Having enough staff in place to deliver high-quality education and care will be key to ensuring the successful delivery of our record expansion of early years entitlements. Driving up interest in early years careers and ensuring there are enough opportunities for career development is a priority for this government.

In the government’s Spring Budget 2023, my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced transformative reforms to childcare for parents, children and the economy. By 2027/28, this Government will expect to be spending in excess of £8 billion every year on free hours and early education, helping working families with their childcare costs. This represents the single biggest investment in childcare in England ever.

The department is developing a range of new workforce initiatives including the launch of a new national campaign, planned for the beginning of 2024, to boost interest in the sector and support the recruitment and retention of talented staff. To increase interest in early years, we are working to remove unnecessary barriers to entering the sector as well as considering how to make early years qualifications more accessible, coordinated and relevant.

Over the summer the department launched a competition for Early Years Skills Bootcamps with a pathway to an accelerated level 3 Early Years Educator apprenticeship, and we will consider degree apprenticeship routes so everyone from junior staff to senior leaders can easily move into or indeed enhance their career in the sector. We are also working across government to boost early years career awareness by collaborating with the Department for Work and Pensions and Careers & Enterprise Company to promote the importance and value of a career in early years.

Regarding safe premises, with a growing number of staff joining the sector, the safety of our youngest children remains as important as ever. All new and existing early years providers must keep children safe and promote their welfare. The Early Years Foundation Stage statutory framework sets the standards that all early years providers in England must meet to ensure that children are kept healthy and safe. More information can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1170108/EYFS_framework_from_September_2023.pdf.

Under these requirements, all owners and managers of childcare settings have a responsibility to ensure that their premises, including overall floor space and outdoor spaces, are fit for purpose and suitable for the age of children cared for and the activities provided on the premises. All providers must also comply with the requirements of health and safety legislation, including fire safety and hygiene requirements. At all times when children are present, at least one person who has a current paediatric first aid certificate must be on the premises.

Under Section 6 of the Childcare Act 2006, local authorities are responsible for ensuring that the provision of childcare is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents in their area. Part B of the Early education and childcare statutory guidance for local authorities highlights that local authorities should report annually to elected council members on how they are meeting their duty to secure sufficient childcare, and to make this report available and accessible to parents. More information can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-education-and-childcare--2.

The Department has regular contact with each local authority in England about their sufficiency of childcare and any issues they are facing. Where local authorities report sufficiency challenges, we discuss what action the local authority is taking to address those issues and where needed support the local authority with any specific requirements through our childcare sufficiency support contract.

Information on the school workforce in England is published in the annual ‘School Workforce in England’ national statistics release, available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england.

The number of teachers without qualified teacher status in all state funded schools in England, including a breakdown by primary and secondary, and by local authority, is available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/29d83b82-2aba-44c7-bb82-08db371944c7.

Data relating to schools in individual constituencies can be found in the ‘teacher and support staff numbers by school’ file, within the additional supporting files section, available at: https://content.explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/api/releases/0728fb07-f014-492c-aac9-fd11bb441601/files/2dfcc772-c410-46ac-cb9d-08da713e9200.

There are 24,000 more teachers now than in 2010. The quality of teaching is the most important in school factor in improving outcomes for children, especially for those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Evidence is clear that high quality professional development can lead to improved pupil attainment.

The Department has invested in transforming training for teachers and head teachers. Every teacher and head teacher now has access to high quality, evidence based training and professional development at every stage of their career, starting with initial teacher training (ITT).

By 2024, a reformed ITT provider market will be delivering quality assured training leading to qualified teacher status (QTS) that places a greater emphasis than ever before on embedding structured practice into courses, ensuring trainees are ready to thrive in the classroom.

A new system of higher quality training provider partnerships will be supported by £36 million to introduce new Quality Requirements, including better training for mentors and the delivery of new, cutting edge, intensive training, and practice activity. Every teaching school hub will be involved in ITT to ensure that training places are available across the country.

QTS is considered desirable for teachers in most schools in England. In some schools, including academies, free schools, and independent schools, QTS is not a legal requirement. Academies have a fundamental freedom to employ talented people who do not necessarily have QTS.

Most teachers in all schools, including academies, have QTS and have undertaken initial teacher training. In the 2021/22 academic year, the latest data available, 14,771 teachers (headcount) did not have qualified teacher status, equivalent to 2.9% of teachers.

Reporting to the three months to December 31st 2022 shows an estimated 8,170 Energy Bills Support Scheme traditional prepayment meter vouchers were issued to households in Manchester Withington, with 5,930 (73%) of these redeemed. October and November vouchers were valued at £66 and the December voucher at £67 meaning the 2,240 unredeemed vouchers have a value of approximately £150,000. Transparency data on Energy Bills Support Scheme GB payments made by electricity suppliers to customers is reported monthly and can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/energy-bills-support-scheme-payments-made-by-electricity-suppliers-to-customers.

To support elective recovery and reduce waiting times, including in cancer care, the Government worked with NHS England to publish the delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlogs in elective care in February 2022. To deliver this plan, the Government plans to spend more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25 to help drive up and protect elective activity, including cancer diagnosis and treatment activity.

Diagnostics are a crucial part of cancer pathways. The Government awarded £2.3 billion at the 2021 Spending Review to transform diagnostic services over the next three years. As part of this investment, up to 160 new Community Diagnostic Centres will deliver additional diagnostic capacity in England.

The Major Conditions Strategy will cover the cancer patient pathway from prevention, through treatment, to follow-up care, and set out the standards patients should expect in the short term and over a five year timeframe.

In September 2013, there were 20 practices registered in Manchester, Withington, with 13 practices registered in October 2022.

Practices close for a variety of reasons, including practice mergers or retirement. A reduction in practice numbers does not indicate a reduction in the quality of care. When a practice closes, patients are informed and advised to register at another local practice of their choice. Practices and commissioners must put in place appropriate measures to ensure that affected patients have access to general practitioner services.

This information is not collected in the format requested.

This information is not collected in the format requested. In the 12 months to August 2022, there were 15.07 million general practice appointments in the NHS Greater Manchester Integrated Care System area, excluding COVID-19 vaccinations. Of these, 59.6% were conducted face-to-face.

This information is not collected in the format requested. In the 12 months to August 2022, there were 15.07 million general practice appointments in the NHS Greater Manchester Integrated Care System area, excluding COVID-19 vaccinations. Of these, 59.6% were conducted face-to-face.

This information is not collected in the format requested.

I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 19^th January to question number 104377.

The number of A level examination entries (including arts[1] subjects) by local authority and state funded schools are published in the A level and equivalent results statistical first releases (SFR)[2]^,[3]^,[4]^,[5]^,[6].

The information requested by parliamentary constituency is not available.

[1] Arts subjects are included under the categories Art and Design, Media, Film and Television Studies and Music.

[2] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/revised-a-level-and-equivalent-examination-results-in-england-academic-year-2011-to-2012 (Table 12a)

[3] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/a-level-and-other-level-3-results-england-2012-to-2013-revised (Table 13a)

[4] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/a-level-and-other-level-3-results-2013-to-2014-revised (Table 13a)

[5] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/a-level-and-other-level-3-results-2014-to-2015-revised (Table 13a)

[6] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/a-level-and-other-level-3-results-2015-to-2016-provisional (Table 10)

The requested information is given in the table below:

Number of entries in arts¹ subject GCSEs (incl. equivalents) from pupils at the end of KS4 in Manchester LA

The information required by parliamentary constituency is not available.

The requested information is given in the table below:

Number of pupils at the end of KS4 entering at least two arts[1] subjects at GCSE (incl. equivalents) in Manchester LA

[1] Includes: Applied Art & Design, Art & Design, Drama, Performing Arts, Media/Film/TV Studies, Music and Dance. Does not include History of Art and Creative Writing.

[2] Data is provisional for 2016, all other years are final.

There is no single data source that comprehensively measures all business start-ups within the UK.

However, ONS has published statistics showing that there were 2,210 businesses newly registered for VAT or PAYE in the Manchester, Withington constituency between 2010 and 2014. Some newly registered businesses will have been trading for a number of years and other active businesses will not be covered because they are operating below the VAT and PAYE registration thresholds.

The latest available data for the numbers of individual taxpayers with self-employment income, by constituency level, is for 2013-14. There were estimated to be 4,000 individuals with self-employment income in Manchester, Withington constituency out of 40,000 with income from any source.

These estimates are based on the Survey of Personal Incomes and are taken from table 3.15 of the HMRC Personal Income statistics publication.

No information on the purpose for individuals registering for Self Assessment is collected.

These data are not collected centrally.

Data on numbers of patients registered with general practitioner (GP) practices is published quarterly by the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) in a report entitled 'Number of Patients Registered at a GP Practice'. The latest available version is April 2016 and is available from the HSCIC website at:

http://www.hscic.gov.uk/catalogue/PUB20480

The information is not available in the format requested. Information on the total general practitioner (GP) full time equivalents by selected area between 2010 and 2015 is shown in the following table.

Table 1

Source: The Health and Social Care Information Centre General and Personal Medical Services Statistics

Notes:

1. GP workforce numbers are not available by constituency. Manchester, Withington constituency is contained within and serviced by NHS South Manchester CCG and NHS Central Manchester CCG. Prior to the formation of CCGs the Manchester, Withington constituency was contained within and serviced by Manchester PCT.
2. (1) There were an additional 228 full time equivalent GP Registrars in 2011 and 198 full time equivalent GP Registrars in 2012, training in England and paid via the Electronic Staff Record System (ESR). These ESR records were not included in the annual GP census publication but were included in the Medical and Dental Census.
3. (2) In 2013-2015, there were a number of GP Registrars training in Lancashire and Greater Manchester paid via the Electronic Staff Record system (ESR). The figures shown in the table for these years are full time equivalents but cannot be attributed to a specific CCG within Lancashire and Greater Manchester. Some of these GP Registrars may be working in NHS South Manchester CCG and Central Manchester CCG in 2013-2015.
4. (3) Prior to 2015, figures are sourced from NHAIS GP Payments (Exeter) System. From 2015, figures are sourced from the workforce Minimum Dataset (wMDS) and include estimates for missing data. Figures from 2015 are not comparable with previous years.
5. '.' denotes not applicable.
6. The Health and Social Care Information Centre seeks to minimise inaccuracies and the effect of missing and invalid data but responsibility for data accuracy lies with the organisations providing the data. Methods are continually being updated to improve data quality where changes impact on figures already published. This is assessed but unless it is significant at national level figures are not changed. Impact at detailed or local level is footnoted in relevant analyses.