Baroness Debbonaire

The BBC continues to hold a uniquely important role as a cornerstone of the whole of the UK’s creative economy, including playing an important role in the provision of music.

As part of the Charter Review process, the Government is looking at how the BBC can best use its significant public funding to act differently to other broadcasters and prioritise genres and activities that would otherwise be underserved by the market. We are considering options to ensure that the BBC drives opportunities and good jobs across the UK, including in the creative sector and the arts.

The BBC continues to hold a uniquely important role as a cornerstone of the whole of the UK’s creative economy, including playing an important role in the provision of music.

As part of the Charter Review process, the Government is looking at how the BBC can best use its significant public funding to act differently to other broadcasters and prioritise genres and activities that would otherwise be underserved by the market. We are considering options to ensure that the BBC drives opportunities and good jobs across the UK, including in the creative sector and the arts.

In the current national curriculum, pupils should be taught to use and understand staff and other musical notations at key stage 2 from ages 7 to 11, and to use staff and other relevant notations appropriately and accurately at key stage 3 from ages 11 to 14. The department does not hold information on whether pupils are taught to read music but Ofsted’s most recent subject report, based on visits to 25 primary and 25 secondary schools, found that pupils do not consistently develop secure musical knowledge and skills over time, including in notation and reading music.

The independent Curriculum and Assessment Review published its final report on 5 November 2025. The government has issued a response to the report, setting out planned changes to the music curriculum to ensure pupils develop a strong foundation in the three pillars of musical understanding, technical, constructive and expressive, including how to read music. The first teaching of a refreshed curriculum will be September 2028, following planned consultation to launch in September.

The government is committed to supporting the teaching of modern foreign languages in England’s schools. Schools are free to choose which languages they teach at primary and secondary level. When deciding which languages to offer, schools will consider the needs of the communities they serve.

The department does not hold information on the number of children being taught Mandarin, Spanish, Hindi or Arabic in school. However, we can provide the following information on GCSE entries: in 2025, 73% of state-funded secondary schools in England entered at least one pupil for GCSE Spanish (2,719 schools), compared with 28% for GCSE Arabic (1,030 schools) and 31% for GCSE Chinese (1,154 schools).

The department does not hold data for Hindi, as this is offered as an iGCSE qualification, not GCSE. Schools may be used as exam centres for local heritage language schools, so we do not know if the teaching for these exams took place in schools or elsewhere.

Participation in the arts brings a range of benefits for children and young people. In addition to the value of arts engagement in and of itself, the Education Endowment Fund’s teaching and learning toolkit, for example, reports positive impacts on academic outcomes in other curriculum areas, as well as benefits to children’s wellbeing and attitudes to learning.

There is a range of support available to schools from external organisations to help them provide arts and cultural activities. The government will be publishing a new enrichment framework this academic year, which will encourage partnership working and signpost to organisations, such as Arts Council England.

We are also committed to revitalising arts as part of the reformed national curriculum and qualifications, with high-quality support for teachers of these subjects through the new National Centre for Music and Arts, and our music hubs network.

Where a parent’s gross income exceeds £156,000 a year, the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) makes a maximum maintenance calculation. Any further consideration of child maintenance is a matter for the courts, which have their own mechanisms for examining the finances of those involved in proceedings where relevant.

Where a paying parent’s income is not fully reflected in a statutory maintenance calculation, the CMS can take account of certain forms of diverted and unearned income through the variation process where income has not been fully reflected in a maintenance calculation. Where information is disputed or appears not to reflect a parent's true circumstances, caseworkers can access specialist support, including the Financial Investigation Unit.

The Government continues to work closely with HMRC to improve the quality and timeliness of income data and strengthen the identification of complex income arrangements. Assessments and processes are kept under review to help ensure that child maintenance liabilities accurately reflect parents' financial circumstances and that all parents contribute appropriately towards their children.

The CMS can provide information to the courts where requested through the proper legal process, including information used in child maintenance calculations and, where relevant, findings from CMS investigations

The CMS remains committed to ensuring that parents meet their financial responsibilities to their children.

The £156,000 annual gross income limit reflects the £3,000 gross weekly income threshold introduced with the 2012 child maintenance scheme. The scheme was designed to provide a standard formula for assessing child maintenance in most cases. Where a paying parent’s income exceeds this threshold, receiving parents may apply to the courts for a top-up order. Higher-income cases can involve more complex financial arrangements and, as intended when the scheme was introduced, the courts remain responsible for determining any additional maintenance above the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) calculation limit.

The Government keeps all aspects of the child maintenance system under consideration, but there are currently no plans to uprate this threshold.

A paying parent with gross weekly income of £3,000 or above would be liable for child maintenance of approximately £294 per week for one qualifying child, £392 per week for two qualifying children and £482 per week for three or more qualifying children under the statutory formula, before any adjustments for shared care or other factors.

NHS England has recently updated guidance for children and young people’s eating disorder services, strengthening early identification, and ensuring care is joined up across schools, primary care, and specialist services, with faster access to treatment where an eating disorder is suspected.

NHS England expects to publish the Mental Health Personalised Care Framework shortly. The mental health personalised care framework sets out the approach and related principles and actions for delivering personalised care for adults and older people with severe mental health problems.

As part of the NHS Long Term Plan, NHS England has established 15 Adult Eating Disorder Provider Collaboratives across England to oversee specialised adult eating disorder services. In addition to delivering inpatient care, these collaboratives are supporting the development of intensive community and day treatment models, helping more people receive care closer to home where clinically appropriate, reducing reliance on inpatient admission and geographical variation, while implementing improved processes supporting earlier discharge from hospital.

NHS England has also published guidance for commissioners and providers on adult eating disorders across community, inpatient, and intensive day-patient care, to support local systems in developing coherent pathways across different levels of treatment intensity.

Integrated care boards are responsible for assessing local need and commissioning appropriate community and outpatient provision for their populations, while specialised provision supports those adults whose needs require a higher level of intensity, medical monitoring, or specialist intervention.

The GP Contract requires all practices to enable patients to telephone or visit their practice in person to make appointments. Online tools must always be provided in addition to, rather than as a replacement for, other channels for accessing a general practitioner, and practice receptions should be open so that patients without access to telephone or online services are in no way disadvantaged.

To support patients who depend on telephone bookings, recent contractual changes require all general practices to offer online booking throughout core hours, from 8:00am to 6:30pm. This is designed to ease pressure on phone lines by allowing those who prefer online booking to do so at any time, freeing up phone lines, reducing long phone queues, and improving the experience for those reliant on telephone bookings.

This Government is providing a non-Official Development Assistance (ODA) uplift of £40 million across the Spending Review period (2026/27 to 2028/29) to the British Council. This supports our objective of a financially sustainable British Council for the long-term.