The department’s priority is to ensure the safety and wellbeing of pupils and staff during periods of extreme heat. Schools are supported through the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and Met Office heat‑health alerts, alongside clear guidance on practical mitigations such as adapting the school day, improving ventilation, ensuring hydration and reducing strenuous activity.

The department’s position is that schools should remain open wherever it is safe to do so, as attendance supports pupils’ learning, wellbeing and safeguarding, and helps ensure children remain in a supervised environment. Decisions on whether to close or restrict attendance are taken locally by school leaders, who are best placed to assess safety in their setting.

Where it is not safe for all pupils to remain on site, schools may adapt their approach, including adjusting the school day or providing high quality remote education to support continuity of learning. Schools are expected to inform parents of any disruption and prioritise provision for vulnerable pupils and children of critical workers, in line with emergency planning guidance.

The department also provides clear public health messaging and encourages schools to share advice with families on staying safe in hot weather, including staying hydrated, avoiding peak heat, and keeping indoor environments cool.

In respect of offenders sentenced to less than four years, the current Article 8 regime allows a deportation decision to be made with consideration to only the impact on the criminal or their family. Clause 20 changes this so that account must be taken of the wider public interest in deportation. The actual test in relation to unduly harsh will reflect current case law requiring the need to demonstrate a significant interference with family life.

However, the new s117C framework will thereafter allow a person’s criminal and immigration history to be considered before a person’s deportation can be deemed disproportionate.

Deportation decisions are taken on a case-by-case basis, and we cannot know in advance what any decision will be. The Bill makes clear that deporting foreign criminals is in the public interest and will be required unless the individual impact is disproportionate to the public interest.

The current system allows the courts to make a decision in the case of “medium offenders” who have been sentenced to less than four years just on the basis of the impact on the criminal or their family. We are changing this so that the courts must also take account of the wider public interest in deportation and in particular the interest in public safety and the prevention of disorder or crime before making a determination as to whether deportation would be a disproportionate interference with Article 8 rights.

The Government’s bespoke Ukraine Schemes for those fleeing the conflict are available to eligible Ukrainian nationals and their family members. Applications under these schemes are free of charge, are exempt from paying the Immigration Health Surcharge and, if granted, provide access to work, public services, healthcare and education, reflecting the UK’s generous commitment to support provided to those displaced by the conflict.

While applications made under the Ukraine Schemes are not subject to an application fee or the Immigration Health Surcharge, a Ukrainian national who has obtained settled status in the UK and subsequently wishes to sponsor a family member under the UK's wider family immigration routes would be required to apply under the general family visa provisions and pay the relevant fees or obtain a fee waiver.

The current fee for a family visa application, which allow partners, parents and dependent children of British and settled sponsors to apply to come or to stay in the UK, is £2,064 and is set at the same level for all applicants. The Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS) is set at £1,035 per person per year and is calculated based on the length of immigration permission granted.

The Home Office keeps all aspects of the immigration system under regular review, including service standards for processing visa applications where applicable.

Service standards for out-of-country family visas are published here: Family: customer service standards - GOV.UK. Currently, the service standard for out- of-country family visa applications is 12 weeks.

We have published an impact assessment of the Immigration and Asylum Bill. Clause 20 clarifies Parliament’s view of how Article 8 ECHR rights should be balanced with the public interest in immigration control and deportations of foreign criminals. Foreign criminals who commit serious crimes in the UK will be removed more swiftly, with the law giving greater weight to public safety and less scope for weak claims to delay deportation.

The Ministry of Defence will publish its delivery timeline for the £9.2 billion Defence Housing Strategy over the next 12 months.

Work has already commenced on the 14,000 homes requiring substantial refurbishment, as set out in the Defence Housing Strategy. Over 1,250 military homes were improved last financial year, with more to be upgraded this year.

In addition refurbishment works have been instructed for 92 properties across Lossiemouth and Kinloss, covering kitchen, bathroom and boiler replacements. To date, 15 properties have been completed, with the remaining works progressing and scheduled for completion by August 2026.

The table below provides the number of callouts for urgent repairs to Service Family Accommodation (SFA) for Military Personnel broken down by month since January 2026 and the percentage of these repairs completed within 48 hours.

For urgent repairs, MOD’s contractors will attend and fix the repair within 48 hours. In contractual terms, meeting this response time in 80% of cases is an Acceptable Level of Performance.

The table below provides the number of callouts for urgent repairs to Service Family Accommodation (SFA) for Military Personnel broken down by month since January 2026 and the percentage of these repairs completed within 48 hours.

For urgent repairs, MOD’s contractors will attend and fix the repair within 48 hours. In contractual terms, meeting this response time in 80% of cases is an Acceptable Level of Performance.

The government recognises that decisions around Child Benefit entitlement can be complex for separated parents who share responsibility for a child. In these circumstances, the government encourages parents to agree between themselves who should receive Child Benefit. If agreement cannot be reached, HMRC uses its discretion to pay the parent who has greater responsibility for the child. Splitting the benefit or providing alternative financial support or tax relief would be challenging due to the varying nature of shared care arrangements.

Defence is grateful for the support of Service families, and acknowledges that overseas deployment, whether accompanied or unaccompanied, can place additional demands on them. Our Families Overseas Survey gathers evidence to inform policy decisions on the matters that impact families overseas, such as communications, education, childcare, housing and employment opportunities.

Prior to deployment, families are assessed to ensure that their needs are identified and supported. Support during deployment is provided by Service welfare teams, backed up by community development officers who work to promote a sense of community whilst overseas. In addition, the Supporting Partners fund, managed on behalf of Defence by the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust, provides grant funding for organisations that seek to mitigate the issues faced by military families overseas, as well as in the UK.

Integrated care boards are responsible for assessing local need and commissioning services to best meet the needs of their local population, including determining how services are delivered locally to reduce the health inequalities. Therefore, staffing models may differ between areas to reflect local needs and existing provision. All staff within health and social care must have learning disability and autism training specific to their role as set out in the Health and Care Act 2022, which means that staff who see patients should be better able to meet the needs of people who have a learning disability.

We are committed to ensuring that, under the Reasonable Adjustment Digital Flag Information Standard 2025, all publicly funded health and social care service providers are able to share, read, and write reasonable adjustment data by 30 September 2026. The Information Standard is mandated across all publicly funded health and social care providers, commissioners, and IT suppliers. Should issues of non-compliance arise, commissioners of health and publicly funded social care services will be able to enact contractual sanctions at their discretion.

The Government continues to recognise the value of involving patients and family carers in decisions about the care of people with a learning disability. The Health and Care Act 2022 sets duties for involving carers in healthcare. Acute trusts are responsible for determining how best to involve family carers in the delivery of care, taking account of the needs of their patients and local circumstances. There are currently no plans to establish independent or statutory audits to monitor whether acute trusts are consistently involving family carers from admission to discharge. The Friends and Family Test is an important feedback tool that supports the fundamental principle that people who use National Health Services should have the opportunity to provide feedback on their experience.

NHS England has previously published guidance to support primary care to identify people with a learning disability, titled Improving identification of people with a learning disability: guidance for general practice. This information can be shared with other health providers if a patient gives their permission. The Summary Care Record is a national database that holds electronic records of important patient information such as current medication, allergies, and details of any previous bad reactions to medicines, created from general practice medical records. It can be seen and used by authorised staff involved in the patient's direct care, including in other organisations such as an acute trust, with the patient’s consent. We expect acute hospitals to have appropriate arrangements in place to record learning disability information, including through the use of SNOMED codes, which are mandated for use across the NHS including in acute trusts.