Across the energy system we are working to deliver new jobs in the clean energy transition and support those working in oil and gas to take up these opportunities. As part of our North Sea Future Plan we announced a North Sea Jobs Service will be launched which will support workers to retrain and find opportunities for future employment. Deep geothermal heat projects could benefit from these skilled workers.

Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) is an important source of government revenue, raising around £12 billion each year to help pay for essential public services. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) sets out some of the interactions between SDLT, house prices and the volume of transactions as part of its Housing Market Forecasts, available on the OBR website.

https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/the-economy-forecast/housing-market/

Homes England have no staff currently undergoing redeployment.

The care worker route has seen unacceptable levels of abuse and exploitation; between July 2022 and December 2024, the Home Office revoked over 470 sponsor licences, impacting approximately 40,000 workers in the care sector.

Although overseas recruitment in adult social care will end, in-country switching for those already in the country with working rights will be permitted for a transition period until 2028. This will be kept under review. These arrangements include those who need to switch employers following a sponsor licence revocation and the Department of Health and Social Care is providing up to £12.5 million to regional partnerships in 2025/26 to support these international recruits to find alternative employment.

No specific assessment has been made of the impact of restricting overseas recruitment on the levels of recruitment from the in-country redeployment pool. However, in the technical annex published alongside the Immigration White Paper on 12 May 2025, the Home Office has estimated an annual reduction of approximately 7,000 main visa applicants because of ending overseas recruitment for care workers and senior care workers. This is based on its internal management information for entry visas granted covering the period March 2024 to February 2025. This estimate reflects that there was a drop in visa grants of more than 90% compared with the 12 months ending March 2024. This analysis will be refined and included within the relevant Impact Assessments accompanying the rule changes, as appropriate.

The technical annex is available at the following link:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6821b49bdb6463b14cd8189c/restoring-control-over-the-immigration-system-technical-annex.pdf

We have asked forces to outline proposals for their workforce mix that is tailored to local needs and operational contexts, based on what is deliverable within their funding allocation.

This will ensure that additional neighbourhood personnel in 2025-26 are delivered in a manner that is flexible and easily adaptable to varied crime demands, allowing forces to increase the neighbourhood policing workforce at pace.

The Government is committed to introducing a neighbourhood policing guarantee as part of its Safer Streets mission. This will include the delivery of an additional 13,000 police officers, PCSOs and special constables into neighbourhood policing roles throughout England and Wales and will ensure that every community has a named officer to turn to.

The Home Office is working with policing to deliver this increase which will include a combination of additional recruitment and redeployment into neighbourhood policing roles. We will announce our plans for the delivery of neighbourhood officers in 25/26 shortly.

Manchester Airport Group are investing £1.3 Billion in infrastructure transformation at Manchester Airport. During 2025, the Airport will transition from being a three-terminal operation to two terminals, and forecast passenger growth of 22% over the next two years.

As a consequence, Border Force have to reshape their operating model in line with the infrastructure changes. In addition, Border Force at Manchester Airport have seen the introduction of new rosters on an annual basis over several years.

The ambition is that all staff will be able to work the new roster. Anyone with a contractual workplace adjustment who is unable to work the roster will be given tailored individual support to secure suitable alternative roles.

The programme team have undertaken regular engagement with PCS and will continue to do so.

The Offshore Wind Industry Council committed to explore qualification passporting between different offshore sectors, as part of the Offshore Wind Sector Deal.

In March 2022, a significant agreement was reached between the three organisations that oversee training and qualifications for the offshore wind sector – the Offshore Petroleum Industry Training Organisation, the Global Wind Organisation and the International Contractors Association - to align training standards enabling workforce mobility.

Teaching and college staff mobility will not be funded as part of the Turing Scheme in the 2022/23 academic year, to maximise the amount of student, learner, and pupils’ access to life-changing mobilities. The department will continue to keep this decision under review and plans to assess the impact of the scheme following its first year of delivery.

Ministers engage regularly with Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, Amanda Spielman, on a range of matters, including inspection arrangements in the changing context of the COVID-19 outbreak.

There are no plans to suspend Ofsted inspections at this time. Ofsted inspection continues to play an important role in providing independent assurance as providers respond to COVID-19. However, it is right that these arrangements are kept under review, and adjustments made where appropriate.

Schools are having to do the best for their pupils in challenging and unpredictable situations caused by COVID-19. It is right that inspectors recognise this in their assessments. Ofsted has updated its inspection handbooks and adjusted its inspection approach to take account of the challenges raised by COVID-19. From the start of this calendar year to 31 January 2022, Ofsted temporarily halted use of part time inspectors who are also frontline leaders so they could focus on their leadership responsibilities. Ofsted is now inviting those who can inspect again to do so, but as has always been the case, it will be for frontline leaders to decide whether to offer their services to Ofsted. Additionally, schools facing acute disruption, including due to significant staff absence, can request a deferral of the inspection. Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, Amanda Spielman, has confirmed that all requests will be considered carefully and sensitively by Ofsted.

The deployment of Ofsted inspectors and its engagement with other agencies, including local authorities, is a matter for Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, Amanda Spielman. I have asked her to write to you directly about these issues and a copy of her reply will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

The Department is ensuring that the number of civil servants matches the demands and responsibilities the new Department has. The total numbers of staff can be found in our workforce management reports which are published monthly and can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/dluhc-workforce-management-information.

The Department is re-deploying circa 700 staff from other areas across DWP to help to stabilise the service further.

I just wonder what the millions of people on low wages who are facing a £1,000 cut will think of that. This country’s success is built by working people, but the tax system is loaded against them. The Prime Minister may not understand the pressures facing families across the country, but we do. The reality is this. Taxes on working people: up. National insurance—[Hon. Members: “”Up!”] Council tax—[Hon. Members: “Up!”] Energy bills, food prices, burdens on families: up, up, up. The Prime Minister needs to get real and understand the terrible impact of his decisions on working people across this country. This afternoon, he has the chance to change course, to vote with Labour to cancel the cut to universal credit and then to stop clobbering working people with unfair tax rises. Will he do so?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point out the problem of lorry driver shortages, which is affecting the whole world, from Europe to North America. What we are doing immediately is working to get out more licences. We are taking advantage of our post-Brexit freedom so that all the young thrusters on the Conservative Benches with a post-1997 driver’s licence can now drive a vehicle with a trailer as well—everybody can drive a vehicle with a trailer as well. But after a long period of stagnation in wages for those in the road haulage industry, we are also seeing a long-overdue increase in wages. That is part of the same phenomenon that this Government are introducing and the Labour party is opposing.

The offshore wind sector is leading work to facilitate job-mobility between industries as part of the Offshore Wind Sector Deal People & Skills workstream. The release of a Joint Statement on Collaboration in 2020 reflects an active commitment to create good working practice and mutual recognition of standards across sectors. Industry have developed Merit Assessment, a system which allows for existing training, qualifications and certification to be converted to an industry recognised Global Wind Organisations qualification.

Industry is in the advanced stages of forming an agreement between offshore wind and oil and gas stakeholders committing them to work collaboratively for the benefit of the workforce across sectors and to avoid duplication of training where possible. Moreover, industry is in the final stages of developing a Wind Energy Access Portal which will provide the knowledge necessary for workers to transition to the offshore renewable industry with minimum friction.