I congratulate my hon. Friend on his re-election. He will know that capital allocations are a matter for the integrated care boards. We are committed to introducing neighbourhood care centres to bring together vital care services, and I look forward to working with him on Labour’s mission to improve the front door to the local NHS.

My hon. Friend is first out of the blocks on this issue, and has shown his commitment to improving primary care for his constituents. I am sure the local ICB has listened very carefully to his question, because we know that the existing primary care estate is under a great deal of pressure. That is why building a neighbourhood health service remains at the forefront of our mission to rebuild the NHS, and I would be pleased to meet him to discuss that topic.

Whether his Department plans to provide capital funding for a new health centre at Maghull in Sefton Central constituency.

I congratulate my right hon. and hon. Friends on their appointments. The predecessors of my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary—there have been quite a few over the past few years—all agreed with me that a health centre in Maghull in my constituency was a priority for the health service, but as my hon.

Friend has just said, the allocation of capital by integrated care boards has meant that the priority has been acute hospitals, sometimes at the expense of community facilities. Will my hon. Friend meet me to discuss the importance of investment in health centres such as the one in Maghull, which make such a difference to reducing waiting times in the NHS and improving patient outcomes?

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.

The data is not available in the format requested.

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.

The Department has sent a questionnaire on reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) to all responsible bodies, asking them to provide information on RAAC in their estates. Responses from the questionnaire will allow the Department to better understand the prevalence of RAAC across the education estate and ensure the correct support is in place to meet the responsible bodies’ needs.

​The questionnaire remains open for responsible bodies to respond to. Identifying RAAC can be difficult, so all reports of suspected RAAC are investigated by structural engineers commissioned by the Department and, where needed, site surveys are undertaken to confirm its presence. For this reason, the Department only holds partial data and is not able to provide details of schools that contain RAAC elements. The Department will consider releasing outcomes from the questionnaire in the future.

​Since 2015, over £13 billion has been allocated for keeping schools safe and operational, including £1.8 billion committed in the 2023/24 financial year.

The Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund does not hold information on reasons why councils did not apply for funding.

The successful projects within the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund Demonstrator were announced on 23 March 2021. The SHDF Demonstrator awarded £62m of grant funding, matched with £84m of co-funding from the Local Authorities. The region with the greatest amount of grant funding in England was London, with around £29m of grant funding. The largest grant funding award in Scotland was around £2m worth of grant funding to Aberdeen City Council.

The Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF) Demonstrator awarded around £62m of grant funding in 2021 to social landlords across England and Scotland to test innovative approaches to retrofitting. Sefton Council did not apply to the SHDF Demonstrator and there were no other successful bids from that area.

The latest figures can be found in the November statistics release.

The Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund Wave 1 awarded around £179m of grant funding, delivering from 2022 into 2023, of which £11m was awarded to the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority consortium, including housing associations with homes in Sefton. The SHDF does not hold data on the most frequently installed Energy Efficiency measure in the Sefton Central Constituency.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy does not hold a breakdown of Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme funding by constituency. Lists of all projects funded through the scheme can be found on the scheme’s gov.uk page: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/public-sector-decarbonisation-scheme.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy does not hold a breakdown of Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme funding by constituency. Lists of all projects funded through the scheme can be found on the scheme’s gov.uk page: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/public-sector-decarbonisation-scheme.

BEIS has published information on the number of households by parliamentary constituency in the latest Household Energy Efficiency Statistics, headline release.

BEIS does not publish information specifically on the number of homes that require external wall insulation, nationally or by constituency. Information on the cumulative number of properties with solid walls in Great Britain, including the number remaining to be insulated, can be found in table 8.6 in the HEE tables accompanying the latest Household Energy Efficiency Statistics, detailed report.

Based on the report by the National Audit Office published on 1 December 2021, ‘it took 138 days on average to issue a voucher to those homeowners who applied in September 2020, but the time taken to issue vouchers reduced over time reaching 50 days in March 2021’. Constituency level data is not held by the Government.

Figures for grants issued by the scheme are held by the local authority and Local Net Zero hub. The total amount of funding that has been used for retrofitting homes in Sefton Central via the local Authority Delivery Scheme, is not available to the Department.

The Government is fully committed to supporting businesses and creating the best conditions for enterprise so that everyone, whatever their background, has the means and know-how to start and grow a business.

We are supporting early-stage entrepreneurs from all backgrounds through the Start-Up Loans Company which provides funding and intensive support to new entrepreneurs. Since 2012, 40% of Start Up Loans have gone to women, worth over £341m and 20% of loans worth 183m have gone to Black, Asian, and Ethnic-minority business (as at October 2022). One hundred and sixty SMEs in Sefton Central have received loans to the value of £1,688,512 as of October 2022.

The latest data tables on Energy Performance Buildings Certificates are available here.