Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether his Department plans to engage faith communities in the Global Campaign for Children’s Care Reform.
Answered by Kirsty McNeill - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The UK remains committed to the Global Campaign on Children's Care Reform, which seeks to ensure that every child can grow up in a safe and loving family. The Government is currently considering how best to sustain the momentum of the Campaign to ensure its long-term impact and sustainability. This will include continuing to engage and work with faith communities and other key partners who play a vital role in supporting children and families and in shaping attitudes towards children's care worldwide.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether he plans to fund the Global Campaign on Children’s Care Reform for the duration of this Parliament.
Answered by Kirsty McNeill - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The UK remains committed to the Global Campaign on Children's Care Reform, which seeks to ensure that every child can grow up in a safe and loving family. The Government is currently considering how best to sustain the momentum of the Campaign to ensure its long-term impact and sustainability. This will include continuing to engage and work with faith communities and other key partners who play a vital role in supporting children and families and in shaping attitudes towards children's care worldwide.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
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 help improve understanding of the reasons for the rise in postpartum haemorrhage rates.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England is working to improve the timely clinical response to obstetric haemorrhage through the Maternal Care Bundle, which aims to improve the management of haemorrhage through timely identification, escalation, and response to obstetric bleeding, along with ongoing, multidisciplinary review and learning.
Significant improvements in data coverage and data quality over recent years mean that in September 2025, 92% of National Health Service trusts were included in the analysis of Maternity Services Data Set birth and postpartum haemorrhage information, compared with 30% in September 2020. The referenced increase in postpartum haemorrhage rates may be influenced by this improvement in reporting in addition to any rise in clinical incidence. The Maternal Care Bundle will further improve the identification of haemorrhages over 1,500 millilitres by requiring providers to cumulatively measure blood loss, which is likely to further increase the reported rate in future years.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department has taken to reduce the number of delayed discharges from hospital.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to ensuring that all patients are discharged from hospital appropriately with the right care and support in place. The Model Discharge Pathway has been published, to support timely, safe, and clinically led discharge from hospital. The Model Discharge Pathway is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/model-discharge-pathway/
It provides a framework that organisations can use to review and strengthen local discharge arrangements. The publication was developed with clinical and operational leaders and brings together good practice already being delivered across the National Health Service.
Additionally, in February 2026, the Government published guidance setting out new arrangements for the Better Care Fund, requiring NHS integrated care boards and local authorities to pool over £9 billion of funding to prevent avoidable hospital admissions and reduce delayed hospital discharges with more integrated health and social care services.
We are continuing to work with NHS trusts and local authorities to embed best practice in discharge processes. Areas experiencing the most significant challenges with discharge delays and urgent and emergency care performance are receiving targeted support to drive those improvements.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential implications for her policies of the National Year of Reading having engaged 6,800 schools and early years settings, and 11,000 teachers and early years practitioners, so far.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Reading for pleasure is hugely important and brings a wide range of benefits, from increased wellbeing, confidence and empathy to better vocabulary and aptitude for learning. That is why this government, in collaboration with our delivery partner, the National Literacy Trust (NLT), has declared 2026 the National Year of Reading, a UK-wide campaign to inspire a love of reading, combining a universal campaign with a targeted focus on priority groups who are least likely to read for pleasure.
The department is pleased that the campaign has attracted significant attention, momentum and engagement since its launch in January. The department’s ambition is that it will make a lasting change to the reading habits of the nation to address the decline in reading for pleasure and unlock one of the most powerful tools for equity and opportunity, a love of reading that lasts a lifetime. The department is pleased that the NLT’s recent reading report shows children’s reading enjoyment increased in 2026 for the first time in five years.
An independent evaluation will be published in 2027 and will examine how the campaign has influenced reading behaviours, connected with audiences and shaped attitudes towards reading.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential implications for her policies of the National Year of Reading having engaged over 2.1 million children so far.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Reading for pleasure is hugely important and brings a wide range of benefits, from increased wellbeing, confidence and empathy to better vocabulary and aptitude for learning. That is why this government, in collaboration with our delivery partner, the National Literacy Trust (NLT), has declared 2026 the National Year of Reading, a UK-wide campaign to inspire a love of reading, combining a universal campaign with a targeted focus on priority groups who are least likely to read for pleasure.
The department is pleased that the campaign has attracted significant attention, momentum and engagement since its launch in January. The department’s ambition is that it will make a lasting change to the reading habits of the nation to address the decline in reading for pleasure and unlock one of the most powerful tools for equity and opportunity, a love of reading that lasts a lifetime. The department is pleased that the NLT’s recent reading report shows children’s reading enjoyment increased in 2026 for the first time in five years.
An independent evaluation will be published in 2027 and will examine how the campaign has influenced reading behaviours, connected with audiences and shaped attitudes towards reading.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress he has made on ensuring the adequate provision of palliative care.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Secretary of State for Wales
This government is launching a new framework this autumn to fix unfair gaps in palliative care and end-of-life care.Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
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 help prevent diagnostic overshadowing in cases where anxiety, trauma, distress or school-related deterioration are dismissed as part of autism, ADHD or SEND.
Answered by Preet Kaur Gill
In December 2025, the Government launched an Independent Review into Prevalence and Support for Mental Health Conditions, ADHD and Autism. This independent review will inform a new approach that reduces waiting times, improves the quality of care, and promotes prevention and early intervention. The independent review’s final report, due in the summer, will make recommendations on how the Government, the health system, and wider public services can respond to increasing demand for support more fairly and effectively so that people receive the right support, at the right time, in the right place.
The Government also announced on 15 May a new Mental Health Strategy for England, with the aim of transforming mental health care into a system that responds earlier, reduces waiting times for support, and supports people, including people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autistic people, to participate in education and work. It will be informed by the findings and recommendations from the Independent Review into Prevalence and Support for Mental Health Conditions, ADHD and Autism.
In the meantime, the Government is continuing to expand Mental Health Support Teams so that every school and college can access mental health support. These teams provide early intervention and work with education staff, parents, and carers to identify needs sooner and support children and young people before difficulties escalate. We are also improving the capability of the workforce to respond to children and young people with more complex needs, including those experiencing trauma, distress, and neurodivergence, so that they can receive the right support at the right time.
We are also committed to transforming outcomes for children, young people, and their families with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) through pivotal reforms. We want these reforms to support the treatment to prevention shift in our 10-Year Health Plan and its focus on early identification of needs, support, and intervention, enabling more children to access support and thrive in inclusive mainstream settings.
To support this ambition, over the next three years £1.6 billion will be invested to make the mainstream system more inclusive, building on the latest evidence and practice, alongside £1.8 billion being invested over three years for the new Experts at Hand offer, which will wrap education and health professionals around mainstream settings. By 2028, up to £15 million will have been invested to build the evidence base for, and then provide, National Inclusion Standards. These will set out, for the first time, what support that should be available in every mainstream setting. We will also refresh areas of need, update guidance on reasonable adjustments, and revise the SEND Code of Practice.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate her Department has made of the cost of backdated VAT refunds if HMRC’s appeal against the March 2026 tax tribunal ruling on public EV charging is unsuccessful.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (Cabinet Office) (Jointly with HM Treasury)
HMRC is not currently able to estimate the potential VAT repayments that may arise from the ongoing litigation concerning public EV charging. This is because the extent of any repayments will depend on precise findings and details yet to be set out in the court’s judgement.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the Bovine TB Control Strategy for England, published on 10 June 2026, what criteria her Department will use to determine whether wildlife control methods are humane; whether that standard will draw on the findings of the 2014 Independent Expert Panel on the humaneness of controlled shooting of badgers; and what independent body will monitor and publicly report on the humaneness of any future lethal control, including Test, Vaccinate and Remove.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The badger cull is ending, and no new licences can be issued under that policy, as this Government instead keeps the focus on cattle while also protecting wildlife.
The Government is currently considering the proposals set out in the recommended Bovine TB Control Strategy. As such, no decisions have yet been taken on such criteria or future arrangements for independent monitoring and reporting.
With respect to lethal control, the Strategy recommends developing a framework to inform decisions about lethal badger control, based on international consensus principles for ethical wildlife control.