Asked by: Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps her Department is taking to increase access to Bikeability cycle training for children.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The Department for Transport announced in February an additional £30 million to support the delivery of Bikeability cycle training to children across England in 2025/26.
This includes funding to ensure sessions are accessible to people with additional needs, such as households without cycles or basic cycle training to prepare children for Bikeability training. In 2024/25 the Bikeability programme provided access to over 4,700 new cycles, supporting the delivery of 500,000 training places, which equated to almost 3 million hours of cycling for children.
In 2024/25, approximately 10% of children trained were children with special educational needs and disabilities, which has increased from 8% in 2023/24.
Asked by: Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of providing business rates relief for independent nurseries.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
For early years (including maintained nursery schools), the Government funds local authorities to deliver the early years entitlements through the early years national funding formula (EYNFF) for the 3- and 4-year-old entitlement and a separate formula for the 2-year-old entitlement. The hourly funding rate paid to local authorities for these entitlements is designed to recognise the average costs across different provider types and is intended to reflect staff and non-staff costs, including business rates.
Business rates are a broad-based tax on the value of non-domestic properties, including nurseries.
To protect small businesses, the Government has frozen the small business multiplier for 2025-26. Taken together with Small Business Rates Relief, this intervention ensures that over a million properties will be protected from inflationary increases.
Asked by: Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of the availability of mental health support within universities.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This government is committed to ensuring students in higher education (HE) have access to effective mental health support. This is why my noble Friend, the Minister for Skills, has recently appointed a new HE Student Support Champion to lead a reconvened HE Mental Health Implementation Taskforce. Full details of the new champion will be announced shortly.
The taskforce is instrumental in assessing and driving improvements in mental health support across the sector, including taking forward recommendations from the recent national review of HE student suicides.
The government also strongly supports the University Mental Health Charter Programme and Award, run by Student Minds. This programme provides a robust framework for universities to improve their mental health provision and is a valuable tool for driving sector-wide change.
Asked by: Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of trends in the level of school meal debt; and whether she plans to take steps to support families to reduce that debt in the child poverty strategy.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
To help break down barriers to opportunity and tackle child poverty, the government will be extending free school meals to all children from households in receipt of Universal Credit from September 2026. This will lift 100,000 children across England out of poverty and put £500 back in families’ pockets, supporting parents in decisive action to improve lives ahead of the Child Poverty Strategy.
The Child Poverty Strategy in the autumn will deliver measures to tackle the structural and root causes of child poverty. The Taskforce is considering all available levers to reduce child poverty and recognises the importance of financial resilience for low-income families. Increasing financial resilience is one of the four key themes for the strategy, and in February the Taskforce met with external experts to discuss this topic specifically.
Asked by: Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will take legislative steps to remove the consideration of Armed Forces compensation from means testing for the Disabled Facilities Grant.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
In England, we continue to fund the locally administered Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) which helps eligible older and disabled people on low incomes to adapt their homes. We have provided an additional £172 million across this and the last financial year to uplift the DFG, which could provide approximately 15,600 home adaptations to give older and disabled people more independence in their homes. This brings the total funding for the DFG to £711 million in 2024/25 and 2025/26.
To ensure the DFG is as effective as possible, we will continue to keep different aspects of the grant, including the means test, under consideration.
The Armed Forces Compensation Scheme is independently reviewed every five years to ensure it remains fit for purpose, providing appropriate financial support to those members of the Armed Forces who are injured, become ill, or die as a result of service, and identifying opportunities for policy improvement.
Asked by: Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of extending the Armed Forces Covenant Duty across his Departmental responsibilities.
Answered by Kate Dearden - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Government’s election manifesto committed to placing the Armed Forces Covenant fully into law. During Armed Forces week in June, the Prime Minister announced that Military personnel, veterans, their families and the bereaved are to have their unique circumstances legally protected by central and devolved governments for the first time under new plans to extend the Covenant Legal Duty to more policy areas and across the UK.
The Covenant Legal Duty will now be extended from three policy areas to encompass 14 policy areas in a much broader scope. The policy areas are healthcare, education, housing, social care, childcare, employment and service in the Armed Forces, personal taxation, welfare benefits, criminal justice, immigration, citizenship, pensions, service-related compensation and transport. The Government aims to make the changes in the next Armed Forces Bill, anticipated in 2026.
Asked by: Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether he has had discussions with (a) tea industry representatives, (b) Fairtrade organisations and (c) international partners on ensuring that tea (i) farmers and (ii) other workers receive a living wage in (A) Kenya and (B) other producing countries.
Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
No, we have had no such specific discussions, but we actively engage with Kenyan counterparts and remain committed to promoting fair trade and workers' rights, including decent working conditions and living wages.
Asked by: Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that schools have access to speech and language specialists.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The government is committed to ensuring that every child has the best start in life. This includes all children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), including speech, language and communications needs such as Developmental Language Disorder.
We know that continuing to build the pipeline of speech and language therapists (SaLT) is essential. The department is working closely with the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England to improve access to community health services, including speech and language therapy, for children and young people with SEND.
In addition to the undergraduate degree route, SaLTs can now also train via a degree apprenticeship. This route is entering its fourth year of delivery and offers an alternative pathway to the traditional degree route into a successful career as a SaLT.
In partnership with NHS England, the department has extended the Early Language and Support for Every Child programme, trialling new ways of working to better identify and support children with speech, language and communication needs in early years settings and primary schools.
Asked by: Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she plans to reintroduce three-year grant settlements for schools participating in the music and dance scheme.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The government fully supports the arts and the development of a skills pipeline into the creative industries.
The department is providing £36.5 million for the Music and Dance Scheme this academic year.
Any introduction of multi-year funding agreements will be considered in due course.
Asked by: Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of the level of funding for the Music and Dance Scheme.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The government fully supports the arts and the development of a skills pipeline into the creative industries.
The department is providing £36.5 million for the Music and Dance Scheme this academic year.
Any introduction of multi-year funding agreements will be considered in due course.