Written questions by Darling.

If she will make an assessment of the potential merits of trialling the provision of a copy assessment report when informing claimants of a decision on a benefit claim under the Health Transformation Programme.

The Health Transformation Programme (HTP) is modernising benefit services to improve customer experience, build trust in our services and create a more efficient service. As we develop these services, we are exploring a range of ideas to establish what works best for our customers with HTP providing the platform for change and the flexible capability to trial new ideas. Audio recording is available on an opt-in basis for face-to-face and telephone assessments. Customers are informed of the audio recording offer prior to their assessment in invitation letters. The programme is looking at how audio recording can also be offered for video assessments and will be seeking ways to improve the whole process. We will set out the detail of any changes in due course. We have undertaken initial tests where assessment reports are shared with customers. We are evaluating the outcomes of these tests to establish next steps.

When she plans to announce the allocation by local authority for the £740 million of SEND funding.

The department allocates capital funding to local authorities to support them to meet their statutory duty to provide sufficient school places for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) or who require alternative provision. Earlier this month, the department announced £740 million for high needs capital in 2025/26.This capital funding can be used to adapt classrooms 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 create special school places for pupils with the most complex needs.This will be used to deliver this government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and give every child the best life chances while fixing the foundations of the school system.The department expects to confirm plans to allocate funding for the 2025/26 financial year by the end of March 2025 and will work with valued partners in the sector, schools, trusts and local authorities to ensure that children and young people can access the placements they need and deserve, restoring parents’ trust.

What guidance her Department has issued to sixth form academies on securing capital funding for new school buildings when existing buildings are no longer fit for purpose.

Ensuring schools, including sixth form college academies, have the resources and buildings they need is a key part of the government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and give every young person the best start in life.Responsibility for keeping school and sixth form buildings safe and well-maintained lies with institutions and their responsible bodies. These are typically local authorities, academy trusts, or voluntary aided school bodies. The department supports them by providing capital funding, delivering major rebuilding programmes and offering guidance and support.The department has allocated £1.8 billion in condition funding for 2024/25 for schools, including sixth form academies, informed by consistent data on the condition of the school estate. As part of the 2025/26 budget, the department is increasing capital allocations to improve the condition of school buildings to £2.1 billion, £300 million more than this year.The £1.8 billion of funding allocated in 2024/25 includes £1.15 billion in School Condition Allocations (SCA) for local authorities and other large responsible bodies, including large multi-academy trusts, to invest in maintaining and improving the condition of their school buildings, including any sixth form academies. This funding is calculated formulaically, and paid directly to the responsible bodies, without the need to apply. The department provides guidance on how funding is calculated and how it can be spent at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/school-capital-funding.Smaller academy trusts and sixth form colleges are able to apply to the condition improvement fund (CIF), instead of receiving SCA. This is a bid-based fund for projects to address condition issues with buildings, with a focus on keeping them safe and in good working order. Guidance on the CIF can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/condition-improvement-fund.The 2025/26 budget also includes £1.4 billion to support the current school rebuilding programme, reaffirming the department’s commitment to rebuilding or refurbishing 518 schools and sixth form colleges through the programme. Future capital funding for schools beyond 2025/26 will be confirmed following the next multi-year phase of the spending review.Any responsible body that has a significant safety issue with one of its buildings that cannot be managed through local resources can contact the department directly for advice and support.

How many full-time equivalent civil servants are working on the Dawlish Rail resilience programme.

There are four full-time equivalent civil servants working on rail projects in the South West, including the South West Rail Resilience Programme.

Media and Sport, how many full-time-equivalent civil servants are working on the short-term let registration scheme.

Four, plus a percentage of time from senior colleagues who provide oversight, and from analytical, legal, and digital specialists.

Communities and Local Government, how much base funding she plans to provide for (a) domestic abuse and sexual violence and (b) drugs and alcohol services in Torbay constituency.

In 2024/25, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) allocated Torbay, as a Tier One authority, £321,538 to commission support for victims of domestic abuse and their children within safe accommodation locally.On 28 November, the Government announced a £30 million increase to the Domestic Abuse Safe Accommodation Grant, bringing the total investment to £160 million in 2025-26. This funding will enable all local authorities in England to continue investing in essential support within frontline safe accommodation services, ensuring victims of domestic abuse can access the support they need. Individual allocations to local authorities will be published shortly.The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) provides ringfenced funding to Police and Crime Commissioners for community-based support to victims of crime, including victims of domestic abuse and sexual violence. The Police and Crime Commissioner for Devon, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly received £3,752,000 for 2024-25.Despite the challenging financial environment, MoJ ministers have decided to protect victims spending in the department by maintaining 2024-25 funding levels for sexual violence and domestic abuse support next year. This means that for 2025-26, the Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Fund (RASASF) grant will be maintained at its current level (£21 million for 25-26). Recipients of the RASASF in Devon and Cornwall received a combined total of £782,500 for 2024-25.The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) is continuing to invest in improvements to local drug and alcohol treatment services. In addition to the Public Health Grant, DHSC allocated local authorities £267 million in 2024-25 to improve the quality and capacity of drug and alcohol treatment and recovery. An additional £105 million from DHSC, MHCLG and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is improving treatment pathways and recovery, housing and employment outcomes for people affected by drug and alcohol use. As part of this, in 2024/25 Torbay received £798,783 through the Supplemental Substance Misuse Treatment and Recovery Grant and £40,085 through the Inpatient Detoxification Grant. Now that the autumn budget has concluded, DHSC is working to announce future funding allocations for drug and alcohol treatment and recovery systems.Funding from April 2026 will be a matter for Phase Two of the Spending Review.

If his Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of bringing vision rehabilitation services under the same (a) regulatory and (b) monitoring regimes as other adult social care services.

I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Colne Valley on 4 October 2024 to Question 7299.

What data his Department holds on the provision of vision rehabilitation support in England.

The Department does not collect or hold this information.

What progress her Department has made on helping to improve Great Western Railway services on Sundays.

The recent performance of Great Western Railway (GWR) services on Sundays has not been good enough. Whilst many factors impact performance the recent increase in cancellations has been driven by the availability of traincrew. Officials are actively working with GWR and the wider industry to improve performance on Sundays.

What steps her Department plans to take to ensure that touch screen card payment devices are made accessible for people with visual impairments.

The government is committed to ensuring high standards of financial inclusion across the financial services sector. The Treasury has been engaging with UK Finance, the Financial Conduct Authority, the Royal National Institute of Blind People, and other Government departments on the issue of accessibility of card payment terminals. UK Finance, the leading trade association for the banking sector, maintains voluntary standards to help ensure point-of-sale technology remains accessible for those who are visually impaired. UK Finance will soon be assessing potential initiatives to drive improvements and adoption. The Government is closely monitoring progress in this important area.

What steps he is taking to address eye care inequalities for adults with learning disabilities.

Alongside the duty placed upon integrated care boards to reduce inequalities, regulations were laid on 28 November to support the roll out of sight testing services in special educational settings across England, which has the potential to reach approximately 165,000 children and young people with learning disabilities or autism, or both.We are also working with NHS England to better integrate primary and secondary care services, and improve the referral, triage, and access to appropriate care for all patients. As part of this work, NHS England has conducted research to understand the experience of adults with learning disabilities in accessing eye care services, the intelligence from which will be used to inform future policy design.

If he will take steps to ensure that the fee paid to deliver the Special Schools Eye Care Service is not reduced so that (a) children with Special Educational Needs can receive free eye care in schools and (b) eye care professionals can afford to provide the service.

To address the access challenges that children and young people with learning disabilities or autism, or both, face in accessing high street sight testing services, regulations were laid on 28 November to support the roll out of sight testing in special educational setting across England. NHS England has committed to invest up to £12.7 million annually from 2024/25 on the provision of sight tests and associated optical vouchers in special educational settings. This represents an approximate 87% increase compared to previous levels of spending. This additional investment has the potential to increase coverage from 4% of special educational settings to 100%. NHS England has held a number of recent engagement events with potential providers across the country, and there has been healthy interest so far. NHS England will continue to engage with key stakeholders, including the ophthalmic and voluntary sector, and provide support to local integrated care boards, in the roll out of the service.

If she will publish a breakdown of reasons why pension credit applications have been rejected (a) nationally and (b) by constituency.

We do not hold information in our data sources why Pension Credit applications are not awarded, either nationally or by constituency.

How many people her Department estimates are eligible for but not claiming pension credit in each constituency.

Estimates for pensioner households who are eligible for but not receiving Pension Credit in 2022/23 can be found at: Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up: financial year ending 2023 - GOV.UK.We do not hold the information requested at constituency level.

How many and what proportion of pension credit applicants were waiting for their application to be processed in the period between (a) 29 July 2024 and 17 November 2024, (b) 1 April 2024 and 28 July 2024 and (c) 1 August 2023 and 19 November 2023.

We have provided outstanding Pension Credit claims at the date nearest to the date requested.(a) Outstanding PC claims as at end of w/c 11th November 2024 was 91,200 (including Unregistered and Advanced claims) (b) Outstanding PC claims as at end of w/c 22nd July 2024 was 34,600 (including Unregistered and Advanced claims) (c) Outstanding PC claims as at end of w/c 13th November 2023 was 25,000 (including Unregistered and Advanced claims) We are deploying around 500 additional staff to manage the increase in volumes. Please note, the claims outstanding figures do not include Advanced claims. This data is sourced from the Pension Credit system and for internal departmental use only. As such, they have not been quality assured to the same extent as Official Statistics.

How many and what proportion of claims to pension credit have been rejected by constituency since 29 July 2024.

On 28 November 2024 we published national statistics for claims that were not awarded/rejected, up to 17 November 2024. Pension Credit applications and awards: November 2024 - GOV.UK We do not hold the information requested at a constituency level.

How many people are waiting for their pension credit application to be processed in each constituency.

We do not hold data requested at constituency level, however the total outstanding Pension Credit claims as at the end of week commencing 18th November 2024 was 91,075. This includes 9,343 advanced claims where the application can be started up to 4 months before reaching State Pension age. These figures are taken from data held on DWP’s Pension Credit system. This is collected for internal departmental operations use only and whilst it is the best source of information available, it is not intended for publication or quality assured to National Statistics standards. The Department is significantly increasing the resource on Pension Credit to ensure it processes claims as quickly as possible, with over 500 additional staff to support the increase in applications generated from the successful Pension Credit take-up campaign. If a claim is made by 21 December, Pension Credit can be backdated for three months if the entitlement conditions have been met throughout that period, and if the claimant was eligible, they would also receive a Winter Fuel Payment.

Communities and Local Government, whether her Department plans to renew play equipment in (a) parks and (b) public spaces.

The provision of playgrounds in parks and public spaces is primarily a matter for local authorities. We support local government and recognise the challenges that local authorities are facing as demand increases for critical services. We have listened to voices across the sector and it was prioritised at the Budget, where we announced over £4 billion in additional funding for local government services, including £1.3 billion provided through the Local Government Finance Settlement. Overall, the provisional Settlement will mean local government receives an around 3.2% real-terms increase in Core Spending Power.The National Planning Policy Framework, which local authorities are expected to consider when developing their Local Plans, is clear that planning policies and decisions should aim to achieve healthy, inclusive and safe places.

When he plans to make a decision on funding for the Family Hubs and Start for Life programme beyond 31 March 2025.

The Family Hubs and Start for Life programme is central to the Government’s commitments to give every baby the best start in life, and to deliver the healthiest generation of children ever.The Government recognises the importance of providing local authorities with certainty of future funding across the Family Hubs and Start for Life programme. The Autumn Budget announcement included £69 million to continue delivery of a network of Family Hubs in 2025/26. The Department will confirm Start for Life funding in due course.

If he will make a decision on the funding of Torbay Hospital under the New Hospital Programme before 31 December 2024.

The Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust is currently developing their Strategic Outline Case for the new Torbay Hospital scheme. Following review and agreement of the Strategic Outline Case, the next step would be the development, review, and agreement of the Outline and Full Business Cases. Through this process, the final funding amount is determined, as is usual for large infrastructure projects.Torbay Hospital is in scope of the review into the New Hospital Programme. My Rt. Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, will set out further details of the outcome of the review at the earliest opportunity, alongside a new delivery schedule for the programme.