Asked by: Mark Garnier (Conservative - Wyre Forest)
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 with Capita to resolve the IT issue affecting the Natural England Voluntary Exit Scheme 2025.
Answered by Jenny Riddell-Carpenter - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Department recognises the concerns of former employees who left under the Voluntary Exit Scheme and continue to experience difficulties accessing the pension scheme portal. Unfortunately, these issues are not specific to Natural England and are affecting Civil Service Pension Scheme members more widely. While resolution of the technical issues sits outside Defra’s direct control, the department is working closely with Capita to seek resolution as quickly as possible.
Asked by: Mark Garnier (Conservative - Wyre Forest)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what safeguards will be put in place for children and young people who, following a review at a transition point, move from an Education, Health and Care Plan to an Individual Support Plan.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
Under our proposals, where children and young people with an education, health and care (EHC) plan move to the new system, we will have several safeguards in place. Our transition approach is intended to balance the need to minimise disruption, ensuring children and young people benefit from an improved system.
We will provide support to families, settings and local authorities ahead of implementation, investing over £500 million each year from now until 2029 to ensure the new system is ready to support this cohort.
We are also investing around £1.8 billion over the next three years for local area partnerships, including local authorities and Integrated Care Boards, to develop a new ‘Experts at Hand’ offer to strengthen the capability of mainstream education settings by providing access to support from key services and health and education practitioners.
For children and young people who transition away from support via an EHC plan, their families will be able to express a preference for a mainstream setting of their choice for the start of their next education phase. We will also ensure that an Individual Support Plan is in place, developed with families, and for them to access provision in the universal and targeted layers once their EHC plan has ceased before an EHC plan is ceased. We are also investing around £1.8 billion over the next three years for local area partnerships, including local authorities and Integrated Care Boards, to develop a new ‘Experts at Hand’ offer to strengthen the capability of mainstream education settings by providing access to support from key services and health and education practitioners.
We have recently consulted on our proposed reforms and will confirm final decision and further information regarding transition arrangements in due course.
Asked by: Mark Garnier (Conservative - Wyre Forest)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what her planned timetable is to introducing the Education for All Bill.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
Every child deserves the chance to achieve and thrive, whatever their background and whatever their need. The Education for All Bill will provide the legislative underpinning for our special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) reforms. It will transform support for children and young people with SEND by providing earlier access to support close to home and ensuring that schools, nurseries and colleges deliver the stretching, rewarding and inclusive education that all children and young people deserve. We intend to introduce the Bill in this legislative session, and when Parliamentary time allows.
Asked by: Mark Garnier (Conservative - Wyre Forest)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the principal factors driving the increase in the number of Education, Health and Care Plans; and what proportion of the associated increase in expenditure she attributes to unmet need at an earlier stage.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
In February 2026, the department published the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) reform ‘Putting Children and Young People First’. The consultation’s case for change noted that education, health and care (EHC) plans had doubled since 2014 after two decades of stability, mostly due to three types of primary need: Autism Spectrum Disorders, Social; Emotional and Mental Health; and Speech, Language and Communication Needs.
Comparisons with Wales, where increases were roughly half those in England, suggested that the rise in England reflected wider societal factors and features specific to England, such as how the SEND system operates. These features included cuts to support services, the inability to secure reliable high-quality special educational needs support in mainstream settings and the de facto financial threshold for an EHC plan being frozen in cash terms for over a decade. It did not estimate what proportion of the rise was due to need being unmet at an earlier stage, but it did hypothesise that the system had shifted away from making support available early and providing a strong Universal offer, including ordinarily available provision or early access to multi agency support.
The department is committed to generational SEND reform and early intervention will be central to this. This will be supported by strengthened partnership working between local authorities, health, and education settings. As set out in the SEND consultation, we will update the SEND Code of Practice and publish partnerships guidance to provide clearer expectations of the Local SEND partnership, the collective responsibility for outcomes, and the respective role of the local authority and local area partners in transforming the SEND system.
Asked by: Mark Garnier (Conservative - Wyre Forest)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what criteria will be used to determine which children and young people will be eligible for an Education, Health and Care Plan under the proposed reformed SEND system.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
Under our proposals, children and young people who require support from a Specialist Provision Package (SPP) will be eligible for an education, health and care plan.
SPPs aim to provide a consistent national framework for eligibility and provision and work alongside improvements to inclusive practice to support all children and young people. Packages are being developed by the independent expert panel.
We are currently considering consultation responses and will confirm decisions in due course.
Asked by: Mark Garnier (Conservative - Wyre Forest)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what criteria will determine whether a child or young person receives support through an Individual Support Plan; and what steps she will take to ensure consistency in access to that support between local areas.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
Under the department’s proposals, settings would have a duty to produce an Individual Support Plan for any child or young person with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). The intention is that where a child needs Targeted, Targeted Plus or Specialist layers of support, there is a clear plan setting out their needs, provision and intended outcomes. These layers will be guided by the National Inclusion Standards, which will establish national consistency around the support that children and young people should ordinarily expect to receive across the 0 to 25 system, regardless of where they live or which setting they attend. To support consistency, the standards will include evidence-based tools, strategies and approaches for educators to draw on to identify and support children and young people with SEND. The department has recently consulted on our proposed SEND reforms. We are carefully reviewing and taking into account all responses submitted to the consultation alongside feedback from over 200 engagement events we held over 12 weeks and will set out our response in due course.
Asked by: Mark Garnier (Conservative - Wyre Forest)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether the added value concept introduced by the Financial Conduct Authority in its proposed cryptoasset perimeter guidance (CP26/13) appears in the Regulated Activities Order or any of its exclusions.
Answered by Lucy Rigby - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
The concept of added value does not appear in the Regulated Activities Order. It is used in the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) perimeter guidance to clarify its interpretation of the regulatory perimeter.
The FCA is the independent regulator responsible for implementing the UK’s financial services regulations including by issuing perimeter guidance.
Asked by: Mark Garnier (Conservative - Wyre Forest)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what discussions her Department has had with the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Victims, Violence Against Women and Girls, and International Justice on the potential correlation between dangerous driving and coercive control.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department works across Government to tackle violence against women and girls, including with the Ministry of Justice. As part of this work, Lilian Greenwood, then Minister for Local Transport, discussed dangerous driving as a means of coercive control with Alex Davies-Jones MP, then Minister for Victims, in October 2025.
The Government's ‘Freedom from Violence and Abuse: a cross-government strategy’ includes a commitment to work to disqualify violence against women and girls offenders who have used vehicles as part of their offending behaviour or criminal acts, using existing powers. This reflects evidence that vehicles can be used in individual cases as a means of control, intimidation, harassment or abuse.
The Government has further committed to working with National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) on a strategy designed to look at opportunities to target violence against women and girls through roads policing. This important work is part of the Roads Policing Innovation Programme, a commitment under the Government's wider Road Safety Strategy.
Asked by: Mark Garnier (Conservative - Wyre Forest)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of introducing a Graduated Driving Licence on (a) road collisions and (b) fatalities of younger car drivers.
Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department for Transport has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.
Asked by: Mark Garnier (Conservative - Wyre Forest)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he expects to review the proposed 40% prudential risk weighting for cryptoassets, including non-UK stablecoins; and what international (a) regulatory developments and (b) market conditions would trigger such a review.
Answered by Lucy Rigby - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government's objective is to deliver a UK cryptoasset regime that appropriately balances the protection of consumers from detriment with a regulatory environment that supports innovation and growth.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), as the independent expert regulator, is responsible for setting the prudential regime for regulated cryptoasset firms and ensuring firms hold appropriate financial resources and manage risks effectively.
The Government continues to maintain close dialogue with the FCA, including on international regulatory and market developments.