Asked by: Patrick Hurley (Labour - Southport)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what support she is offering for the building societies, in the context of the government's ambition to double the size of the mutuals sector.
Answered by Lucy Rigby - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
The government is committed to supporting the growth of building societies in line with the manifesto commitment to double the size of the mutual and co-operative sector. HM Treasury has already announced measures to support the sector and is currently progressing these.
For building societies specifically, HM Treasury has committed to progressing further amendments to the Building Societies Act 1986. This follows two statutory instruments being laid in October 2024, which raise the turnover limit for the definition of a small business for the purpose of wholesale funding limit exclusions, remove outdated director retirement requirements, and simplify how balance sheets are signed. These will create a more supportive legislative environment for building societies.
To support all financial mutuals, HM Treasury has also asked the Prudential Regulation Authority and Financial Conduct Authority to produce a report on the current landscape of the sector. This is expected to be published before the end of 2025. The government also welcomed the establishment of the Mutual and Co-operative Sector Business Council to consider mutual and co-operative solutions. The government also published the Financial Services Growth and Competitiveness Strategy, which will support all organisations in the financial services sector and encourages the sector to continue to work in partnership with government to deliver growth.
Asked by: Patrick Hurley (Labour - Southport)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what recent progress he has made on doubling the size of the mutuals sector.
Answered by Blair McDougall - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
As part of the Autumn Budget announcements, the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) launched a Call for Evidence on Business Support for Co-operatives and Mutuals. This will be open across Great Britain for 12 weeks.
DBT ensured that for Financial Year 25/26 Growth Hubs in England offer support to businesses with alternative business models – including Co-operatives and Mutuals, as a condition of funding, and included more information on Co-operatives and Mutuals through the highly successful Help to Grow Management programme.
DBT is looking at how to integrate support for Co-operatives and Non-Financial Mutuals within the government’s overall approach for supporting SMEs, including via the Business Growth Service.
DBT continues to work closely with the sector, including the new Mutual and Co-operative Business Sector Council.
Asked by: Patrick Hurley (Labour - Southport)
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 continued professional development on the ability of teachers to tackle misinformation, disinformation and conspiracy theories in the classroom.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The initial teacher training and early career framework sets out the foundational core content that defines great teaching. This includes anticipating common misconceptions within particular subjects, which is an important aspect of curricular knowledge. In the context of misinformation, this can help teachers to spot pupil misconceptions that may arise from various sources. Beyond this, providers can design a curriculum which is responsive to participant needs, including additional training where necessary.
In October 2024, Ofcom published its three-year media literacy strategy, which commits to supporting teachers through continuing professional development, evaluation of training outcomes and stronger collaboration with regional partners to share learnings and effective practices.
The independent Curriculum and Assessment Review’s final report was published on 5 November 2025 and includes recommendations for reform to the curriculum, which the government has accepted. Vital applied knowledge and skills in media and digital literacy will be embedded into the revised curriculum from 2028.
To support schools in the meantime, Oak National Academy provides adaptable, optional and free curriculum support for schools, including resources for computing and secondary citizenship, which can be found here: https://www.thenational.academy/.
Asked by: Patrick Hurley (Labour - Southport)
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 initial teacher training on the ability of teachers to tackle misinformation, disinformation and conspiracy theories in the classroom.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The initial teacher training and early career framework sets out the foundational core content that defines great teaching. This includes anticipating common misconceptions within particular subjects, which is an important aspect of curricular knowledge. In the context of misinformation, this can help teachers to spot pupil misconceptions that may arise from various sources. Beyond this, providers can design a curriculum which is responsive to participant needs, including additional training where necessary.
In October 2024, Ofcom published its three-year media literacy strategy, which commits to supporting teachers through continuing professional development, evaluation of training outcomes and stronger collaboration with regional partners to share learnings and effective practices.
The independent Curriculum and Assessment Review’s final report was published on 5 November 2025 and includes recommendations for reform to the curriculum, which the government has accepted. Vital applied knowledge and skills in media and digital literacy will be embedded into the revised curriculum from 2028.
To support schools in the meantime, Oak National Academy provides adaptable, optional and free curriculum support for schools, including resources for computing and secondary citizenship, which can be found here: https://www.thenational.academy/.
Asked by: Patrick Hurley (Labour - Southport)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to the Correspondence entitled HM Land Registry Chair’s letter, published 6 March 2025, what progress the Land Registry has made on (a) opening up existing data and information on land and (b) reforms to deeper transparency of land ownership in (i) Southport constituency and (ii) across the country.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
HM Land Registry (HMLR) already provides public access to information on individual property titles for a small fee, and it received 27.8 million information service requests in 2024-25. It also provides a mix of free and paid-for data services through its “Use land and property data” service on gov.uk. The Use land and property data platform, which can be found on gov.uk here, now sees more than 6,000 users downloading datasets every month.
HMLR is committed to maximising the value of the data it holds and making it findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable, while ensuring that risks to personal information and ownership security remain well controlled.
The information HMLR holds is complex and in a variety of formats. Its economic and social value cannot be fully realised without the investment HMLR is already putting in to digitise the data. HMLR has an ambitious programme of transformational activity, such as the award-winning Local Land Charges programme, that uses AI to accelerate the pace of change.
This year, one of HMLR's flagship programmes – Geospatial and Data Transformation – is going to deliver a change that will make land ownership data more accessible and valuable to people. HMLR has worked with GeoPlace to improve the way in which Unique Property Reference Numbers (or UPRNs) can help in matching ownership records, which are map-based, with other property data that is address-based.
HMLR will then be able to add these links into more of its published datasets in 2026, in addition to those that already contain the UPRNs, such as the UK and Overseas Ownership and Price Paid Datasets. The National Polygon Service and Registered Leases will be prioritised for this enhancement to their accessibility and utility. We will also ensure that INSPIRE polygons – showing ownership boundaries – are also easy to relate to other property data. This will allow users to match and merge HMLR data with other government data sources. HMLR has also established a dedicated team to develop and improve the way that its data can be accessed through automated requests (via APIs) that software providers in the PropTech market use. This will enable better and faster services for consumers and business.
Alongside its transformation activities, HMLR is supporting the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government in the delivery of a new policy around the Contractual Controls Dataset. This will offer all stakeholders a reliable and accessible information source regarding land ownership controls beyond the usual freehold and leasehold ownership information.
HMLR's recently published Strategy 2025+, which can be found on gov.uk here, sets out its ambitions to further support the property market and beyond with its data over the next 10 years. All HMLR’s data on property ownership can be publicly accessed today and the investment it is engaged in will increase the ease and speed with which it can be obtained and used.
Asked by: Patrick Hurley (Labour - Southport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of bringing forward legislative proposals to require all publicly accessible defibrillators to be registered on the Circuit network.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
According to the British Heart Foundation, there are now over 110,000 registered defibrillators in the United Kingdom, which is an increase of 30,000 since September 2023.
The Government does not currently have plans to bring forward such legislative proposals. Local communities obtaining automated external defibrillators do so on a voluntary basis and introducing legal requirements could disincentive this voluntary action.
Asked by: Patrick Hurley (Labour - Southport)
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 including (a) misinformation, (b) disinformation and (c) conspiracy theories in the guidance entitled Keeping children safe in education, published on 1 September 2025, on schools; and whether she plans to update the guidance to include information for teachers on tackling this issue.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
In response to stakeholder feedback, an amendment was made to paragraph 135 in the statutory guidance ‘Keeping children safe in education’. This came into force on 1 September 2025, and provided further examples of content risks.
The department recognises the significant risks these issues pose to children’s safety and wellbeing, as they can distort understanding, undermine trust and expose pupils to harmful narratives online.
The independent Curriculum and Assessment Review highlighted the importance of all pupils developing the skills they need to identify and challenge misinformation. In making changes to the curriculum, we will support this by strengthening media literacy content in citizenship and English and making citizenship compulsory in primary school so that all children are introduced to this vital content at an early stage.
Asked by: Patrick Hurley (Labour - Southport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has to publish a national strategy for palliative and end of life care.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department and NHS England are currently looking at how to improve the access, quality, and sustainability of all-age palliative care and end of life care in line with the 10-Year Health Plan.
We are supporting the hospice sector with a £100 million capital funding boost for eligible adult and children’s hospices in England to ensure they have the best physical environment for care.
We are also providing £26 million in revenue funding to support children and young people’s hospices for 2025/26. I am pleased to confirm the continuation of circa £26 million, adjusted for inflation, for the next three financial years, 2026/27 to 2028/29 inclusive, to be distributed again via integrated care boards. This amounts to approximately £80 million over the next three years.
Asked by: Patrick Hurley (Labour - Southport)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to ensure that funding for alternative learning and skills provision will be available after UK Shared Prosperity Fund comes to an end in March 2026.
Answered by Miatta Fahnbulleh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
This Government is establishing a new local growth fund, provided for specific mayoral city regions in the North and Midlands, with the highest productivity catch and agglomeration potential, which can be used to support skills interventions.
This sits alongside Government’s continuing investment in education and skills training for adults (19 and over) through the Adult Skills Fund (ASF), spending £1.4 billion in the 2025/26 academic year, ensuring that adults can access the education and training they need to get into employment or progress in work.
Asked by: Patrick Hurley (Labour - Southport)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if he will make alternative funding available for community organisations after the UK Shared Prosperity Fund comes to an end in March 2026.
Answered by Miatta Fahnbulleh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Government is taking a new approach to local funding, replacing multiple funding pots with long-term certainty for places. This will be led by sustained and predictable support for local authorities through the Local Government Finance Settlement and complemented by targeted interventions designed to drive local growth and strengthen communities.
Strong communities are vital to drive growth, yet many communities have been left behind and let down by years of decline and systemic under-investment. While there are no current plans to directly replace the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, the Government has announced a new local growth fund for specific mayoral city regions in the North and Midlands as part of its strategy for regional investment, supporting areas with the highest productivity catch-up and agglomeration potential’
On top of this, every part of the country will benefit from our whole of government Pride in Place strategy, which focuses on three overarching objectives: building stronger communities; creating thriving places; and helping communities to take back control of their own lives and areas. You can find the strategy here: Pride in Place Strategy - GOV.UK
As part of the strategy the Government announced, the Pride in Place programme and Pride in Place Impact Fund, both have been designed to target the most in-need places. We have used metrics that identify ‘double-disadvantaged’ neighbourhoods – those suffering from a combination of material deprivation and low social capital.