Natasha Irons

We are committed to providing support for grassroots clubs who provide access and opportunities to participate in sport and physical activity. Bowls has a unique and important role to play in tackling loneliness through supporting people to have the social connections they need and in driving positive public health outcomes.

Our Arm’s Length Body, Sport England has a long-term partnership with the Bowls Development Alliance. It has awarded them over £1.8m (since 2022) in investment and funding. Sport England also provides free resources and support to grassroots sports clubs and volunteers through its Buddle tool. Furthermore, Sport England’s Movement Fund also offers crowdfunding pledges, grants and resources to improve physical activity opportunities for the people and communities who need it the most which includes the refurbishment or upgrading facilities.

We are committed to providing support for grassroots clubs who provide access and opportunities to participate in sport and physical activity. Bowls has a unique and important role to play in tackling loneliness through supporting people to have the social connections they need and in driving positive public health outcomes.

Our Arm’s Length Body, Sport England has a long-term partnership with the Bowls Development Alliance. It has awarded them over £1.8m (since 2022) in investment and funding. Sport England also provides free resources and support to grassroots sports clubs and volunteers through its Buddle tool. Furthermore, Sport England’s Movement Fund also offers crowdfunding pledges, grants and resources to improve physical activity opportunities for the people and communities who need it the most which includes the refurbishment or upgrading facilities.

This Government fully recognises the importance of youth services to live safe and healthy lives, and the positive impact youth services can have on young people, including in educational settings.

That is why we are co-producing a new National Youth Strategy. The Strategy will better coordinate youth services and policy at a local, regional and national level, moving away from siloed working - ensuring we are better coordinated and more than the sum of our parts.

We have commissioned an evidence review alongside our engagement with young people and the youth sector, to inform the development of the National Youth Strategy. An interim report will be published this Spring.

We know that youth services will help deliver the government’s missions, and the National Youth Strategy will work alongside the work on development of Young Future hubs, the Curriculum and Assessment Review and further work across government to fulfill our commitment to improve young people’s lives.

On 12 November, the DCMS Secretary of State announced the launch of the Local Youth Transformation pilot in 2025/26 to start building back local authorities’ lost capability in the youth space, sowing the seeds for a much-needed rejuvenation of local youth services. We will be designing the programme and confirming delivery approaches over the coming months and will share more information in due course.

This Government recognises the vital role that youth services and activities play in improving the life chances and wellbeing of young people. The Secretary of State recently announced our plans to create a new National Youth Strategy, designed to put the views of young people at the centre of decision-making on policies that affect them. As the new National Youth Strategy is developed, the Government will continue to support access for young people to regular clubs and activities, adventures away from home and volunteering opportunities.

‘Keeping children safe in education’ (KCSIE), our statutory safeguarding guidance for schools and colleges, is clear that all staff should be aware of and provide support to children and young people who might be victims of domestic abuse. KCSIE provides staff with advice on the signs and impact of domestic abuse, and signposts to support for child victims, including the National Domestic Abuse Helpline, the NSPCC Childline and the Operation Encompass helpline.

Through compulsory relationships education, all primary and secondary pupils learn about positive and respectful relationships, and the concepts and laws around sexual harassment and sexual violence.

The department is currently reviewing the relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) guidance to ensure it enables schools to tackle harmful behaviour, starting in primary. As part of the review, we will consider how content on tackling violence against women and girls, including domestic abuse, can be strengthened. We intend to publish final revised RSHE guidance in 2025.

This government recognises that early intervention improves outcomes and reduces overall public spending.

In the 2023/24 financial year, local authorities’ gross expenditure on children and young people's services was £14.8 billion, a 12% increase in cash terms from 2022/23. £8.1 billion was spent on looked-after children (LAC), an increase of nearly 16% from 2022/23. More than 50% of this increase owed to growth in residential care spending, which increased by 24% and accounted for 39% of LAC spend.

Early intervention has been shown to impact spending on LAC by keeping more families together. An evaluation of the Supporting Families programme highlighted a 32% reduction in the number of LAC over 24 months and estimated that every pound spent on the programme generated £2.28 in benefits.

Building on this evidence, the government has provided over £500 million in the 2025/26 financial year for the Families First Partnership programme, rolling out reforms to Family Help, multi-agency child protection, and family group decision making.

The government’s investment in 2025/26 is a significant step in our ambition to rebalance the children’s social care system towards early intervention, enable local authorities to move towards financial sustainability, and deliver improved outcomes. The government will set out funding plans for future years in phase 2 of the spending review on 11 June 2025.

This government recognises that early intervention improves outcomes and reduces overall public spending.

In the 2023/24 financial year, local authorities’ gross expenditure on children and young people's services was £14.8 billion, a 12% increase in cash terms from 2022/23. £8.1 billion was spent on looked-after children (LAC), an increase of nearly 16% from 2022/23. More than 50% of this increase owed to growth in residential care spending, which increased by 24% and accounted for 39% of LAC spend.

Early intervention has been shown to impact spending on LAC by keeping more families together. An evaluation of the Supporting Families programme highlighted a 32% reduction in the number of LAC over 24 months and estimated that every pound spent on the programme generated £2.28 in benefits.

Building on this evidence, the government has provided over £500 million in the 2025/26 financial year for the Families First Partnership programme, rolling out reforms to Family Help, multi-agency child protection, and family group decision making.

The government’s investment in 2025/26 is a significant step in our ambition to rebalance the children’s social care system towards early intervention, enable local authorities to move towards financial sustainability, and deliver improved outcomes. The government will set out funding plans for future years in phase 2 of the spending review on 11 June 2025.

Under current programmes, 2.1 million disadvantaged pupils are registered to receive benefits-based free school meals (FSM). This includes pupils attending a local authority maintained, academy or free school nursery who are entitled to FSM, as long as they are either in full-time education or receive education both before and after lunch, and meet the benefits-based FSM eligibility criteria.

As with all government programmes, we will keep our approach to FSM under continued review.

In 2024/25, Croydon Council were allocated £1.619 million for the delivery of Family Hubs and Start for Life programme.

In 2025/26, the department and the Department of Health and Social Care will provide a £126 million boost to give every child the best start in life and deliver on the Plan for Change. Funding will support local authorities to deliver Family Hubs and Start for Life services in areas with high deprivation, including Croydon, which has provisionally been allocated £1.709 million for the 2025/26 financial year. Final figures will be confirmed in due course.

As I made clear in my statement to the House, Hansard, 1 July, col 219, any changes to PIP eligibility will come after a comprehensive review of the benefit, which I am leading, and which will be co-produced with disabled people, the organisations that represent them, clinicians, experts, MPs and other stakeholders, so a wide range of views and voices are heard. This review aims to ensure that the PIP assessment is fair and fit for the future. The review is expected to conclude in autumn 2026.

For the previous proposals’ impact on the benefit cap, administrative datasets from August 2024 showing the number of households exempt from the benefit cap as a result of PIP receipt were used to estimate the proportion of households that would become affected by the benefit cap if they lost their entitlement to PIP. This was then applied to the estimated volume of PIP claimants that would be affected by the 4-point policy that do not receive the Mobility component of PIP. Implicit in this assumption was that exemptions from the benefit cap are equally likely among those not having a 4-point score as those who have one.

We estimate that in 2029/30, for those affected by the proposed changes to the PIP eligibility criteria, 1,200 claimants will be also subject to the benefit cap. This estimate assumes that people potentially subject to the benefit cap are no more, and no less, likely than other people affected by the proposed changes to change their behaviour to continue to qualify for PIP and the estimate is subject to revision.

Estimates of the volumes of PIP claimants affected by the reform in the future are forecast for England and Wales only and therefore have not been broken down by Parliamentary Constituency or any other geographic area.

After accounting for behavioural changes, the OBR predicts that 9 out 10 PIP recipients at the time of policy implementation are expected to be unaffected by the PIP 4-point change in 2029/30. No one will lose access to PIP immediately - and most people will not lose access at all. Our intention is that changes will start to come into effect from November 2026 for PIP, subject to parliamentary approval. After that date, no one will lose PIP without first being reassessed by a trained assessor or healthcare professional, who assesses individual needs and circumstance. Reassessments happen on average every 3 years. People who continue to receive a PIP mobility component will remain exempt from the benefit cap.

We are consulting on how best to support those who are affected by the new eligibility changes, including ensuring health and care needs are met.

We have also announced a wider review of the PIP assessment to make it fair and fit for purpose, which I am leading. We are bringing together a range of experts, stakeholders and people with lived experience to consider how best to do this. We will provide further details as plans progress.

Even with these reforms, the overall number of people on PIP and DLA is expected to rise by 750,000 by the end of this parliament and spending will rise from £23bn in 24/25 to £31bn in 29/30.

The Government is publishing a Get Britain Working White Paper setting out reforms to employment support to help tackle the elevated level of economic inactivity, support people into good work, and create an inclusive labour market in which everybody can participate and progress in work. These reforms are driven by a long-term ambition to reach an 80% employment rate and to reduce the UK’s inactivity rate back to pre-pandemic levels.

The White Paper will build on manifesto commitments including fundamental reform for DWP through a new service to support more people into work and help them get on in work, including through an enhanced focus on skills and careers; local Get Britain Working Plans for areas across Britain to set out how economic inactivity will be tackled at a local level, led by Mayors and local areas; and a Youth Guarantee for all people aged 18 to 21 in England, to ensure they have an offer of education, training or help to find work.

Through the Autumn Budget, £240 million funding has recently been announced for the White Paper measures and will help us deliver and build on these labour market reforms to Get Britain Working.

The Mental Health Bill, which has now passed from the House of Lords to the House of Commons, will give patients greater choice, autonomy, enhanced rights, and support, and will ensure that everyone is treated with dignity and respect throughout treatment.

In January 2025, the Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB) concluded a series of investigations into mental health inpatient settings. In 2023/24, approximately 51% of patients were detained under the act. The investigations raised important concerns and set out recommendations to improve mental health care, protect patients and the public, and promote a safe working environment for staff. The findings have been published in a series of reports, which are available on the HSSIB’s website.

NHS England has launched its mental health, learning disability, and autism inpatient quality transformation programme to support cultural change and embed a new model of care across all National Health Service-funded mental health inpatient settings. Local health systems have now published their three-year plans for localising and realigning inpatient care in line with this vision.

In addition, the Government is investing £75 million to reduce inappropriate out of area placements for mental health patients, so that they can be supported closer to their communities and in more appropriate settings.

It is unacceptable that too many children and young people are not receiving the mental health care they need, and we know that waits for mental health services are far too long. That is why we will recruit 8,500 additional mental health workers across both adult, and children and young people’s mental health services.

The Department of Health and Social Care is working with Department for Education to consider how to deliver our commitment of access to a specialist mental health professional in every school. Alongside this we are working towards rolling out Young Futures hubs in every community, offering open access mental health services for young people.

The introduction of the National Age Assessment Board (NAAB) in March 2023, a decision-making body comprising of social workers who can conduct Merton age assessments on behalf of local authorities, offers significant improvements to our processes for assessing age. It aims to create greater consistency in age assessment practices and increase capacity and expertise in the system.

We have gone to great lengths to ensure that the NAAB is distinct from the Home Office’s asylum and immigration decision making functions and the two sit under separate management functions. In addition, the information acquired by the NAAB when conducting age assessments is not accessible to asylum and immigration decision making teams, other than the final decision on age.

The number of age assessments undertaken by the National Age Assessment Board that were subject to a legal challenge was 22 in total (1 in 2023 and 21 in 2024).

20 of the 22 age assessments decisions were successfully defended (91%).

Halving knife crime over the next decade is a key part of the Government’s Safer Streets mission. Prevention and early intervention to stop young people being drawn into crime is an integral part of that mission. That’s why the Government’s manifesto committed to offering young people a pathway out of violence by placing youth workers and mentors in A&E units and Alternative Provision Schools.

A&E navigator programmes are currently funded by Violence Reduction Units that are located in the areas worst affected by serious violence. These programmes place navigators, such as youth workers, in hospital emergency rooms to support children and young people with a violence-related injury and offer a pathway out of violence. We have provided £49.7m in 2025/6 for the continuation of the VRU programme, which includes provision for A&E navigators in VRU areas.

This year (25/26), we will continue to build on, and learn from, the work already underway on A&E navigators as well as working with the Youth Endowment Fund to further strengthen provision and ensure victims of violence and exploitation are supported.

We are establishing a Windrush Commissioner to act as an independent advocate for all those affected. This role will oversee the implementation of the Windrush Lessons Learned Review and act as a trusted voice for communities, driving improvements and promoting lasting change.

On appointment, the Commissioner will engage with Windrush stakeholders and communities to understand what they need and how the Commissioner can drive delivery of that change.

To ensure claimants are supported, we are also allocating £1.5million in government grant funding, which will be used to increase advocacy support for victims applying for the Windrush Compensation Scheme.

The Prime Minister and the Home Secretary are personally committed to halving knife crime over the next decade. It is a key part of the Government’s mission to take back our streets.

This Government is committed to ensuring that the police have the resources they need to tackle all crime effectively. The 2024-25 police funding settlement provides the Metropolitan Police Service with funding of up to £3.5 billion in 2024-25. This includes £185.3 million in recognition of the demands the force faces in policing the capital city.

The Home Office will also provide £175m of additional funding in 2024-25 to police forces to help with the cost of the pay award, of which the Metropolitan Police will receive a further £37.4 million for support with those costs.

As announced at the Autumn Budget 2024, the settlement will increase the core government grant for police forces and help support frontline policing levels across the country. Further details and force level allocations will be set out at the forthcoming police funding settlement.

The Home Office is also providing £66.3m funding this financial year (2024/25) to police forces in England and Wales for hotspot policing to tackle anti-social behaviour and serious violence. This includes £8.1m allocated to the Metropolitan Police.