Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to help support women in Hornsey and Wood Green constituency to return to work after a career break.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Local Jobcentre teams are supporting residents into work and helping those in work to progress to higher paid jobs. We are working with local and national employers to help fill vacancies quickly, delivering Sector-Based Work Academy Programmes (SWAPs), recruitment days, Job Fairs, and work trials, all of which can help support women to return to work after a career break.
In addition, one to one support from a Work Coach and Contracted Employment Programmes, the department also offers help with CVs and employability skills, mentoring circles for people aged 50 plus and support with childcare costs. Where a Work Coach identifies a barrier to securing or progressing in employment, they can use the Flexible Support Fund (FSF) to procure clothing, tools, digital devices, and to help with travel to work costs.
In Haringey, we are working with the Construction Youth Trust to support more women into construction roles, with referrals made by Jobcentres across the borough, and funding available to support women who want to work in this sector.
To help facilitate signposting discussions with claimants, staff have access to a database of national and local support information, the District Provision Tool as well as the new Managed Jobs and Opportunities which ensures that claimants can access tailored support where required. This includes provision aimed at women across London such as Dress for Success, a service that supports women to improve their confidence when attending interviews and Smart Works, a UK charity that provides high quality interview clothes and interview training to unemployed women.
We are also working with Transport for London and the College of North East London on their Women into Transportation and Engineering provision. This provides two weeks of pre-employment training, covering CV writing, and workplace skills, plus a Smart Works coaching and styling appointment designed to give participants the confidence to apply for the roles offered within the programme
Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the unused court capacity was in each year since 2015.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
HMCTS had the following number of sessions recorded as either available or unavailable since 2015:
Period | Available verified sessions | Unavailable verified sessions |
FY 15-16 | 1,552,490 | 42,692 |
FY 16-17 | 1,512,424 | 36,811 |
FY 17-18 | 1,387,270 | 37,598 |
FY 18-19 | 1,347,648 | 36,507 |
FY 19-20 | 1,302,006 | 38,408 |
FY 20-21 | 1,062,856 | 130,071 |
FY 21-22 | 1,277,033 | 86,511 |
FY 22-23 | 1,277,981 | 42,665 |
FY 23-24 | 1,281,838 | 48,201 |
A ‘session’ represents the time that court/hearing room space is available, with up to two sessions available each day. Available and unavailable sessions are recorded for all jurisdictions.
HMCTS record a session being unavailable for a number of reasons, including important alternative uses. For example:
HMCTS’ Courtroom Planner performance database was introduced in April 2015 to collect information on the availability of courtrooms. The data was suspended in April 2020 due to COVID disruption and resumed in September 2020. The data between April and August 2020 is therefore incomplete.
The amount of time we use our available estate for hearings is also connected to the funded number of sitting days in any one year, and the availability of key participants such as judiciary and legal professionals.
To maintain session levels, we are investing £220m in the two years to March 2025 for essential maintenance and repair work across the estate to ensure we are keeping as many courtrooms open as possible to hear more cases. This two-year capital maintenance allocation enables us to plan major estate projects in advance and with certainty. Maintenance funding is prioritised to sites that need it most, and this investment is a step forward in improving the quality of the court estate. We have a planned pipeline of future works to improve the resilience and quality of the court estate, and this is kept under regular review.
We have also introduced additional measures to speed up justice for victims and improve the justice system, including:
o Extending 20 Nightingale courtrooms beyond March 2024 to provide additional capacity in the court estate.
o Investing in judicial recruitment since 2017 which has resulted in the annual recruitment of approximately 1000 judges and tribunal members across all jurisdictions. In particular, this has led to an overall increase in the number of judges in the Crown Court.
Please note all data provided is internal and subject to data quality issues inherent in any large-scale manual system.
Asked by: Emma Hardy (Labour - Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much his Department spent in the last 12 months on (a) in-work and (b) other training on (i) coastal restoration, (ii) the protection of coastal and marine ecosystems, (iii) monitoring, (iv) enforcement and (v) sustainable recreation; how much he plans to spend on each of those areas in the next 12 months; and whether his Department employs apprentices.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The requested information on training spend is not held centrally and to obtain it would incur disproportionate costs.
Core Defra Marine and Fisheries staff and employees of Defra’s marine Arm’s Length Bodies undertake a range of training and learning and development (L&D) opportunities covering a wide range of topics including coastal restoration and the protection of marine ecosystems, monitoring, enforcement, and sustainable recreation. Training is delivered through a range of means, including for example on the job learning, attending courses, peer to peer learning, conferences or talks, membership of professional bodies/learned societies, reviewing literature and mentoring. There is no mechanism through which we can give a specific amount that will be spent on those areas in the next 12 months. Every civil servant is supported to undertake L&D and expected to undertake the training necessary to their role. Detailed records are not kept at a corporate level on specific training.
The department does employ apprentices. As at March 2024 Defra Group currently has 880 active apprentices.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to ensure prison leavers are aware of the resettlement services available.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Effective resettlement of prison leavers is a core part of our efforts to reduce re-offending. This includes making sure someone has a home, family links where appropriate, access to healthcare, a job or further education, and/or access to benefits.
Probation practitioners in the community coordinate the overall rehabilitation of offenders as they leave prison and serve their licence, supported by Pre-Release Teams (PRT) who provide support to address identified immediate resettlement needs and pre-release support for all people in prison. The immediate resettlement needs of all prisoners are assessed on entry to prison and reviewed pre-release.
Utilising both prison-based services and Commissioned Rehabilitative Services (CRS), there is a wide range of resettlement support covering accommodation, employment, dependency and recovery, personal wellbeing and finance, benefit and debt services. CRS also offers a ‘mentoring’ service, which can be delivered pre-release and follow offenders through the gate for those being released on licence to support community integration. Community probation practitioners and PRTs work proactively with prisoners to build pre-release plans and refer into these services to ensure that the right support is in place for release.
In addition, we have also introduced employment hubs where prisoners can access job vacancies and support with applications, and Prison Employment Leads who support with work-readiness and match them to jobs on release.
To further improve awareness for prison leavers, we are introducing Resettlement Passports, which will bring together key information and services that an individual needs in one place to resettle into the community, such as bank accounts, CVs and identity documents to prove the right to work and rent, as well as appointment and contact information to enable prison leavers to engage with resettlement services available.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of parenting programmes on (a) levels of expenditure associated with (i) child and adult mental health and (ii) youth anti-social behaviour and (b) the proportion of parents able to return to the workplace as a result of a reduction in school refusal rates.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department is clear that parents should do everything they can to ensure that their child is in school every day. Regular school attendance is vital for children’s attainment, mental wellbeing and long-term development. It is crucial that the department has a system of support in place to ensure every child attends school every day, ready to learn and thrive.
The government’s ‘Working Together to Improve School Attendance’ guidance, which will become statutory ahead of the next school year, includes a core set of functions that local authority attendance support staff, whether titled education welfare officers, attendance officers or early help practitioners, are expected to provide free of charge to all schools and funded centrally through the Central Schools Service Block and Supporting Families Grant. Some early adopters have reported benefits from integrating attendance into other services, and providing better, more joined up whole family support, that has the potential to reduce demand for higher cost crisis services over time.
The department’s attendance mentors pilot sees mentors supporting a group of persistently absent pupils and their families, on a one-to-one basis, to help identify and address their barriers to education. The department has had positive feedback from parents, pupils and schools who have engaged with the attendance mentors programme and have started to see some promising impact data. The department has recently announced an additional investment of £15 million to expand mentoring into ten new areas over the next three years.
The government’s Supporting Families programme continues to work with families where attendance issues are a significant concern. ‘Getting a good education’ is a headline indicator in the national Supporting Families Outcomes Framework, which requires sustained good attendance for all children in the family, across two consecutive school terms. It is important that those identifying attendance issues begin to explore and identify any issues which may be behind the attendance problems, including any needs and circumstances in the wider family as part of Early Help Assessment processes.
The department’s reforms are starting to make a difference. There were 440,000 fewer pupils persistently absent or not attending in 2022/23 than in the year before. Overall absence during the 2023/24 autumn term was 6.8%, down from 7.5% in the 2022/23 autumn term.
Alongside this, the department is currently considering options for widening access to parenting support through family hubs and is undertaking assessments of the effectiveness and value for money of evidence-based parenting programmes, as well as other forms of support for parents. As part of this work to inform future fiscal events, the department will consider the downstream economic impacts of parenting programmes.
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for the Home Department on regarding knife crime.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department does not hold data on how many weapons have been seized in schools.
The statutory ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education’ (KCSIE) guidance advises schools on creating safe environments. KCSIE is clear that all staff should have an awareness of safeguarding issues that can put children at risk of harm. The ‘Searching, Screening and Confiscation’ Guidance was updated in 2022 to emphasise the importance of the school duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of all pupils and staff. Headteachers, and the staff they authorise, have a statutory power to search a pupil or their possessions, where they have reasonable grounds to suspect that the pupil may have a prohibited item, such as knives or weapons, and confiscate such items.
The department works across government, and with other partners, on initiatives to prevent serious violence, including knife crime. Over £50 million has been made available to fund specialist support in mainstream and alternative provision schools in the areas where serious violence most affects children and communities. This includes SAFE (‘Support, Attend, Fulfil, Exceed’) taskforces that have been established in ten areas, reaching over 2,100 children as of September 2023. Taskforces are school-led partnerships investing in evidence-based interventions in and around school, such as mentoring and social skills training, that reach children early on, to re-engage them in their education and reduce their involvement in serious violence. To benefit areas outside of the programme, the department has published a supportive guide on school-based interventions, which is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/safe-taskforces.
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent discussions she has had with Ofsted on guidance for schools on knife crime.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department does not hold data on how many weapons have been seized in schools.
The statutory ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education’ (KCSIE) guidance advises schools on creating safe environments. KCSIE is clear that all staff should have an awareness of safeguarding issues that can put children at risk of harm. The ‘Searching, Screening and Confiscation’ Guidance was updated in 2022 to emphasise the importance of the school duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of all pupils and staff. Headteachers, and the staff they authorise, have a statutory power to search a pupil or their possessions, where they have reasonable grounds to suspect that the pupil may have a prohibited item, such as knives or weapons, and confiscate such items.
The department works across government, and with other partners, on initiatives to prevent serious violence, including knife crime. Over £50 million has been made available to fund specialist support in mainstream and alternative provision schools in the areas where serious violence most affects children and communities. This includes SAFE (‘Support, Attend, Fulfil, Exceed’) taskforces that have been established in ten areas, reaching over 2,100 children as of September 2023. Taskforces are school-led partnerships investing in evidence-based interventions in and around school, such as mentoring and social skills training, that reach children early on, to re-engage them in their education and reduce their involvement in serious violence. To benefit areas outside of the programme, the department has published a supportive guide on school-based interventions, which is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/safe-taskforces.
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of guidance for schools on knife crime.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department does not hold data on how many weapons have been seized in schools.
The statutory ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education’ (KCSIE) guidance advises schools on creating safe environments. KCSIE is clear that all staff should have an awareness of safeguarding issues that can put children at risk of harm. The ‘Searching, Screening and Confiscation’ Guidance was updated in 2022 to emphasise the importance of the school duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of all pupils and staff. Headteachers, and the staff they authorise, have a statutory power to search a pupil or their possessions, where they have reasonable grounds to suspect that the pupil may have a prohibited item, such as knives or weapons, and confiscate such items.
The department works across government, and with other partners, on initiatives to prevent serious violence, including knife crime. Over £50 million has been made available to fund specialist support in mainstream and alternative provision schools in the areas where serious violence most affects children and communities. This includes SAFE (‘Support, Attend, Fulfil, Exceed’) taskforces that have been established in ten areas, reaching over 2,100 children as of September 2023. Taskforces are school-led partnerships investing in evidence-based interventions in and around school, such as mentoring and social skills training, that reach children early on, to re-engage them in their education and reduce their involvement in serious violence. To benefit areas outside of the programme, the department has published a supportive guide on school-based interventions, which is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/safe-taskforces.
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many weapons were seized in schools in England in (a) 2018 and (b) 2023.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department does not hold data on how many weapons have been seized in schools.
The statutory ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education’ (KCSIE) guidance advises schools on creating safe environments. KCSIE is clear that all staff should have an awareness of safeguarding issues that can put children at risk of harm. The ‘Searching, Screening and Confiscation’ Guidance was updated in 2022 to emphasise the importance of the school duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of all pupils and staff. Headteachers, and the staff they authorise, have a statutory power to search a pupil or their possessions, where they have reasonable grounds to suspect that the pupil may have a prohibited item, such as knives or weapons, and confiscate such items.
The department works across government, and with other partners, on initiatives to prevent serious violence, including knife crime. Over £50 million has been made available to fund specialist support in mainstream and alternative provision schools in the areas where serious violence most affects children and communities. This includes SAFE (‘Support, Attend, Fulfil, Exceed’) taskforces that have been established in ten areas, reaching over 2,100 children as of September 2023. Taskforces are school-led partnerships investing in evidence-based interventions in and around school, such as mentoring and social skills training, that reach children early on, to re-engage them in their education and reduce their involvement in serious violence. To benefit areas outside of the programme, the department has published a supportive guide on school-based interventions, which is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/safe-taskforces.
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has plans to update guidance for schools on knife crime.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department does not hold data on how many weapons have been seized in schools.
The statutory ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education’ (KCSIE) guidance advises schools on creating safe environments. KCSIE is clear that all staff should have an awareness of safeguarding issues that can put children at risk of harm. The ‘Searching, Screening and Confiscation’ Guidance was updated in 2022 to emphasise the importance of the school duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of all pupils and staff. Headteachers, and the staff they authorise, have a statutory power to search a pupil or their possessions, where they have reasonable grounds to suspect that the pupil may have a prohibited item, such as knives or weapons, and confiscate such items.
The department works across government, and with other partners, on initiatives to prevent serious violence, including knife crime. Over £50 million has been made available to fund specialist support in mainstream and alternative provision schools in the areas where serious violence most affects children and communities. This includes SAFE (‘Support, Attend, Fulfil, Exceed’) taskforces that have been established in ten areas, reaching over 2,100 children as of September 2023. Taskforces are school-led partnerships investing in evidence-based interventions in and around school, such as mentoring and social skills training, that reach children early on, to re-engage them in their education and reduce their involvement in serious violence. To benefit areas outside of the programme, the department has published a supportive guide on school-based interventions, which is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/safe-taskforces.