Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of the proposed increase to employer's National Insurance contributions on the ability of independent training providers to provide skills development and workforce training.

Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

On 5 March 2025 the department gave details of 16 to 19 funding which meant that it will be spending over £400 million more on 16 to 19 education in the 2025/26 financial year. This represents over £100 million more than the £300 million announced at the Autumn Budget 2024 and aims to ensure enough funding is available given the very significant increase in student numbers and other pressures on the system. Further guidance on how 16 to 19 funding will work in the 2025/26 academic year can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/16-to-19-funding-information-for-2025-to-2026.

The government has agreed that public sector employers will receive support in recognition of the increase in their National Insurance contributions from April 2025. This does not include support for the private sector, including private sector firms contracted by public sector entities.

Independent training providers will benefit from the 3.78% increase to all the national funding rates for students on 16 to 19 study programmes and T Levels in the 2025/26 academic year.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to improve access to treatment for people with Parkinson’s in (a) Stockport constituency and (b) Greater Manchester.

Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

We have delivered an additional two million appointments in England, seven months ahead of schedule. This includes operations, consultations, diagnostic tests, and treatments. These additional appointments have taken place across a number of specialities, including neurology.

We have launched a 10-Year Health Plan to reform the National Health Service. The plan will set out a bold agenda to deliver on the three big shifts needed, to move healthcare from hospital to the community, from analogue to digital, and from treatment to prevention. A central and core part of the 10-Year Health Plan will be our workforce and how we ensure we train and provide the staff, technology, and infrastructure the NHS needs to care for patients across our communities, including in the Stockport constituency and Greater Manchester.

There are a number of initiatives supporting service improvement and better care for patients with Parkinson’s disease in England, including the Getting It Right First Time Programme for Neurology, the RightCare Progressive Neurological Conditions Toolkit, and the Neurology Transformation Programme.

Once diagnosed, and with a management strategy in place, the majority of people with Parkinson’s can be cared for through routine access to primary and secondary care. NHS England commissions the specialised elements of Parkinson’s care that patients may receive from 27 specialised neurology centres across England. One of these neurological centres is based at the Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust in Greater Manchester.

Within specialised centres, neurological multidisciplinary teams ensure patients can access a range of health professionals, including Parkinson’s disease nurses, psychologists, and allied health professionals such as dieticians and speech and language therapists, and that they can receive specialised treatment and support, according to their needs.

In addition, in February 2024, a new treatment for advanced-stage Parkinson’s, foslevodopa–foscarbidopa, was rolled out in the NHS. It has been shown to improve motor function, with patients experiencing longer periods of time without dyskinesia.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to support children living in poverty to access healthcare services in Stockport .

Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

Our commitment to tackle child poverty is at the heart of the Government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity, and the ambition to raise the healthiest generation of children ever. The Department is working closely with the Child Poverty Ministerial Taskforce on an ambitious strategy to reduce child poverty, tackle its root causes, and give every child the best start in life. The Government is committed to alleviating the negative experience of living in poverty through supporting families and enhancing public services.

Ahead of this strategy, work is already underway to support children living in poverty to access healthcare services. For example, the Department and NHS England are supporting Greater Manchester to improve access to the Healthy Start Scheme and poverty proofing services for children with long term conditions in the Northwest. Services for children offered in Stockport which are supported by the Department include Family Hubs, Start Well, and health visiting services.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to reduce the proportion of children in relative poverty in Stockport constituency.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Delivering our manifesto commitment to tackle child poverty is an urgent priority for this Government. The Ministerial Taskforce is working to publish a Child Poverty Strategy looking at levers across four key themes of increasing incomes, reducing essential costs, increasing financial resilience; and better local support especially in the early years. This will build on the reform plans underway across government and work underway in Devolved Government

The Taskforce is listening to experts and campaigners and ensuring the voices of families and children with experience of poverty are brought into policy thinking and decision making as part of the development of the Child Poverty Strategy. This includes three key stands of work – a Parents and Carers Forum, engagement with the Changing Realities Project and research with children and young people.

The vital work of the Taskforce comes alongside our commitments to triple investment in breakfast clubs to over £30 million, introduce a Fair Repayment Rate for deductions from Universal Credit, improve the adequacy of the standard allowance with the first sustained above inflation rise in the basic rate of Universal Credit since it was introduced and increase the National Living Wage to £12.21 an hour from April to boost the pay of three million workers.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if she will hold discussions with Avanti West Coast on the (a) reliability and (b) speed of wifi connectivity on west coast mainline passenger railway services.

Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

The Secretary of State and the Rail Minister met with Avanti West Coast (AWC) in January to discuss industrial action and performance. They did not specifically discuss Wi-Fi connectivity however, officials meet with AWC regularly to discuss services for passengers, including Wi-Fi.

The Department is considering the feasibility of a range of technology options to improve passenger Wi-Fi services on the rail network. AWC recently completed a positive trial using laser window etching technology to improve connectivity and are exploring future use. The Department is also measuring the strength of mobile signals along the rail network to fully understand where interventions are needed, and the potential impacts.

Operators are required to achieve challenging customer experience targets across a range of measures, including Wi-Fi connectivity. These standards are regularly and independently inspected via the Service Quality Regime and there are accountability and financial consequences for failure.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps her Department is taking to (a) reduce the backlog at the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) and (b) improve the efficiency of VOA services.

Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)

The Valuation Office Agency (VOA) is currently on target to deliver the next business rates revaluation in 2026 across England and Wales.

The VOA is committed to continually learning and further improving its services. It is replacing IT systems with modern cloud-based platforms that will deliver significant efficiencies. At the same time, it is enhancing digital services to make it easier for customers to self-serve.

In addition, it is managing demand by recruiting new people, moving existing staff to where there is the greatest customer need, ensuring hardship cases are prioritised and upskilling its workforce so they can handle multiple types of cases and work more flexibly.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if her Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of providing adequate passenger services to Reddish South railway station.

Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

The Department expects operators to match capacity and frequency of their services to demand, though these must also be operationally sustainable and deliver value for taxpayers. Rail North Partnership, through which the Department and Transport for the North jointly manage the contract with Northern Trains, which serves Reddish South, will assess any business case put forward, but this analysis must balance the economic and social benefits of any enhancement with the performance of existing services and the financial impact on taxpayer subsidy.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether her Department plans to improve Passenger Assist service for rail users in England.

Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

We have recently invested over £10 million to enable the Rail Delivery Group to deliver the next phase of the Passenger Assist Improvement Programme. This 25-month programme will deliver a series of improvements including the capability to book a ticket, request assistance and reserve a seat in a single transaction. Importantly, it will give customers the ability to communicate directly with staff and provide a dedicated help function on the Passenger Assist App.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many physician associates were employed by the NHS in England in each of the last 10 years; and if he will make an assessment of the potential implications for his policies of trends in the number of physician associates employed by the NHS in England in the last 10 years.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

We do not hold data on physician associate (PA) numbers for each of the last ten years, but the table below provides figures for the number of full time equivalent (FTE) PAs employed in both National Health Service trusts and primary care from 2017 to 2024.

Sources: NHS Workforce Statistics, NHS England; General Practice Workforce Statistics, NHS England; Primary Care Quarterly Workforce Update, NHS England

Notes:

• Data is only published for PAs employed in hospital and other core organisation (commissioning bodies) settings from 2020 onwards.
• PAs in primary care settings may be employed directly by general practices (GPs) or may be employed through other routes such as by primary care networks. Data is only available for PAs employed directly by GPs prior to 2021 and as such will be an undercount of the total across primary care.

The Government has commissioned Professor Gillian Leng CBE to lead an independent review of physician and anaesthesia associate professions. It will consider the safety of the roles and their contribution to multidisciplinary healthcare teams. The conclusions of the review will inform the workforce plan to deliver the 10-Year Health Plan.

The review will consider the approach that was adopted in England to support the safe introduction, employment and deployment of these new roles.

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that more people from disadvantaged backgrounds take up journalism courses and training.

Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)

It is key that the public feel represented and reflected by the media. Journalism plays an invaluable role in the fabric of our society and we are committed to supporting a free, sustainable and plural media landscape. Encouraging more people from disadvantaged backgrounds to enter the industry may have a positive impact on the sustainability of the industry where it helps news publishers improve their appeal to currently underserved and under-represented audiences. Government believes that we need routes into journalism that are open to everyone, wherever they grow up.

High-quality apprenticeships available to support employers and learners in the news sector, including the Level 5 Journalist apprenticeship standard, are a means to help enable this. DCMS is working closely with DfE on their work to reform the growth and skills levy. The new growth and skills offer, with apprenticeships at the heart, will deliver greater flexibility for learners and employers in England, and will be aligned with the Industrial Strategy to create routes into good skilled jobs.

This support complements the industry’s own efforts, and we welcome the National Council for the Training of Journalists’ (NCTJ) recent launch of the new phase of the Community News Project, a major initiative to strengthen local journalism and improve local newsroom diversity across the UK through apprenticeship placements. This project demonstrates the type of industry collaboration which can help secure the future of local journalism, which we want to further encourage through our Local Media Strategy.

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if her Department will make an assessment of the sustainability of local news outlets in (a) Greater Manchester and (b) North West of England.

Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)

Sustainability of local journalism across the country is an area of particular concern for this Government, including in Greater Manchester and the North West of England. We are developing a Local Media Strategy, in recognition of the importance of this vital sector. Our vision is a thriving local media that can continue to play an invaluable role as a key channel of trustworthy information at local level, reporting on the issues that matter to communities, reflecting their contributions and perspectives, and helping to foster a self-confident nation in which everyone feels that their contribution is part of an inclusive national story.

We are working across Government and with other stakeholders as the Strategy develops, and we recently held a roundtable discussion with local news editors from across the country, including from Manchester Evening news, to discuss our planned approach and explore further collaboration on the Strategy. We will announce further details in due course.

Found: Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union Navendu Mishra