Neil Duncan-Jordan

We will work to reset the relationship with our European friends to strengthen ties, secure a broad-based security pact and tackle barriers to trade.

We have no plans for an EU-wide youth mobility scheme and there will be no return to freedom of movement.

This Government is committed to giving all young people the chance to reach their full potential and recognises the vital role that youth services and activities play in improving their life chances and wellbeing.

As set out in section 507B of the Education Act 1996, local authorities have a statutory duty to secure, so far as is reasonably practicable, sufficient provision of educational and recreational leisure-time activities for young people. This is funded from the local government settlement.

Additionally, as a government we are keen to ensure that there is appropriate youth provision to stop young people being drawn into crime and facing other poor outcomes. This is why we are creating the Young Futures programme, which will see the establishment of Prevention Partnerships in every local authority and the rollout of youth hubs across England and Wales. These Partnerships, supported by a network of hubs, will bring local services together and deliver support for young people to help them live safe and healthy lives.

This will build on the DCMS funding to invest £500 million in youth services to ensure every young person will have access to regular clubs and activities, adventures away from home and opportunities to volunteer.

Short-term lets are an important part of the UK’s visitor accommodation offer and the government recognises the benefits to the visitor economy.

Parliament legislated for a registration scheme for short-term lets in the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act 2023. This government is exploring the introduction of such a scheme, as a statutory requirement. This will promote a level playing field in the guest accommodation sector across England, particularly in the application of existing health & safety regulations.

Local Skills Improvement Plans are a valuable source of information for local skills training providers, employers and stakeholders, and will provide important intelligence for the newly established Skills England.

The current grant-funding period for the designated employer representative bodies leading the development, implementation and review of each Local Skills Improvement Plan runs until March 2025. Future funding arrangements for Local Skills Improvement Plans will be considered as part of the current Spending Review.

The department has been working closely with all statutory partners involved in delivering special educational needs and disability (SEND) services in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole since their local area SEND inspection in June 2021.

The department holds regular formal monitoring meetings with the local authority and partners as part of holding the local area to account for making the necessary improvements in services. The latest monitoring meeting highlighted that the local authority and partners are taking positive steps to improve services, with some evidence of early impact, but that there are still ways to go to ensure that all children and families receive the service they require and deserve.

The department has put in place robust support for the local authority and their partners through the appointment of a Sector Led Improvement Partner and SEND advisor support. The department will continue to work with the local area to ensure they deliver further improvements in services.

It is also important that the department has a fair education funding system that directs funding to where it is needed. Budgets for the 2025/26 financial year have not been set. This means that decisions on high needs funding for children and young people with complex SEND, and the publication of allocations to local authorities for that year, will not be to the usual timescales.

This is a devolved matter with regard to Scotland and NI; hunting with dogs is a reserved matter with respect to Wales and therefore, the information provided relates to England and Wales.

The Government is committed to enacting a ban on Trail Hunting, and work to determine the best approach for doing so is ongoing. Further announcements will be made in due course.

The Secretary of State recently met with water company bosses, including Wessex Water, to make it clear that water firms will be held accountable for their performance for customers and the environment. During the meeting, water bosses signed up to the Government’s initial package of reforms to cut sewage dumping and attract investment to upgrade infrastructure.

The Government also announced a new Water (Special Measures) Bill, which will turn around the performance of water companies, in the King’s Speech. The Bill will strengthen regulation, give the water regulator new powers to ban the payment of bonuses if environmental standards are not met and increase accountability for water executives. These are the first critical steps in enabling a long-term and transformative reset of the entire water sector.

I would also refer the hon. Member to the Written Statement made by the Secretary of State on 18 July: Written statements - Written questions, answers and statements - UK Parliament.

We are determined to support pensioners and give them the dignity and security they deserve in retirement. The Government has committed to reviewing the pensions landscape. The first phase, focusing on investment outcomes, began in July and we will follow that later this year with the next phase that will consider further steps to improve pension outcomes, including assessing retirement adequacy.

Immediate support for pensioners includes our commitment to the Triple Lock, with over 12 million pensioners set to benefit through the course of this parliament, with the full yearly rate of the new State Pension forecast to increase by around £1,700.

Pension Credit continues to provide a safety net for the poorest pensioners and those with additional needs, such as those with a severe disability, caring responsibility, responsibility for a child or certain housing costs. We want everybody who could be eligible to claim it, which is why we have launched a nationwide Pension Credit take-up campaign.

The Household Support Fund (HSF) is also being extended for a further 6 months, from 1 October 2024 until 31 March 2025, to support those most in need, including vulnerable pensioners. An additional £421 million will be provided to enable the extension of the HSF in England, plus funding for the Devolved Governments through the Barnett formula to be spent at their discretion, as usual.

This Government takes pensioner poverty extremely seriously – everyone in our society, no matter their working history or savings deserves a comfortable and dignified retirement.

As part of Pension Credit Awareness Week of Action, we joined forces with national charities, broadcasters and local authorities to encourage pensioners to check their eligibility and make a claim. From 16 September, we will be running a national marketing campaign on a range of channels. The campaign will target potential pension-age customers, as well as friends and family who can encourage and support them to apply.

Our future campaign messaging will also focus on encouraging pensioners to apply for Pension Credit before the 21 December 2024, which is the last date for making a successful backdated claim for Pension Credit in order to receive a Winter Fuel Payment.

The Government is also ensuring pensioners are supported through our commitment to protect the Triple Lock, over 12 million pensioners will benefit, with many expected to see their new State Pension increase by around £1700 over the course of this Parliament.

The Household Support Fund is also being extended for a further six months, from 1 October 2024 until 31 March 2025.   An additional £421 million will be provided to enable the extension of the HSF in England, plus funding for the Devolved Governments through the Barnett formula to be spent at their discretion, as usual.

The Warm Home Discount scheme in England and Wales provides eligible low-income households across Great Britain with a £150 rebate on their electricity bill. This winter, we expect over three million households, including over one million pensioners, to benefit under the scheme.

Additionally, the Government will invest an extra £6.6 billion over this Parliament in clean heat and energy efficiency through the Warm Homes Plan, upgrading five million homes through solutions like low carbon heating and improved insulation to reduce emissions and cut bills.

The Government has announced funding to extend the Household Support Fund (HSF) for a further 6 months, from 1 October 2024 until 31 March 2025.

An additional £500 million will be provided to enable the extension of the HSF, including funding for the Devolved Governments through the Barnett formula to be spent at their discretion, as usual.

As with previous HSF schemes, the Fund will be made available to County Councils and Unitary Authorities in England to provide discretionary support to those most in need.

The HSF scheme guidance and individual Local Authority funding allocations for the forthcoming extension will be announced as soon as possible ahead of the scheme beginning on 1 October 2024.

The latest available Pension Credit take-up statistics cover the financial year 2021 to 2022 and are available at: Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up: financial year ending 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). These statistics were suspended for financial year ending 2021 due to data issues following the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

In the financial year ending 2022, the estimated amount of unclaimed Pension Credit was £1.72 billion.

Information relating to Pension Credit eligibility is only available via take-up statistics. The latest available Pension Credit take-up statistics for Great Britain cover the financial year 2021 to 2022 and are available at: Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up: financial year ending 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). However, these statistics are only available at Great Britain level and cannot be broken down to smaller geographical areas.

Caseload statistics are routinely published and made publicly available via DWP Stat-xplore. At November 2023, there were 2,139 people claiming Pension Credit in Poole.

The primary aim of the autumn 2024 COVID-19 vaccination programme remains the prevention of severe illness, hospitalisations, and deaths, arising from COVID-19. On 2 August 2024 the Government accepted the advice of the independent Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) to offer a COVID-19 vaccination to those aged 65 years old or over, those living in care homes for older adults, and those aged between six months and 64 years old who are in a clinical risk group in England this autumn. Additionally, vaccination will be offered to all frontline health and social care workers, as well as staff in care homes for older adults.

There are no plans to offer a COVID-19 vaccination to unpaid carers, including young carers, or the families and household contacts of people with immunosuppression, during the autumn 2024 campaign in England. Unpaid carers and household contacts of those with immunosuppression have previously been offered vaccination on the basis that it indirectly protected those more vulnerable with whom they are in contact. The JCVI advice for autumn 2024 is that in the era of highly transmissible Omicron sub-variants, any protection offered by the vaccines against transmission of infection from one person to another is expected to be extremely limited. The indirect benefits of vaccination in these groups, vaccinating an individual to reduce the risk of severe disease in other people, are therefore less evident than in previous years.

We understand how important it is to patients and their families that they are able to benefit from access to innovative treatments that can slow down the effects of this complex disease.

Decisions on whether new medicines should be routinely funded by the National Health Service are made independently by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) on the basis of the evidence of costs and benefits. The methods and processes that NICE uses are internationally respected and have been developed through extensive engagement with academics, industry, patients and clinicians, to ensure that they reflect best practice and societal preferences.

NICE is currently developing guidance for the NHS on the use of lecanemab and recently published draft guidance for consultation that does not recommend it as a clinically and cost-effective use of NHS resources. We recognise that NICE’s draft decision will be disappointing, but it is right that these decisions are made independently based on the available evidence of their costs and benefits. NICE has not yet published final guidance and stakeholders now have an opportunity to comment on NICE’s draft recommendations.

The Department is currently considering next steps to improve access to autism assessments. We expect integrated care boards (ICBs) to have due regard to relevant National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines on autism, when commissioning services for children, young people, and adults. It is the responsibility of ICBs to make available appropriate provision to meet the health and care needs of their local population, in line with these NICE guidelines.

On 5 April 2023, NHS England published a national framework and operational guidance to deliver improved outcomes in all-age autism assessment pathways. This guidance will help ICBs and the National Health Service to deliver improved outcomes for children, young people, and adults referred to an autism assessment service. In 2024/25, £4.3 million is available nationally to improve services for autistic children and young people, including autism assessment services.

The Government is committed to breaking down barriers to opportunity, ensuring every child has access to high-quality education, which is why we have made the tough decision to end tax breaks for private schools. This will raise revenue for essential public services, including investing in the education system.

Recognising the enormous sacrifices our military families make, the Ministry of Defence provide the Continuity of Education Allowance (CEA) to eligible Service Personnel. The government will monitor closely the impact of these policy changes on affected military families and the upcoming Spending Review is the right time to consider any changes to this scheme.

The Government has published a technical Note and draft VAT legislation outlining the changes; a technical consultation will be open until 15 September.

The Government is committed to protecting cash and the FCA published its final regulatory rules on 18 July. The Government also is working closely with the financial services sector to roll out at least 350 banking hubs. These will provide individuals, including those who are financially excluded, with critical cash and banking services. Cash Access UK expects to have 100 hubs open by the end of the year.

The Government does not publish estimates of the impacts on the public purse of removing the entitlement to the Winter Fuel Payment from people over State Pension age who pay income tax at the higher rate or additional rate.

In face of the substantial pressures faced by the public finances this year and next, the government has had to make hard choices to bring the public finances back under control, including targeting Winter Fuel Payments.

Winter Fuel Payments will continue to be paid to pensioner households with someone receiving Pension Credit or certain other income-related benefits. This means that the Winter Fuel Payment will be better targeted to low income pensioners who need it.

The estimated number of people who paid Income Tax by marginal rate in the 2023 to 2024 tax year can be seen in Table 1 below:

Table 1: number of Income Tax payers over the State Pension age by marginal rate of Income Tax for 2023-24

A Scottish Income Tax payer with any taxable non-savings non-dividends income within the Scottish starter and intermediate bands is classified as a basic rate Income Tax payer, as this is the top rate they are paying. A Scottish Income Tax payer with only savings and/or dividend income within this band is also classified as a basic rate Income Tax payer.

The proportions can be calculated using the 12.4 million estimate of individuals over the State Pension age in the UK. This estimate is based on the latest National population projections: 2021-based interim publication from the Office for National Statistics.

The estimates are based upon the 2021 to 2022 Survey of Personal Incomes, projected in line with economic assumptions consistent with the Office for Budget Responsibility’s March 2024 Economic and Fiscal Outlook.

All claims made to the employment tribunals after 6 May 2014 (with a limited number of exceptions) will include an Acas Conciliation certificate.

Publication of Employment Tribunal by jurisdiction ceased from April 2021 when Employment Tribunals moved to an interim database with limited management information. Employment Tribunals are now in the process of transitioning to a new case management system and work is in hand as part of the HMCTS data strategy to reintroduce the publication of Jurisdictional Outcome information at the end of this calendar year.

The data for 2020/21 is available in the published statistics (tab ET_3): Tribunals statistics quarterly: July to September 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

The information for years for (A) 2021, (B) 2022 and (C) 2023 is not held.