal service obligation and decide how to respond should Royal Mail fail to meet its obligations.
Ofcom fined the business £5.6m for failing to meet its service delivery targets in 2022-23 and is meeting Royal Mail regularly to ensure service issues are addressed as a matter of urgency.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what information her Department holds on the number of available childcare places per child in each region in England on 24 January 2024.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department does not hold this information in the form requested. The department has regular contact with each local authority in England to ensure their sufficiency needs are met.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent estimate she has made of the number of parents of 2-year-olds who have applied for the expanded childcare entitlement; and how many applications are yet to be processed.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department will be providing an update on the childcare application system shortly.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she has made an assessment of the potential impact of inflation on the cost of formula milk.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Competition and Market Authority (CMA) published a report in November 2023 named ‘Price inflation and competition in food and grocery manufacturing and supply’, which included an assessment on infant formula. It found that between March 2021 and April 2023, the price of infant formula had grown beyond the increased input costs to manufacturers. The report is available at the following link:
The CMA has committed to publishing a further report examining infant formula in more detail later this year, and Departmental officials continue to engage with the CMA.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent discussions her Department has had with the Competition and Markets Authority on the baby formula market.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Competition and Market Authority (CMA) published a report in November 2023 named ‘Price inflation and competition in food and grocery manufacturing and supply’, which included an assessment on infant formula. It found that between March 2021 and April 2023, the price of infant formula had grown beyond the increased input costs to manufacturers. The report is available at the following link:
The CMA has committed to publishing a further report examining infant formula in more detail later this year, and Departmental officials continue to engage with the CMA.