Tag: William Wragg

The below Parliamentary question was asked by William Wragg on 2016-10-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to improve rates of teacher recruitment and retention in schools in England.

Nick Gibb

At a national level we are retaining and recruiting the teachers we need. We recognise, however, that the strengthening economy and growth in pupil numbers have made the situation more challenging, and that this is more acute in certain subjects and particular schools or areas of the country.

We have more teachers in our schools than ever before and the number of teachers has kept pace with changing numbers of pupils. The number of teachers in state-funded schools throughout England is up more than 15,000 since 2010. This year we have recruited more than 27,000 people to postgraduate teacher training programmes and we have exceeded our recruitment targets in a number of key subjects including biology, English, geography and history.

We are spending over £1.3 billion up to 2020 to attract new teachers into the profession. We have funded the expansion of Teach First into every region of England; continued to fund targeted leadership programmes; and we are supporting schools to bring more former teachers back into the classroom.

Latest statistics show that teacher retention one year after qualifying has remained stable at around 90% for the past two decades. We are actively addressing the key issues that evidence suggests cause teachers to consider leaving the profession, for example, by supporting schools to reduce unnecessary workload and improving behaviour management training for new teachers.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by William Wragg on 2016-03-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to improve prisons’ engagement with employers; and if he will make a statement.

Andrew Selous

Supporting offenders into meaningful employment is a vital aspect of the Government’s approach to rehabilitation.

We already work with a wide range of employers in prison through One3One Solutions and engagement by Prison Governors. And we want Governors to do more so we are putting the tools to drive this change in the hands of those at the frontline who best know what works.

We are keen to increase the number of employers who can provide valuable vocational work for offenders while in prison and who are able to offer them support in preparation for release and employment opportunities following their release.

I regularly meet businesses across the country including at two successful roadshows at HMP Sudbury and HMP/YOI Drake Hall, and most recently at HMP Wayland where local media have supported our campaign. New businesses are now coming on board as a consequence. The Employers Forum for Reducing Reoffending brings together employers willing to employ offenders and we are working with the Department for Work and Pensions to increase the involvement of more businesses.

The Prime Minister has announced changes to recruitment practises across the civil service to ensure that people are considered on their merits and not on their criminal conviction and we want to encourage more employers to do the same.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by William Wragg on 2016-04-26.

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what the budget available to the Government is to spend on the EU referendum for each expenditure line and expenditure type.

John Penrose

The Government published details of the cost of the production, distribution and publication of its EU Referendum leaflet and associated website on 6th April 2016. The Government continues to take forward its policy on the full range of European business, including the Referendum, as part of the normal work of Departments. Departments will account for expenditure in the normal way, through Annual Report and Accounts.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by William Wragg on 2016-05-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate she has made of the potential number of short-term EU migrants who are expected to enter the UK to live and work in each of the next five years.

James Brokenshire

It has been the practice of this Government not to make such forecasts. There are numerous different factors that can affect migration flows. Projections of UK’s population are published by the independent Office for National Statistics. http://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationprojections

As projections, these do not take account of the potential impact of Government policies or economic conditions. ONS produce estimates of short term migration for England and Wales https://www.ons.gov.uk/releases/shorttermmigrationestimatesforenglandandwalesmid2014estimates

The majority of those coming as ‘short term migrants’ were for the reason “other” (which includes activities such as: holidays and travelling; visiting family and friends; and working holidays).

The below Parliamentary question was asked by William Wragg on 2016-06-06.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what were the 10 foreign languages most spoken by pupils for whom English is listed as an additional language in the annual school census in (a) 2000 and (b) 2015; and how many pupils were recorded as speaking each of those languages in each of those years.

Nick Gibb

The Department does not hold pupil level data on languages for the year 2000. In the January 2015 school census, the most common languages to which pupils of compulsory school age and above are exposed outside school and the number and proportion of pupils exposed to them are given in the table below.

Language	Number of Pupils (1)	Percentage of all pupils
English	5,634,349	82.1
Urdu	123,530	1.8
Panjabi	91,406	1.3
Polish	90,506	1.3
Other than English (not specified)	84,139	1.2
Bengali	74,635	1.1
Somali	46,361	0.7
Arabic	41,951	0.6
Gujarati	40,735	0.6
Portuguese	29,759	0.4
Tamil	29,634	0.4
Believed to be other than English (not specified)	29,221	0.4
French	26,290	0.4

Source: School Census January 2015
(1) Includes sole and dual main registered pupils of compulsory school age and above. Includes pupils in all state-funded schools excluding general hospital schools and local authority alternative provision.

The languages recorded in the school census only indicate a pupil’s exposure to a non-English language outside of school. They are not a measure of English speaking proficiency, an indication of the language spoken in school, or a direct measure of immigration.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by William Wragg on 2016-06-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of the average cost to the public purse of an additional (a) school place and (b) classroom in each of the next three years.

Edward Timpson

New school places and classrooms are delivered through a variety of programmes across England. The Department does not centrally collect data on the cost of building primary or secondary schools across all local authorities. The cost of building new places and classrooms varies significantly depending on local factors including: the size of the project; forecasts of construction inflation; and regional variations in the cost of construction. All of these are subject to change over time.

Local authorities report the cost per place of providing new school places through the annual School Capacity data collection. For primary schools this data has been used to produce basic need scorecards. The scorecards detail the cost per place, including for new schools, for each local authority. The latest published scorecards are for the academic year 2013/14 and can be accessed on GOV.UK at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/primary-school-places-local-authority-basic-need-scorecards-2014.

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by William Wragg on 2016-10-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what plans he has to require clinical commission groups to start collecting data on the number of children who have been abused and need therapeutic support.

Nicola Blackwood

We are investing in new data sources on both mental health prevalence and service use. From January 2016, the new Mental Health Services Dataset began to collect data for both adults and children, including data on outcomes, length of treatment, the source of referral, location of appointment and demographic information. This includes seeking to improve available data on the prevalence of child abuse and related mental health issues, using the national children and adolescent mental health survey, as well as data collection specifically on the prevalence of child sexual abuse. This collection will start in targeted settings where people who are sexually abused are more likely to be seen: for example in children and adolescent mental health service, adult mental health, maternity and public health services (contraceptive and sexual health clinics, substance misuse, school nurses, and health visiting).

NHS Digital is working with Departmental officials and with clinicians to develop the technical capability and data collection will start to be rolled out from the beginning of the next financial year. The data collection will help clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) to better plan services for people who have been abused.

All CCGs have already produced Local Transformation Plans (LTPs) to transform their local offer to improve children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing. These Plans cover the full spectrum of mental health issues; from prevention and improving access to support and care for existing and emerging mental health problem to ensuring that inpatient services are available for those who need them, including therapeutic support for children who have been abused. From 2016-17 children and young people’s mental health is being mainstreamed as part of the normal NHS England planning cycle so that LTPs are integrated into the wider Sustainability and Transformation Planning process.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by William Wragg on 2015-11-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that local education authorities do not specify the designs of building extensions when attributing funding from the Education Funding Agency to schools for building projects, as in relation to the case of Greave Primary School in Hazel Grove.

Edward Timpson

School building baseline designs were introduced in October 2012 to help finalise briefs for school building projects and for discussion with local planning departments. It is for contractors to develop them into detailed schemes, or propose alternatives. Guidance on the designs is available online[1].

Officials from the Department have had regular dialogue with the local authority, the school and its representatives as part of ongoing work to monitor and progress the project.

While there has been no representation, the Secretary of State and the Department will work with all parties to support the successful delivery of this school’s expansion project.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/baseline-designs-for-schools-guidance

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by William Wragg on 2016-03-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what provisions his Department has put in place to improve rolling stock as part of the rail franchise package for the North West.

Andrew Jones

The new Northern and TransPennine Express franchises commenced on the 1^st April. By the end of 2019, they will have introduced significant improvements in Rolling Stock.

The Northern franchise will deliver:-

• 281 new carriages including 55 new Diesel and 43 new Electric trains – the first ever new trains specified for the Northern franchise
• Additional diesel units cascaded from other franchises – refurbished to ‘as new’ standard
• Removal of all Pacer trains by October 2019
• All retained trains will be refurbished as new including Wi-Fi, media servers, passenger information systems, CCTV and accessible toilets with baby-change facilities

This means that 30% of this expanded fleet will be new and will operate 2000 more services per week –a 12% increase. The additional trains will provide a 37% increase in morning peak capacity into the North’s 5 major cities by December 2019.

The TransPennine franchise will deliver:-

• 220 new carriages
• All existing trains will be refurbished as new including Wi-Fi, additional power sockets, and real-time passenger information systems

This means that 70% of fleet is new, the fleet size increases by two-thirds, provides 13million more seats, an 80% increase in morning peak seats by the end of 2019.

These delivery plans as bid by the two operators during the Invitation to Tender process have been contracted within the franchise agreements.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by William Wragg on 2016-04-26.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 12 April 2016 to Question 32664 and the Answer of 25 April 2016 to Question 33678, and with reference to paragraph 2.113 of the report, The best of both worlds: the UK’s special status in a reformed EU, published in February 2016, if he will estimate the cost to the public purse of child benefit payments paid to non-UK citizens in each financial year since 2010-11.

Damian Hinds

Around 7m people are receiving Child Benefit. To extract and collate the value of all payments made to EU migrants for children living outside the UK in the format requested could only be provided at disproportionate cost.