Asked by: Tahir Ali (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make an assessment of the prevalence of difficulties in the (a) recruitment and (b) retention of teachers in (i) primary and (ii) secondary schools in Birmingham, Hall Green constituency.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The most recent School workforce census shows that, as at November 2022, there are over 468,000 full time equivalent (FTE) teachers in state-funded schools in England, which is an increase of 27,000 (6%) since 2010. This makes it the highest FTE of teachers since the School Workforce Census began in 2010.
Teacher numbers at a school level are published in the additional supporting files. This can be found in the School workforce census 2022 publication, available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england#dataBlock-d32da738-358d-4c1f-955b-6c6f83552d65-tables. The department also produces national targets for postgraduate initial teacher training (ITT) for each subject based on estimates from the Teacher Workforce Model to ensure focus on the right subjects each year. These are available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/postgraduate-initial-teacher-training-targets.
The department knows that some schools face challenges with recruitment and retention, particularly in some secondary subjects, and action is being taken to increase teacher recruitment and retention.
The department is offering a financial incentives package worth up to £196 million for those starting ITT in the 2024/25 academic year, including bursaries worth up to £28,000 and scholarships worth up to £30,000 to encourage trainees to apply to train in key secondary subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, and computing. The department is also offering a £25,000 tax-free bursary for biology, design and technology, geography and languages (including ancient languages), and a £10,000 tax-free bursary for English, art and design, music and RE.
The department is providing a Levelling Up Premium worth up to £3,000 annually for mathematics, physics, chemistry, and computing teachers in the first five years of their careers who work in disadvantaged schools nationally, including within education investment areas (EIAs). For 2024/25 and 2025/26, the department will be investing approximately £100 million each year to double the rates of the Levelling Up Premium to up to £6,000 after tax. This builds on knowledge gained from similar pilots and will support recruitment and retention of specialist teachers in these subjects and in the schools and areas that need them most.
There are 97 schools in the Birmingham local authority area eligible for the Levelling Up Premium, including nine schools in the Birmingham, Hall Green constituency. The eligibility criteria and list of eligible schools is available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/levelling-up-premium-payments-for-teachers.
Earlier this year the department accepted the School Teachers’ Review Body’s recommendations for the 2023/24 pay award for teachers and leaders. This means that teachers and leaders in maintained schools will receive a pay award of 6.5%. This is the highest pay award for teachers in over thirty years and delivers the manifesto commitment of a minimum £30,000 starting salary for school teachers across England.
To support teacher retention across all school phases, the department has published a range of resources to help address staff workload and wellbeing. This includes the workload reduction toolkit and the education staff wellbeing charter. More than 3,000 schools have signed up to the wellbeing charter so far. The wellbeing charter can be accessed at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/education-staff-wellbeing-charter. The workload reduction toolkit is available here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/school-workload-reduction-toolkit. As part of the pay announcement for 2023/24, the department also convened a workload reduction taskforce to explore how to further support trusts and school leaders to minimise workload.
Asked by: Tahir Ali (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help increase the number of children getting a place at their preferred school in Birmingham.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
Local authorities have a statutory duty, under Section 14 of the Education Act 1996, to ensure that there are sufficient primary and secondary school places for all children living in their area, with a view to securing diversity of provision and increasing opportunities for parental choice and special educational provision for pupils who have Special Educational Needs. The department’s Pupil Place Planning Advisers engage with local authorities on a regular basis to review their plans for creating additional places and to consider alternatives where necessary. When local authorities are experiencing difficulties, they offer support and advice. The department provides capital funding through the Basic Need grant to support local authorities to meet their statutory duty to provide sufficient school places. This funding is based on their own pupil forecasts and school capacity data. Local authorities can use the funding to provide places in new schools or through expansions of existing schools and can work with any school in their local area, including academies and free schools.
The funding is not ringfenced, subject to the conditions set out in the published Grant Determination Letter, nor is it time bound, meaning local authorities are free to use this funding to best meet their local priorities.
The department has announced Birmingham City Council will receive just over £51 million to support the provision of new school places needed between May 2022 and September 2026, paid across the 2022/23 and 2025/26 financial years. This takes their total funding allocated between 2011 and 2026 to just over £345.7 million.
Asked by: Tahir Ali (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department plans to increase the number of Highly Protected Marine Areas.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The first three Highly Protected Marine Areas in English waters were designated in summer 2023 and we are currently working to put in place management measures.
Defra continues to explore additional sites for potential consideration. Any future sites would be subject to Ministerial agreement and public consultation.
Asked by: Tahir Ali (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will make an assessment of the potential trauma for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children of being housed in hotels.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
We maintain that the best place for these children to be accommodated is within local authority care. As part of the national transfer scheme, the receiving local authority must provide suitable support for all children being moved into their care, including health care, irrespective of the child’s immigration status.
Asylum seekers have access to health and social care services from the point of arrival in the UK. The Home Office and its contractors work closely with the NHS, local authorities and non-governmental organisations to ensure that people can access the healthcare and support they need.
The Home Office also operates a Safeguarding Hub to support vulnerable individuals in accessing these services. In addition, the Home Office contracts Migrant Help to provide advice and guidance to asylum seekers should they have an issue with their accommodation or support, and for signposting to health and welfare services. Asylum seekers can access Migrant Help 24/7, every day of the year by a freephone telephone number, via an online chat, or completing an email enquiry form, both of which can be accessed free of charge on the Migrant Help website. Interpreting and translation services are available through Migrant Help when the need arises for asylum seekers to raise any queries or concerns.
The information you have requested of the Home Office is not held in a reportable format.
Asked by: Tahir Ali (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many unaccompanied children in temporary accommodation have been provided with healthcare support in the last 12 months.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
We maintain that the best place for these children to be accommodated is within local authority care. As part of the national transfer scheme, the receiving local authority must provide suitable support for all children being moved into their care, including health care, irrespective of the child’s immigration status.
Asylum seekers have access to health and social care services from the point of arrival in the UK. The Home Office and its contractors work closely with the NHS, local authorities and non-governmental organisations to ensure that people can access the healthcare and support they need.
The Home Office also operates a Safeguarding Hub to support vulnerable individuals in accessing these services. In addition, the Home Office contracts Migrant Help to provide advice and guidance to asylum seekers should they have an issue with their accommodation or support, and for signposting to health and welfare services. Asylum seekers can access Migrant Help 24/7, every day of the year by a freephone telephone number, via an online chat, or completing an email enquiry form, both of which can be accessed free of charge on the Migrant Help website. Interpreting and translation services are available through Migrant Help when the need arises for asylum seekers to raise any queries or concerns.
The information you have requested of the Home Office is not held in a reportable format.
Asked by: Tahir Ali (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he has made an assessment of the potential factors that contribute to teenage involvement in knife crime.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
Home Office analysts have previously produced a report examining risk factors for serious violence (including weapons carrying) based on two UK-based longitudinal surveys of young people.
The report is available at the following link: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5d36d7fa40f0b604d8e5fe4b/analysis-of-indicators-of-serious-violence-horr110.pdf
Asked by: Tahir Ali (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he plans to take to improve the performance of the Disclosure and Barring Service.
Answered by Laura Farris - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Ministry of Justice) (jointly with Home Office)
The DBS publishes its KPIs in the annual business plan. By the end of Quarter 3 2023/24, DBS expects to have met the 85% target for Basic and Standard checks. For Enhanced checks, the DBS aims to issue 80% of checks within 14 days. In quarter 2 2023/24, the average attainment was 77.2% (noting the 80% target was met on day 17).
An Enhanced check requires the DBS to send applications to the police for local data searches and local intelligence checks. Currently some police forces’ turnaround times have been affected by increased volumes of disclosure applications against original forecasts. To improve performance, extra funding has been provided to police forces to recruit more staff to service the additional demand for Enhanced DBS checks that is being seen across the regulated employment sector. The DBS is also working in collaboration with policing partners to enhance the quality of an enhanced criminal record check referral to improve turnaround times.
The DBS continues to modernise its services through the replacement of legacy IT systems and is working to deliver further digitisation of its disclosure products to further enhance performance outcomes.
Asked by: Tahir Ali (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to improve rail services between Birmingham and Manchester.
Answered by Huw Merriman - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
In May 2023, CrossCountry increased service frequency to two trains per hour from Birmingham to both Manchester and Bristol.
A new CrossCountry National Rail Contract commenced in October 2023. This will deliver improvements for passengers travelling on CrossCountry services, including between the West Midlands and Manchester. Cascaded additional carriages will be introduced and the entire CrossCountry train fleet is due to be refurbished over the next few years.
Asked by: Tahir Ali (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she has made an estimate of the proportion of low-income families that attend yearly dental check-ups in Birmingham.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidance on recall intervals indicates that a healthy adult with good oral health need only see a dentist once every two years, and a child once every year. Data is therefore collected accordingly.
Under our reforms of July 2022 practices have been reminded that urgent dental care should be provided as part of their core service offer to patients, and that adherence to risk based recall intervals and other NICE guidance is a contractual requirement.
NHS Dental Statistics for England, 2022-23 Annual Report, brings together information on National Health Service dental activity in England for the 12-month period to 31 March 2023 and information on the number of patients seen by an NHS dentist up to 30 June 2023. This is available at the following link:
The data shows that 58.5% of courses of treatments were delivered to patients exempt from paying patient charges in 2022/23 for Birmingham and Solihull Integrated Care Board.
Asked by: Tahir Ali (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department is taking to increase the mobility of skilled labour into the UK.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Our Points Based System enables the Government to prioritise the skills and talent we need to help our economy grow and support our NHS, while encouraging investment in, and protecting, our own resident workforce.
The UK’s immigration offer enables talented individuals to come to the UK through a variety of different routes, including Global Talent, Skilled Worker, and Global Business Mobility. More recently we have added the High Potential Individual route for recent graduates of top global universities to build their careers in the UK.
The Government will continue to use the levers provided by the Points Based system to allow highly skilled workers to come to the UK, while taking decisive action against those take advantage of the system at the expense of those who play by the rules.