The UK policy on settlement expansion is clear: settlements are illegal under international law and only make it harder to progress to achieving peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians. We have called on the Israeli Government to halt seizures of Palestinian lands immediately.

On 3 May, the Foreign Secretary announced new sanctions on extremist groups and individuals for inciting and perpetrating settler violence in the West Bank. The measures impose financial restrictions on the entities and individuals, and travel restrictions on the individuals. The UK will not hesitate to take further action if needed, including through further sanctions.

The Foreign Secretary has made our position clear to his Israeli counterparts, including during his visit to the region on 17 April.

Data relating the performance against visa service standards are produced as part of the Migration Transparency publication.

These can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/migration-transparency-data#uk-visas-and-immigration.

DWP provides a cross government service called Tell Us Once. The Tell Us Once service allows bereaved citizens to inform all the relevant government departments when someone dies. This is available on gov.uk. What to do after someone dies: Tell Us Once - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). Bereaved claimants who are unable to use the online service via Gov.uk can contact the DWP Bereavement Service on 0800 151 2012, to cancel the person’s benefits and entitlements, including their State Pension. The service will also signpost bereaved claimants who may be eligible for help with funeral costs or other benefits such as bereavement support payment.

All colleagues undergo a comprehensive learning journey when they join the DWP. The learning provides staff with the knowledge and skills to enable them to treat each claimant as an individual regardless of additional or complex needs.

In addition, DWP offer training on Vulnerable Customers and Complex Needs, which is available to all colleagues in DWP. This learning product includes specific bereavement content including:

• explain the effects bereavement might have on our customers.
• provide examples of good practice when talking to recently bereaved customers.
• state the sources of help that are available to customers.

Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.

Academies are held to a high level of accountability and transparency.

Academies are required to follow the Education (Independent School Standards) (England) Regulations 2014 as they are independent schools. Under these regulations the proprietor of an academy must ensure that an annual written report of each registered pupil’s progress and attainment in the main subject areas taught is provided to the parents of that registered pupil, except that no report need be sent where the parent has agreed otherwise. Academy trusts enter into Funding Agreement with my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, which contains a clause concerning information sharing requirements relating to assessments. It provides that the academy trust must report on assessments as the Secretary of State requires, or provide any information on assessments, on the same basis that maintained schools are required to provide the information.

The department has no plans to change these arrangements.

This information is published in Table 2.1 Number of individual Income Tax payers.

Since the UK left the EU in January 2020, we have strengthened our bilateral relationship with France on migration. This included establishing, in July 2020, the UK-France Joint Intelligence Cell (JIC) which is located in France and has co-located UK and French officers working together to support the prosecution of small boat gangs. Since it was established, the work of the JIC has led to the dismantling of 24 organised crime groups involved in small boat crossings, with 12 of these groups being dismantled in 2023 alone.

The UK has one of the most robust and transparent export licensing systems in the world, enshrined in law through the Export Control Act and implemented through our Strategic Export Licensing Criteria.

This informs our approach to export licensing – both for our extant licences and for new licence applications for exports to Israel. All decisions are assessed on a case-by-case basis against our licensing criteria.

The handling of protests in the US is a matter for US authorities. The Deputy Foreign Secretary has not had any discussions with his US counterpart on the handling of pro-Palestine protests on university campuses or the potential impact of disbanding these protests.

Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.

The department has not made any recent assessment of this requirement. The requirements on academies in relation to reporting on pupils’ progress to parents are set out in paragraph 24 of Schedule 1 to The Education (Independent School Standards) (England) Regulations 2010. These regulations can be accessed here: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2010/1997/contents/made.

The Foreign Secretary visited Israel on 17 April and held high-level talks with Prime Minister Netanyahu, President Herzog and Foreign Minister Katz. He reiterated the need for an immediate pause in the fighting in Gaza to get aid in and hostages out.

The UK is pushing as hard as we can to get aid to Palestinian civilians. Israel must fulfil its commitments to enable a flood of aid, including by guaranteeing deconfliction for aid workers.

Claimants have a responsibility to ensure they are entitled to benefits they claim and to inform the DWP of any changes in their circumstances that could impact their award.

Where overpayments do occur due to not being entitled to the benefit, the Department has a duty to the taxpayer to protect public funds and to ask for money to be paid back. We remain committed to working with anyone who is struggling with their repayment terms and will always look to negotiate sustainable and affordable repayment plans.

Our most recent statistics show that Carer's Allowance overpayments relating to earnings/employment represents just 2.1% of our £3.3bn Carer’s Allowance expenditure.

The information requested has been provided in the table below. To avoid potentially disclosing personal information, we have bucketed the values requested.

The data has been sourced from internal DWP management information, which is intended only to help the Department to manage its business. It is not intended for publication and has not been subject to the same quality assurance checks applied to our published official statistics.

Note that the values represent the original overpayment amount when raised on Debt Manager. As the year relates to when the overpayment was raised as a debt for recovery, it does not necessarily relate to the period as to when benefit was overpaid. The overpayments above all span periods of many years.

Note that the data provided is for all categories of overpayment. It is not necessarily the case that these overpayments arose due to claimants breaching the earnings limit.

This Government recognises and appreciates the vital contribution made by informal carers. With respect to full-time education, the Government believes that this should be supported by the educational maintenance system. That is why, as a general principle, full-time students are precluded from entitlement to income-related and income-maintenance benefits, including Carer’s Allowance.

Educational institutions decide which young people receive bursaries or other support and determine the level of financial support they receive. They develop their own eligibility criteria for access to the discretionary bursary fund, including setting a household income threshold appropriate to their area, and must publish this information for their students. Arrangements may differ across the United Kingdom.

In England, for example, over £160 million of bursary funding has been allocated in the 2023/24 academic year to institutions to help disadvantaged 16- to 19-year-olds with the costs of taking part in education. This is nearly 12% higher than published allocations for last year. The Department for Education has also made available £20 million each year in England specifically to support students in defined vulnerable groups.

Carer’s Allowance is a devolved benefit in Scotland.

In laying the report before Parliament at the end of March, the Ombudsman has brought matters to the attention of this House, and a further update to the House will be provided once the report's findings have been fully considered.

In the Safeguarding the Union Command Paper, the UK Government committed to a rapid, focused process, on the implementation of corporation tax devolution through a new Joint Exchequer Committee.

The Committee will take forward urgent work on this process. However, the devolution of corporation tax alone will not solve the financial challenges facing Northern Ireland. The Executive needs to make difficult decisions around revenue-raising and public service transformation to put Northern Ireland’s finances on a sustainable footing.