Every parliamentary written question tabled by Wendy Morton this session, with the full answer and department. See how every department answers, or back to the MP page.
Showing 1,281–1,300 of 1,717 · this parliament
How many new Full-Time Equivalent jobs in Ofsted are being created to support the transition to School Report Cards.
These are matters for His Majesty’s Chief Inspector, Sir Martyn Oliver. I have asked him to write to the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills directly and a copy of his reply will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
What assessment she has made of the potential impact of removing one-word Ofsted judgements on parental (a) engagement and (b) understanding.
These are matters for His Majesty’s Chief Inspector, Sir Martyn Oliver. I have asked him to write to the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills directly and a copy of his reply will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps she is taking to support humanitarian organisations in providing mental health support for workers who experience trauma in conflict zones.
We recognise the courage and commitment of those who take part in humanitarian operations and take their health and safety, including mental health and psychosocial well-being and safeguarding seriously.The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) funding arrangements require partners to demonstrate sufficient capacity and capability to meet their obligations, including those relating to the physical and mental health of staff. This is tested through the FCDO's due diligence framework, which considers risks relevant to the programme in question.
If she will make an estimate of the number of farmers which will be affected by upcoming changes to (a) Agriculture Property Relief and (b) Business Property Relief.
I refer the Honourable Member to the PQ referenced UIN 29306 published on 5th February 2025 at: https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2025-02-05/29306
What recent assessment she has made of the potential impact of the Autumn Budget 2024 on business confidence in Aldridge-Brownhills constituency.
Recent surveys from EY, PwC and Lloyds Bank show overall business and investor confidence is rising. The Government has taken significant steps to support rural businesses. We are investing £5 billion in broadband connectivity which will support growth in rural areas across the UK. We confirmed over £650 million of funding for local transport beyond City Region Sustainable Transport Settlements in 2025-26 to ensure that transport connections improve in our towns, villages and rural areas. We have also committed £5 billion for the farming budget over two years – which includes the largest ever amount of funding directed at sustainable food production and nature’s recovery in our country’s history.
What recent assessment she has made of the potential impact of the Autumn Budget 2024 on business confidence in rural communities.
Recent surveys from EY, PwC and Lloyds Bank show overall business and investor confidence is rising. The Government has taken significant steps to support rural businesses. We are investing £5 billion in broadband connectivity which will support growth in rural areas across the UK. We confirmed over £650 million of funding for local transport beyond City Region Sustainable Transport Settlements in 2025-26 to ensure that transport connections improve in our towns, villages and rural areas. We have also committed £5 billion for the farming budget over two years – which includes the largest ever amount of funding directed at sustainable food production and nature’s recovery in our country’s history.
If she will make an estimate of the number of new police officers there will be in the West Midlands in the 2025-26 financial year.
The Government has committed to restore neighbourhood policing through the Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee. This includes putting thousands more police personnel on the beat in neighbourhood policing roles up and down the country. Every part of the country needs to benefit from this pledge, including West Midlands, who have been allocated £12,210,903 funding in 2025/26 to bolster their neighbourhood policing teams. £200 million of funding has been allocated to forces in England and Wales in 2025/26 to deliver the first steps of the increase towards 13,000 neighbourhood officers by the end of this Parliament. Our approach to delivery in 2025/26, which will be year 1 of a 4-year programme, is designed to deliver an initial increase to the neighbourhood policing workforce in a manner that is flexible, and can be adapted to the local context and varied crime demands. The Home Office will review and confirm delivery plans with forces, but the precise workforce mix is a local decision.
What assessment she has made of the potential merits of introducing a statutory cap on levels of migration.
This Government recognises and values the contribution that legal migration makes to the UK.But under the previous Government, between 2019 and 2024, net migration almost quadrupled, heavily driven by a big increase in overseas recruitment.A properly controlled and managed immigration system, alongside strong border security, is one of the foundations in the Government’s Plan for Change.The work to restore order to our immigration system is already underway, and we will be setting out our approach to immigration in the upcoming Immigration White Paper which will be published in due course.
What steps she is taking to reduce the use of hotels to house asylum seekers.
This Government inherited an asylum system under exceptional strain, with tens of thousands of people stuck in limbo without any prospect of having their claims processed. At their peak use under the previous government, in the autumn of 2023, more than 400 asylum hotels were being leased by the Home Office, at a cost of almost £9 million a day.Inevitably, due to the size of the backlog we inherited, the Government has been forced to continue with the use of hotels for the time being. This is not a permanent solution, and the small increase in the number in use at the end of last year was a temporary but necessary step to manage pressures in the system, which is now in the process of being reversed.It remains our absolute commitment to end the use of hotels over time, as part of our reduction in overall asylum accommodation costs.
What assessment he has made of the potential impact of the upcoming increase to employers National Insurance contributions on hospices.
We have taken necessary decisions to fix the foundations in the public finances at the Autumn Budget, enabling the Spending Review settlement of a £22.6 billion increase in resource spending for the Department from 2023/24 outturn to 2025/26.The employer National Insurance contribution rise will be implemented in April 2025, and planning guidance published on 30 January 2025 sets out the funding available to integrated care boards, and the overall approach to funding providers in the next financial year. It takes into account a variety of pay and non-pay factors and pressures on providers of secondary healthcare, including charitable hospices. Further information on the planning guidance is available at the following link: https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/2025-26-priorities-and-operational-planning-guidance/ We are supporting the hospice sector with a £100 million capital funding boost for adult and children’s hospices in England, to ensure they have the best physical environment for care. We are pleased to confirm that the Government has released the first £25 million tranche of that funding, with Hospice UK kindly allocating and distributing the money to hospices throughout England. An additional £75 million will be available from April 2025.We are also providing £26 million of revenue funding to support children and young people’s hospices for 2025/26.
Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 19 March 2025 to Question 37169 on Neighbourhood Boards, what steps her Department plans to take to allow (a) public scrutiny and (b) questions from communities.
Undertaking meaningful engagement with the local community is a central pillar of the Plan for Neighbourhoods. Building trust and empowering the local community requires consistency, dedication and time, and evidence that people’s priorities have been acted upon. Together the Neighbourhood Board and local authority should ensure that residents, businesses, and grassroots organisations are actively involved in programme design and decision-making to ensure delivery reflects the priorities of local people and helps build capacity within the community. In line with the principles of public life and to ensure the local community can hold the board to account, the board’s operations must be transparent. The board should publish membership and governance arrangements (including minutes of meetings and decision logs) on the lead council’s website. Boards should establish their own practices in line with the Nolan Principles and Managing Public Money principles.
Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to help ensure UK food security.
Food security is national security. We need a resilient and healthy food system, that works with nature and supports British farmers, fishers and food producers. That is why this Government will introduce a new deal for farmers to boost rural economic growth and strengthen Britain's food security. The UK has a resilient food supply chain and is equipped to deal with situations with the potential to cause disruption. We produce 62% of all the food we need, and 75% of food which we can grow or rear in the UK for all or part of the year. Food security is built on supply from diverse sources, strong domestic production as well as imports through stable trade routes. UK consumers have access through international trade to food products that cannot be produced here, or at least not on a year-round basis. This supplements domestic production and also ensures that any disruption from risks such as adverse weather or disease does not affect the UK's overall security of supply. Defra works with industry and across Government to monitor risks that may arise. This includes extensive, regular and ongoing engagement in preparedness for, and response to, issues with the potential to cause disruption to food supply chains. The UK Agriculture Market Monitoring Group monitors UK agricultural markets including price, supply, inputs, trade, and recent developments.
What steps she is taking to deport people who enter the UK by small boat.
Since coming into office in July 2024, the Government has ensured the removal of 24,000 failed asylum seekers, foreign criminals and other migration offenders with no right to be in the UK, the highest nine-month total since 2017.
Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps he is taking to support the ceasefire agreement between Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
As the Foreign Secretary said to the House on 20th March, we strongly oppose Israel's resumption of hostilities. We urgently want to see a return to a ceasefire. More bloodshed is in no-one's interest. Hamas must release all the hostages and negotiations must resume. We want Israel and Hamas to re-engage with negotiations, we continue to condemn Hamas, of course, for their actions on October 7th 2023, their refusal to release the hostages, and their ongoing threat to Israel, but we are also resolute in calling on Israel to abide by international law and to lift the unacceptable restrictions on aid and demand the protection of civilians. Since the renewed outbreak of hostilities, the Foreign Secretary has spoken to US Secretary of State Rubio, to EU High Representative Kallas, to UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher and plans to speak to his Israeli counterpart Gideon Sa'ar and Palestinian Prime Minister Mustafa.
Commonwealth and Development Affairs, with reference to the oral contribution of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs in the debate on Israeli-Palestinian Peace: International Fund on 11 March 2025, Official Report, column 368WH, when the inaugural meeting of the international fund for Israeli-Palestinian peace will take place in London; and who will be present.
The Foreign Secretary is committed to convening a meeting to support civil society in the region. On 11 March, I answered a Westminster Hall Debate on this topic, where I emphasised the UK's commitment to supporting peace efforts in the Middle East and to help find a resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. We want to make sure that the meeting will have the desired effect of building trust across communities, and that the timing is sensitive to the circumstances in the region.I have also met with representatives of the Alliance for Middle East Peace to discuss their proposal for an International Fund for Israeli-Palestinian peace. The Foreign Secretary and I welcome the opportunity to discuss further with civil society organisations their work and the prospects for peacebuilding. Since day one, the Government has prioritised working to end this conflict and secure the safe release of hostages, in co-ordination with international partners. We will continue to use every diplomatic lever to bring about a ceasefire deal as the first step towards long-term peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians, and the wider region.
How many Pension Credit applications her Department has processed in the latest period for which data is available.
On 27 February 2025 we published Pension Credit applications and award statistics. This publication provides application volumes up to 23 February 2025. Pension Credit Applications and Awards - February 2025. Please note, the figures presented are from DWP’s Pension Credit system which has previously been collected for internal departmental operations use only and has not been quality assured to Official Statistics publication standards.
Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps he is taking to ensure the UK's active involvement in discussions on the ceasefire agreement between Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
As the Foreign Secretary said to the House on 20th March, we strongly oppose Israel's resumption of hostilities. We urgently want to see a return to a ceasefire. More bloodshed is in no-one's interest. Hamas must release all the hostages and negotiations must resume. We want Israel and Hamas to re-engage with negotiations, we continue to condemn Hamas, of course, for their actions on October 7th 2023, their refusal to release the hostages, and their ongoing threat to Israel, but we are also resolute in calling on Israel to abide by international law and to lift the unacceptable restrictions on aid and demand the protection of civilians. Since the renewed outbreak of hostilities, the Foreign Secretary has spoken to US Secretary of State Rubio, to EU High Representative Kallas, to UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher and plans to speak to his Israeli counterpart Gideon Sa'ar and Palestinian Prime Minister Mustafa.
Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of the closure of the Sustainable Farming Incentive on the effectiveness of the Environmental Land Management scheme.
Defra has closed the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) for the submission of new applications, but existing agreements will continue. We now have over 37,000 live SFI agreements. Every penny in all existing SFI agreements will be paid to farmers, and outstanding eligible applications that have been submitted will be processed. We will provide further details about the reformed SFI offer once the Spending Review has been completed.
Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what recent discussions he has had with (a) Israel, (b) the USA, (c) the UAE and (d) other countries in the region on the ceasefire agreement between Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
As the Foreign Secretary said to the House on 20th March, we strongly oppose Israel's resumption of hostilities. We urgently want to see a return to a ceasefire. More bloodshed is in no-one's interest. Hamas must release all the hostages and negotiations must resume. We want Israel and Hamas to re-engage with negotiations, we continue to condemn Hamas, of course, for their actions on October 7th 2023, their refusal to release the hostages, and their ongoing threat to Israel, but we are also resolute in calling on Israel to abide by international law and to lift the unacceptable restrictions on aid and demand the protection of civilians. Since the renewed outbreak of hostilities, the Foreign Secretary has spoken to US Secretary of State Rubio, to EU High Representative Kallas, to UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher and plans to speak to his Israeli counterpart Gideon Sa'ar and Palestinian Prime Minister Mustafa.
Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what discussions he has had with (a) Israel and (b) regional partners on the future governance of Gaza.
The Foreign Secretary welcomed the Arab initiative of a Recovery and Reconstruction Plan for Gaza, alongside Foreign Ministers of France, Germany and Italy on 8 March. Reconstruction efforts must be based upon a solid political and security framework that provides long-term peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians alike. We are committed to working with the Arab initiative, Palestinians and Israel, including on security and governance, and are engaging international partners to support these efforts. We are clear there can be no role for Hamas. The UK supports a central role for the Palestinian Authority.