Asked by: Josh MacAlister (Labour - Whitehaven and Workington)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether (a) his Department and (b) each of its arms length bodies offers employees who are foster carers (i) flexible working, (ii) paid time off for (A) training and (B) settling a new child into their home and (iii) other support.
Answered by Justin Madders
The Department for Business and Trade allows foster carers to take paid special leave for both training and to settle a new foster child into their home. Employees also have the statutory right to request flexible working which applies from the first day of employment.
DBT has an Employee Assistance Programme which provides impartial and confidential advice, counselling and online resources for all employees. The department also has dedicated parents’ network who provide advice and support to working parents.
Arms length bodies have their own individual policies and procedures relating to foster carers.
Asked by: Vikki Slade (Liberal Democrat - Mid Dorset and North Poole)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will take steps to provide the same level of support to self-employed parents taking maternity leave as to self-employed people taking leave for adoption.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Self-employed pregnant women who have paid the required Class 2 National Insurance contributions are entitled to Maternity Allowance.
As a general rule, maternity pay is primarily a health and safety provision relating specifically to pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding. As there is no associated period of pregnancy for adopters, they are unable to make a claim for maternity pay regardless of their employment status.
The Government very much values self-employed people who come forward to take on the challenging but rewarding role of being an adoptive parent, that is why there is provision for Local Authorities to make discretionary payments, equivalent to Maternity Allowance, to self-employed adopters who do not qualify for Statutory Adoption Pay and where they satisfy the relevant criteria. This payment is means-tested and ensures that resources are targeted at those adopters who need it most, as part of a package of post-adoption support.
Prospective adopters and the child or children that they intend to adopt are also entitled to an assessment of their family’s needs. This includes a whole host of support including discretionary means-tested financial support, advice, information and counselling, and support services.
Depending on individual circumstances, additional financial support, for example, Universal Credit, Child Benefit and the Sure Start Maternity Grant (a lump sum payment of £500) may also be available to new parents.
The Government has committed to a review of parental leave to ensure that it best supports working families. Work is already underway on planning for its delivery.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to improve staff wellbeing and retention in the education sector.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell
Supporting our expert education workforce is critical to this government’s mission to break down the barriers to opportunity for children and young people at every stage.
Improving the wellbeing of staff in the education sector, including teachers, is key to this. The department is working in partnership with the sector, and mental health experts, to make commitments to improve staff mental health and wellbeing and boost retention.
These commitments include the creation of the education staff wellbeing charter which sets out shared commitments to protect and promote the wellbeing of staff in schools and colleges. The charter can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/education-staff-wellbeing-charter.
The charter can be used to inform a whole school or college approach to wellbeing or to develop a staff wellbeing strategy. So far, over 3,900 schools and colleges have signed up to it. In January 2024, the department published a progress report on its commitments in the charter, which is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/education-staff-wellbeing-and-teacher-retention.
The department is funding mental health and wellbeing support for school and college leaders, which includes professional supervision and counselling for those who need it. More than 2,000 leaders have benefitted from the support so far. Support continues to be available and can be accessed by visiting the Education Support website, which can be found at: https://www.educationsupport.org.uk/.
The department has made available a range of resources to help schools address teacher workload issues, prioritise staff wellbeing and support schools to introduce flexible working practices. For example, the department’s improve workload and wellbeing for school staff service, which was developed alongside school leaders, includes a workload reduction toolkit to support schools to identify opportunities to cut excessive workload. More information about this service can be found here: https://improve-workload-and-wellbeing-for-school-staff.education.gov.uk/.
The department also recently clarified that planning, preparation and assessment time can be done from home. The department has also removed the requirement for performance related pay and bureaucracy that went with it and has abolished one-word Ofsted judgements to deliver a system which provides better information for parents and is proportionate for staff.
Fair pay is key to ensuring teaching is an attractive and respected profession, which is why this government has accepted the School Teachers’ Review Body’s recommendation of a 5.5% pay award for teachers and leaders in maintained schools from September 2024. This will be fully funded at a national level.
School support staff play a vital role in all our schools. They are crucial to ensuring we give children the best possible life chances and the department wants to ensure they are paid fairly for the work they do. This is why the department set out its plans to reinstate the School Support Staff Negotiating Body (SSSNB) through the Employment Rights Bill, which was introduced on 10 October. Establishing the SSSNB will help ensure that schools can recruit and retain the staff needed to deliver high-quality, inclusive education.
Additionally, to boost recruitment and retention of teachers, the department has agreed to double the targeted retention incentive from 2024/25, which will give eligible early career teachers in key science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and technical shortage subjects, working in disadvantaged schools and in all colleges, up to £6,000 after tax annually, on top of their normal pay.
Asked by: Anneliese Midgley (Labour - Knowsley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to improve access to employment opportunities for disabled people in Knowsley constituency.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Government is committed to supporting disabled people with their employment journey. We are delivering a range of initiatives in Knowsley and across Merseyside to support disabled people into work including support from Work Coaches and Disability Employment Advisers in Jobcentres and through Access to Work grants.
Disability Employment Advisers hold regular health-themed events in both Kirkby and Huyton Jobcentres, alongside partner organisations that support customers with managing health conditions and gaining skills. All events have a ‘quiet hour’, accessible for customers with Autism, special educational needs and mental health issues. Where health presents a barrier to employment, customers can benefit from additional time with a Work Coach.
Employers play a key role in increasing employment opportunities and supporting disabled people and those with health conditions to thrive as part of the workforce. Local employers attend Kirkby and Huyton Jobcentres each week, and over fifty Disability Confident employers joined an employment event in Merseyside recently, all with vacancies and over 400 customers attending. The department works closely with Knowsley Chamber with regular sessions delivered to employers on Disability Confident and Access to Work, supporting them with reasonable adjustments for new employees and helping to retain staff.
As part of a wider project across Liverpool City Region, we are collaborating with Knowsley Borough Council to support people with special educational needs, disabled young adults, their parents, schools and colleges across Merseyside, on the transition between education and employment. This includes ‘Meet the Employer Sessions’ in our Jobcentres, with information on jobs, training and apprenticeships.
We have close links with Knowsley Works who run a positive inclusion programme for customers with physical and mental health needs. For customers with addiction issues, we have close working with Individual Placement and Support who attend our Jobcentres to speak to customers and work with peer mentors to encourage them to make better choices.
Several programmes have been funded locally to support disabled people move closer to work in Knowsley, including ‘Stepping Forward’, counselling and support for those customers who struggle to leave the house due to physical and mental impairments, dyslexia support which includes assessment and one-to-one support to help customers gain and retain employment and autism support.
Asked by: James MacCleary (Liberal Democrat - Lewes)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to improve support for families affected by baby loss including (a) access to counselling services, (b) support for siblings and (c) training for healthcare professionals in providing compassionate care.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England’s Three Year Delivery Plan for Maternity and Neonatal services sets out how the National Health Service will make care safer, more personalised, and equitable. The plan includes a commitment to provide compassionate and high-quality care for bereaved families.
To deliver on this commitment, NHS England has made additional funding available to ensure all trusts can offer a seven day a week bereavement service. NHS England has also invested in Maternal Mental Health Services to provide care for women with moderate to complex or severe mental health difficulties, and published the Core Competency Framework for providers, to address known variation in multi-professional training and competency assessment, including for bereavement care.
Additionally, the National Bereavement Care Pathway (NBCP) aims to reduce the variation in the quality of bereavement care provided by the NHS to ensure that parents receive quality and consistent care after pregnancy or baby loss. The pathway acts as a set of standards and guidance that trusts should follow when a patient has suffered a pregnancy or baby loss, with the aim of ensuring that all bereaved parents are offered equal, high quality, individualised, safe, and sensitive care. Since June 2024, all NHS England trusts had signed up to the NBCP.
To support NHS staff to handle a range of difficult situations, NHS England has also launched an e-learning module, Handling difficult situations – Caring for yourself and others with compassion, for NHS staff in frontline, patient facing roles. This e-learning module, which is available for free, aims to help upskill colleagues in how to handle difficult situations with compassion, using appropriate communication techniques and active listening skills.
Asked by: Lisa Smart (Liberal Democrat - Hazel Grove)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make it her policy to (a) extend Statutory Adoption Pay to self-employed individuals and (b) introduce an equivalent benefit that provides guaranteed financial support to self-employed individuals.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Government very much values people who come forward to take on the challenging but rewarding role of being an adoptive parent. That is why there is provision for Local Authorities to make discretionary payments, equivalent to Maternity Allowance, to self-employed adopters who do not qualify for Statutory Adoption Pay, where they satisfy the relevant criteria. This payment is means-tested and ensures that resources are targeted at those adopters who need it most, as part of a package of post-adoption support.
Prospective adopters and the child or children that they intend to adopt are also entitled to an assessment of their family’s needs. This includes a whole host of support including discretionary means-tested financial support, advice, information and counselling, and support services.
Depending on individual circumstances, additional financial support, such as Universal Credit and Child Benefit, as well as the Sure Start Maternity Grant (a lump sum payment of £500) may also be available to new parents.
Asked by: Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Conservative - Life peer)
Question
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the risk to UK citizens of contravention of treaty rights under the European Convention on Human Rights in proposals for a Conversion Practices Bill; and whether they have sought their own legal advice in response to these specific concerns.
Answered by Lord Collins of Highbury - Lord in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
This Government’s position is that conversion practices are abuse. Such practices have no place in society and must be stopped.
As with all legislation, the Government is considering all possible impacts and relevant rights, in line with the requirement to consider the compatibility of legislation with Convention rights as an integral part of the policy-making process.
To be clear, any ban must not cover legitimate psychological support, treatment, or non-directive counselling. It must also respect the important role that teachers, religious leaders, parents and carers can have in supporting those exploring their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Asked by: Beccy Cooper (Labour - Worthing West)
Question
To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, what her planned timetable is for bringing forward a draft bill to ban conversion practices.
Answered by Anneliese Dodds
This Government’s position is that conversion practices are abuse - such practices have no place in society and must be stopped. We are committed to delivering on our manifesto commitment to bring forward a full, trans-inclusive ban on conversion practices.
We are clear that any ban must not cover legitimate psychological support, treatment, or non-directive counselling. It must also respect the important role that teachers, religious leaders, parents and carers can have in supporting those exploring their sexual orientation or gender identity.
We will set out our next steps on this work in due course.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Friern Barnet)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 26 March 2024 to Question 19417 on Mental Health Services: Parents, what steps her Department is taking to provide community mental health services to bereaved (a) fathers and (b) partners following pregnancy or baby loss.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
Through the NHS Long Term Plan, we are committed to expanding and transforming mental health services in England so that more people, including bereaved fathers and partners following pregnancy or baby loss, can get the help and support that they need.
As part of this, we are expanding access to psychological and talking therapies within specialist perinatal mental health services. Specialist community perinatal mental health services have now been rolled out in every part of England, and should work closely with maternal mental health services, which are also being rolled out, with 39 maternal mental health services currently available across England. Fathers and other partners of women accessing specialist community care should be able to access an evidence-based assessment for their mental health and signposting to support as required. Individuals can also access psychological support by referring themselves to NHS Talking Therapies. Details of local services are available at the following link:
Asked by: Mark Logan (Conservative - Bolton North East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will hold discussions with Cabinet colleagues on the potential merits of bringing forward proposals to ensure that parents are held accountable in the event that their child is convicted of a serious offence where it is deemed that the parent’s action or inaction contributed to that offence.
Answered by Damian Hinds
We believe it is important for those who are responsible for a child’s care and well-being to be involved in their rehabilitation where appropriate.
Youth offending teams (YOTs) assess children engaging in, or at risk of, offending and determine whether parenting programmes or parenting contracts are needed to improve the guidance provided by parents and guardians to their children.
Courts can issue a parenting order where a child has been convicted of an offence and can include failure by the parent and guardian to comply with the requirements of a parenting contract. Parenting orders require the parent to comply for up to 12 months with certain requirements and, where appropriate, attend counselling or guidance programmes designed to improve parenting skills, manage difficult adolescent behaviour or ensure school attendance, for up to three months. Consistent non-compliance without good reason can lead to a police investigation and breach proceedings in court. Where the child is under 16, and has been convicted of an offence, the courts also have the power to order the parent or guardian to pay the fine.
As an alternative to parenting orders, YOTs often prefer where possible to engage and build strong relationships with parents on a voluntary basis. Parents often engage readily and take part in specific parenting support activities.