The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sharon Hodgson on 2016-02-19.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 11 February 2016 to Question 25621, if her Department will publish that part of the small schools taskforce report which is not already in the public domain.
Mr Sam Gyimah
We do not have any plans to publish anything further beyond the toolkit for small schools which was made available to schools last year.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sharon Hodgson on 2016-04-25.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many children with (a) a Statement of Special Education Needs and (b) Education, Health and Care Plans were educated at home in each of the last five years.
Edward Timpson
The transition period from statements to Education, Health and Care plans (EHCPs) runs until April 2018. Every local authority has published an individual Local Transition Plan setting out the timings for transfers to the new system. We are monitoring local authority progress and published figures about transition up to January 2015, returned by local authorities, in the Special Educational Needs in England Statistical First Release of May 2015[1]. We will publish the figures up to January 2016 in May 2016.
The Department does not collect information on the number of children who are home educated. Some local authorities choose to maintain registers so that parents can voluntarily register children being educated at home.
The number and proportion of school pupils who had a Statement of Special Educational Needs or an EHCP in each of the last five years is as follows:
|
x |
2011 |
2012 |
2013 |
2014 |
2015 |
|
Pupils with statements or EHCPs |
224,210 |
226,125 |
229,390 |
232,190 |
236,165 |
|
Pupils on roll |
8,123,865 |
8,178,200 |
8,249,810 |
8,331,385 |
8,438,145 |
|
Incidence (%) |
2.8 |
2.8 |
2.8 |
2.8 |
2.8[2] |
The number of permanent and fixed period exclusions received by pupils with a Statement of Special Educational Needs in each of the last five years for which data is available is as follows:
|
x |
2009/10 |
2010/11 |
2011/12 |
2012/13 |
2013/14 |
|
Fixed period exclusions |
37,140 |
36,740 |
35,640 |
32,210 |
33,190 |
|
Permanent exclusions |
420 |
430 |
380 |
330 |
330[3] |
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-special-educational-needs-sen
[2] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/special-educational-needs-in-england-january-2015
[3] https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-exclusions
“
The speech made by Sharon Hodgson, the Labour MP for Washington and Sunderland West, in Westminster Hall, the House of Common, on 6 December 2022.
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Harris. I congratulate the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) on securing this important debate and giving us the opportunity to discuss the next wave of dormant assets and the possibility of establishing a community wealth fund.
I am proud that in 2008 the Labour Government passed meaningful dormant assets legislation, which began to unlock this crucial source of funding from financial assets such as bank accounts. Although it is important to reiterate that the priority is trying to reunite assets with their owners, where that is not possible the money goes to causes that facilitate real change in our communities. This policy raised over £800 million of funding to support social and environmental causes across the UK, so I am proud of the work that parliamentarians across the House, including many members of the APPG for ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods, have carried out. I am pleased that this proposal, in particular the creation of the community wealth fund, is being considered by the Government. However, it is important that this matter is not just considered; it must actually amount to meaningful change.
In England, funding from dormant assets is restricted to youth work, financial inclusion and social investment. It would be good to see that expanded so that the money could be used to finance a wider range of community projects. The design of the proposed community wealth fund has been informed by the success of the Big Local programme. The 2020 evaluation of the programme found that
“The concept of putting residents at the very heart of that change is showing its value up and down the country.”
A community-led approach means that local priorities and desired outcomes would be determined at local level by the people who live there. The importance of that cannot be overstated.
I want to use this opportunity to highlight the important research conducted by the Oxford Consultants for Social Inclusion, in collaboration with the APPG, which identified 225 left-behind neighbourhoods. These neighbourhoods face significant deprivation, as we heard from the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central, as well as poor connectivity and lower levels of community engagement and activity. That is especially poignant to me as the neighbourhoods identified include St Anne’s and the Washington North ward in my constituency. For example, in St Anne’s, there are only 25% of registered charities per 1,000 people compared with the English average.
Away from these statistics, I know at first hand the difference a community wealth fund would make in Washington and Sunderland West. This funding pot, which is now estimated to be £880 million, would be transformative in building community confidence and provide the foundations to enable the residents of the most left-behind neighbourhoods to bolster their social infrastructure. Consistent with this, the wards most in need of investment would receive awards, as opposed to having to compete for funding. That would be the right approach. Bids for levelling-up funding and freeports have pitted the poorest in our society against each other, rather than focusing on those in greatest need.
A number of hon. Members in the Chamber were at a meeting of the APPG just last week. I have co-chaired a couple of the meetings of the APPG’s inquiry into levelling up, in which we heard about the power of local communities to take action to improve outcomes for local people, for instance through award-winning community mental health programmes for young people, or through support to strengthen the local economy and support jobs and businesses. Levelling up seems to be cosmetic: if we move people from the bottom rung to the second rung from bottom, we can claim to have succeeded. Labour wants equal opportunity for every part of the country. The APPG inquiry shows that communities can develop themselves despite Whitehall neglect, so imagine what communities like mine could achieve with access to the appropriate resources and long-term support under a Labour Government.
That is why the community wealth fund is vital. I hope that the Government appreciate its importance, and that the community wealth fund will be one of the beneficiaries of the next wave of dormant assets.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sharon Hodgson on 2015-10-19.
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, by what process the decision to appoint Professor Waterson as Chair of the Secondary Ticketing Market was made.
Nick Boles
The independent Review requires a suitable qualified and experienced Chair, who is demonstrably independent of Government and has no link to any particular interest group on secondary ticketing.
Professor Waterson was invited to be the independent Chair by my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for the Business, Innovation and Skills and for Culture, Media and Sport.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sharon Hodgson on 2015-10-19.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether the Wilson Doctrine has been consistently applied to the communications of the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West; and whether that hon. Member has been subject to surveillance.
Mr John Hayes
The Government’s position on the Wilson Doctrine was set out by the Prime Minister in a written ministerial statement made on 4 November 2015.
As the Prime Minister made clear, the Wilson Doctrine has never been an absolute bar to the targeted interception of the communications of Members of Parliament or an exemption from the legal regime governing interception. The Doctrine recognised that there could be instances where interception might be necessary.
The Prime Minister announced that as matter of policy the PM will be consulted should there ever be a proposal to target any UK Parliamentarian’s communications under a warrant issued by a Secretary of State. This applies to Members of Parliament, members of the House of Lords, the Scottish Parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Welsh Assembly and UK members of the European Parliament. It applies to all activity authorised by a warrant issued by a Secretary of State: any instance of targeted interception and, electronic surveillance and equipment interference, when undertaken by the Security and Intelligence Agencies. This is in addition to the rigorous safeguards already in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) and the Code of Practice issued under it which set out a series of robust safeguards for any instance of interception.
It is long standing policy of successive Governments neither to confirm nor deny any specific activity by the Security and Intelligence Agencies. Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 it is an offence for anyone to identify an individual interception warrant or an individual interception that takes place.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sharon Hodgson on 2015-10-16.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many teachers currently work in young offender institutions; and how many of those teachers lack teaching qualifications.
Andrew Selous
The information requested is not held centrally.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sharon Hodgson on 2015-10-16.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many teachers working in young offender institutions are qualified to work with young people with (a) special educational needs, (b) autism and (c) mental health issues.
Andrew Selous
The information requested is not held centrally.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sharon Hodgson on 2015-10-16.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many young people in young offenders institutions receive 30 hours education each week.
Andrew Selous
Since 16 August 2015, education providers in public sector Young Offender Institutions (YOIs) are required to provide 27 hours of education a week, which is supplemented by 3 hours of physical exercise. On average, 27 hours of education is being provided in these YOIs.
Although the majority of education time is protected, the number of hours of education actually received by young people is sometimes lower than this due to a variety of necessary interruptions, such as court appearances, family visits, or medical appointments. The number of people in YOIs receiving 27 hours of education each week is not recorded centrally. The Youth Justice Board is currently working with the National Offender Management Service, YOIs and education providers to increase the number of education hours received by young people.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sharon Hodgson on 2015-10-20.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will place in the Library an explanation of the organisational structure, including current post-holders, of the senior management of NHS England.
George Freeman
An organogram and explanation of the roles of the chief executive and the seven national directors of NHS England is attached.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sharon Hodgson on 2015-10-23.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what plans his Department has to address the availability of healthy and nutritious food for children during school holidays as part of its new obesity strategy.
Jane Ellison
Tackling obesity including improving diet and healthy food choices, particularly in children, is one of our major priorities. We will put forward our plans for action in this area in our childhood obesity strategy in the new year.