Written questions by Anderson.

How many SEN schools have informed her Department that they require additional funding in each of the last five years.

This government’s ambition is that all children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) receive the right support to succeed in their education and as they move into adult life.Following the Autumn Budget 2024, the department is providing an increase of £1 billion for high needs budgets in England in the 2025/26 financial year. This brings total high needs funding for children and young people with complex SEND to over £12 billion. Of that total, Nottinghamshire County Council is being allocated over £130 million through the high needs funding block of the dedicated schools grant (DSG), which is an increase of £10.8 million on their 2024/25 DSG high needs block, calculated using the high needs national funding formula.Departmental officials regularly meet with representatives of special schools to discuss a wider variety of matters, including funding levels.

What assessment she has made of trends in attainment levels between boys and girls in schools in Ashfield constituency.

All young people should have every opportunity to succeed, no matter who they are or where they are from. That is why, through our work to deliver the Opportunity Mission, this government will improve opportunities across the country for all children and young people.As in previous years, the latest attainment data shows girls continue to do better than boys across all headline measures. However, the gap has narrowed when comparing 2023/24 to 2018/19. The department publishes attainment data by sex on an annual basis in the autumn term, which can be broken down by specific local authorities, including Ashfield. The relevant data can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/0b85fb67-0628-414c-95b1-08dd85738b16.High and rising standards across education are at the heart of this mission and are key to unlocking stronger outcomes and a better future for all children and young people, regardless of their gender. As one of the department’s first steps for change, we are committed to recruiting an additional 6,500 expert teachers. We have also introduced new regional improvement for standards and excellence teams and launched an independent, expert-led Curriculum and Assessment Review that is looking closely at the key challenges to attainment.

How many schools ban the use of mobile phones by pupils during the school day in Ashfield constituency.

Schools should prohibit the use of mobile phones and other smart technology with similar functionality to mobile phones throughout the school day, including during lessons, the time between lessons, breaktimes and lunchtime, as set out in the department’s ‘Mobile phones in schools’ guidance. The department expects all schools to take steps in line with this guidance to ensure mobile phones do not disrupt pupils’ learning.New research from the Children’s Commissioner, with responses from nearly all schools and colleges in England show that the overwhelming majority of schools, 99.8% of primary schools and 90% of secondary schools, already have policies in place that limit or restrict the use of mobile phones during the school day.

What assessment she has made of the adequacy of school buildings in Ashfield constituency.

The department supports academy trusts, local authorities and voluntary-aided bodies, who are responsible for managing the safety and maintenance of their estates, with capital funding, rebuilding programmes and guidance on effective estate management.We recently confirmed details of £2.1 billion of capital funding for the 2025/26 financial year to improve the condition of schools, up from the £1.8 billion committed for the 2024/25 financial year. Allocations are partly informed by consistent data on the condition of the estate collected by the department reflecting the relative need of schools.This is in addition to the continuing school rebuilding programme, which includes Ashfield Comprehensive School and Outwood Academy Kirkby in Ashfield constituency.The department also provides capital funding through the basic need grant to support local authorities meet their statutory duty to provide sufficient school places, based on their own pupil forecasts and school capacity data.In March 2025, the department announced that Nottinghamshire County Council has been allocated just over £21.7 million to support it to create the mainstream school places needed by September 2028. This is on top of the just over £55 million we have previously allocated to support Nottinghamshire County Council provide the new school places needed over the current and next two academic years, up to and including the academic year starting in September 2026.

What steps is she taking to meet the demand for specialist SEND school places in Nottinghamshire.

The statutory duty to provide sufficient school places for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) or who require alternative provision sits with local authorities.We recognise the vital role that special schools play in catering to those with the most complex needs. We also want more children and young people to receive the support they need to thrive in their local mainstream school, reducing the need for pupils to travel a long way to access a specialist placement. Many mainstream settings are already committed to delivering specialist provision locally, including through resourced provision and special educational needs units.The department has now published allocations for £740 million in high needs provision capital allocations for the 2025/26 financial year, to support local authorities to deliver new places in mainstream and special schools, as well as other specialist settings, and to improve the suitability and accessibility of existing buildings.The funding can be used to adapt schools to be more accessible for children with SEND, to create specialist facilities within mainstream schools that can deliver more intensive support adapted to suit the pupils’ needs and to create special school places for pupils with the most complex needs.Nottinghamshire Council has been allocated £14 million for the 2025/26 financial year and it is up to the local authority to make decisions about the places they create and to prioritise this funding to meet local needs.

What steps she is taking to ensure teachers remain political impartiality in secondary schools in Nottinghamshire.

I refer the hon. Member for Ashfield to the answer of 9 April 2025 to Question 43267.

If he will remove net zero targets for key strategic industries.

Our targets are there to help us seize the economic opportunity of the century – and we are absolutely committed to them. So, instead of leaving great British industries without a long-term plan for their future, we will help them become more secure and sustainable, creating and protecting hundreds of thousands of jobs across the UK.

If she will publish a breakdown of work capability assessment decisions by medical condition between January 2022 and November 2024.

Statistics on Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) Work Capability Assessment decisions by grouped medical condition, including ‘mental and behavioural disorders’, are published on Stat-Xplore in the sections ‘ESA Work Capability Assessments’. Users can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest and, if needed, can access guidance on how to extract the information required. Statistics on Universal Credit Work Capability Assessment decisions by grouped medical condition, including ‘mental and behavioural disorders’, are available at Universal Credit Work Capability Assessment statistics, April 2019 to December 2024 - GOV.UK in section 6 of the document and table 7 of the tables. Information on lower level conditions is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.

Whether his Department is taking steps to help shorten waiting times for dementia diagnoses.

A timely diagnosis is vital to ensuring that a person with dementia can access the advice, information, care, and support that can help them to live well and remain independent for as long as possible.We remain committed to recovering the dementia diagnosis rate to the national ambition of 66.7%. The Government is also committed to transforming diagnostic services, including the detection and diagnosis of dementia, and will support the National Health Service to increase capacity to meet the demand for diagnostic services through investment in new capacity, including magnetic resonance imaging and computerized tomography scanners.The Dementia Care Pathway: Full Implementation Guidance, commissioned by NHS England, outlines the dementia care pathway and the associated benchmarks to support improvements in the delivery and quality of care and support. It showcases good-practice examples of services that have successfully reduced their waiting times. Further information is available at the following link:https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/docs/default-source/improving-care/nccmh/dementia/nccmh-dementia-care-pathway-full-implementation-guidance.pdfTo support recovery of the dementia diagnosis rates and implementation of the Dementia Care Pathway, NHS England has developed a dashboard for management information purposes. The aim is to support commissioners and providers of memory services with appropriate data and enable targeted support where needed.

If she will publish a breakdown of work capability assessment decisions in each month between January 2022 and November 2024.

Statistics on Work Capability Assessment decisions by month of decision are published on Stat-Xplore in the sections ‘ESA Work Capability Assessments’ and ‘Universal Credit Work Capability Assessments’. Users can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest and, if needed, can access guidance on how to extract the information required.

If she will publish the Work Capability Assessment decisions made between January 2022 and November 2024, broken down by mental and behavioural disorders.

Statistics on Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) Work Capability Assessment decisions by grouped medical condition, including ‘mental and behavioural disorders’, are published on Stat-Xplore in the sections ‘ESA Work Capability Assessments’. Users can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest and, if needed, can access guidance on how to extract the information required. Statistics on Universal Credit Work Capability Assessment decisions by grouped medical condition, including ‘mental and behavioural disorders’, are available at Universal Credit Work Capability Assessment statistics, April 2019 to December 2024 - GOV.UK in section 6 of the document and table 7 of the tables. Information on lower level conditions is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.

Whether his Department plans to provide additional support to carers of people with Parkinson’s disease.

The Government is committed to ensuring that families have the support that they need.Local authorities have duties to support people caring for their family and friends. The Care Act 2014 requires local authorities to deliver a wide range of sustainable, high-quality care and support services, including support for carers and carers of people with Parkinson’s disease.To support unpaid carers, on 7 April 2025 the Government increased the Carer's Allowance weekly earnings limit from £151 a week to £196, the equivalent of 16 hours at the National Living Wage. This represents the largest increase in the earnings limit since the Carer’s Allowance was introduced in 1976.We are also providing support for unpaid carers. The Better Care Fund can be used for unpaid carer support, including short breaks and respite services for carers. The Accelerating Reform Fund (ARF) has also provided a total of £42.6 million to support innovation and scaling in adult social care. More than half of the ARF projects are focused on identifying, recognising, and supporting unpaid carers.

Regarding the report entitled Seventh Carbon Budget by the Committee on Climate Change, published on 26 February 2025, whether his Department has made an estimate of the cumulative capital expenditure required for (a) transmission grid upgrades, (b) distribution grid upgrades and (c) household insulation measures to 2050.

The actual costs of delivering the Seventh Carbon Budget will be determined by the choices that government makes. The costs and funding scenarios set out in the CCC’s Seventh Carbon Budget report are illustrative and do not represent government policy and Government is not bound to accept their recommendations. In 2022, the Government published the Electricity Networks Strategic Framework which included an estimate of cumulative 2021-2050 load-related total expenditure for net zero of £100-120bn for onshore transmission and £70-90bn for distribution network. The Warm Homes Plan will help people find ways to save money on energy bills and transform our ageing building stock into comfortable, low-carbon homes that are fit for the future. We will upgrade up to 5 million homes across the country by accelerating the installation of efficient new technologies like heat pumps, solar, batteries and insulation.

How many people applied to join the Prison Service by nationality in the latest period for which data is available.

The Department welcomes job applications from everyone, irrespective of background, identity, experience, or circumstance, and particularly those underrepresented in our workforce. The number of people who applied for a role in the prison service by nationality from 1 January 2024 to 31 December 2024 is provided in the attached table 1. All staff undergo robust assessments and training before they work in prisons. Our strengthened vetting process roots out those who fall below our high standards

How many people were assessed for a role in the Prison Service by nationality in the latest period for which data is available.

The Department welcomes job applications from everyone, irrespective of background, identity, experience, or circumstance, and particularly those underrepresented in our workforce. The number of people assessed for a role in the prison service by nationality from 1 January 2024 to 31 December 2024 is provided in the attached table 1. All staff undergo robust assessments and training before they work in prisons. Our strengthened vetting process roots out those who fall below our high standards.

What steps is he taking to support the steel industry.

Steel is a top priority for this Government. As shown with the passing of the Steel Industry (Special Measures) Act, this Government will not hesitate to take unprecedented steps to safeguard the future of steelmaking in the UK, protecting jobs, national security and supply chains. We have completed the roll out of the British Industry Supercharger, which from this month means our steel industry will save an estimated £320mn – £410mn this year. This is on top of continuing the network charging compensation scheme. We have taken action to make public procurement of UK-made steel easier and increased support for businesses to report unfair international trade practices. We have continued to develop the policy and approach for the steel strategy.

Whether his Department has made an estimate of the percentage reduction in heat demand that household insulation measures will deliver on existing housing stock.

The Department publishes annual estimates of the impact of installing insulation measures through government schemes on domestic gas consumption in England and Wales.

How much her Department has spent on keeping foreign nationals imprisoned in prisons in each of the last five years.

We do not disaggregate prison run costs by nationality and the cost to hold individuals depends on category of prisons. Our unit costs for holding prisoners are published on GOV.UK alongside the HM Prison and Probation Service Annual Reports and Accounts. Data on the number of Foreign National Offenders in custody is published in Offender Management Statistics quarterly on GOV.UK. Foreign nationals who commit crime should be in no doubt that the law will be enforced. The Ministry of Justice will work with the Home Office to pursue their deportation. Between 5 July 2024 and 22 March 2025, 3,594 FNOs have been returned – 16% more than the 3,101 in the same period 12 months prior, under the previous government.

What steps is he taking to reduce NHS waiting times in Ashfield.

We are ensuring that people have the best possible experience during their care, including in the Ashfield constituency. We have already exceeded our pledge to deliver an extra two million operations, scans, and appointments, with three million more delivered between July 2024 and January 2025.In Ashfield, Nottinghamshire Integrated Care Board has been working with local National Health Service trusts and independent sector providers to secure additional capacity to see, diagnose and treat patients; review all waiting times; reduce any inequity of waits; and support patient choice.We have also increased diagnostic capacity in Ashfield through investment in new computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging scanners and reducing wasted appointments through improved communication with patients. This has resulted in waits for diagnostic tests improving significantly, contributing to improvements in the overall waits for diagnosis and treatment. It has also led to a reduction in the number of patients waiting more than 52 weeks for surgery and improvements in the number of patients who are seen and treated within 18 weeks.

How many disability benefit claimants will be impacted by the disability benefit reforms in Ashfield constituency.

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, and some information was published alongside the Spring Statement. These publications can be found in ‘Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper’.A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.