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1697447

registered interest
date	20/03/2024
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Department for Education: Written Questions
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when she plans to respond to Question 17725 on Academic Freedom tabled by the hon. Member for Sheffield Central on 8 March 2024.
tabling member constituency	Sheffield Central
tabling member printed	Paul Blomfield
uin	19605
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 27/03/2024 answer text <p>A response was published to the hon. Member for Sheffield Central to Question <a href="https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2024-03-08/17725" target="_blank">17725</a> on 21<sup>st</sup> March 2024.</p> answering member constituency Wantage answering member printed David Johnston question first answered 27/03/2024 17:25:03 answering member 4761 label Biography information for David Johnston
tabling member	4058 label Biography information for Paul Blomfield

1694750

registered interest
date	08/03/2024
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Academic Freedom
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will hold discussions with the Office for Students on ensuring that the forthcoming guidance for higher education providers on (a) securing free speech within the law and (b) publishing and maintaining a freedom of speech code of practice is published before 1 August 2024.
tabling member constituency	Sheffield Central
tabling member printed	Paul Blomfield
uin	17725
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 21/03/2024 answer text <p>The remaining provisions of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 will come into force in two phases. The main provisions of the Act, introducing free speech duties on higher education providers, constituent institutions and students' unions, and the new complaints scheme, will come into force on 1 August 2024. The Office for Students (OfS) has already launched two consultations that will feed into new complaints scheme rules and guidance for students’ unions on the OfS’s approach to regulating them. These will be published before the 1 August 2024.</p><p>The second phase involves provisions relating to new conditions of registration on providers and monitoring of overseas funding. These will come into force on 1 September 2025.</p><p>The OfS expects to consult shortly on the proposed revisions to the regulatory framework, including on its approach to the recovery of costs, as well as on more detailed guidance on securing free speech within the law and on maintaining a free speech code of practice. The OfS consultations are not yet live, and the OfS will require time to run the consultation, analyse the results and publish a response before they can publish the guidance to which they relate. Precise timings on the publication of guidance are a matter for the OfS.</p> answering member constituency Wantage answering member printed David Johnston question first answered 21/03/2024 11:39:01 answering member 4761 label Biography information for David Johnston
tabling member	4058 label Biography information for Paul Blomfield

1692005

registered interest
date	27/02/2024
answering body	Department for Science, Innovation and Technology
answering dept id	216
answering dept short name	Science, Innovation and Technology
answering dept sort name	Science, Innovation and Technology
hansard heading	Horizon Europe
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, if she will take steps to (a) expand the Government's support for the Horizon Europe pump priming collaboration and (b) end the rule that research applications to Horizon Europe must identify a call and topic in Pillar 2.
tabling member constituency	Sheffield Central
tabling member printed	Paul Blomfield
uin	15875
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 01/03/2024 answer text <p>The British Academy has received considerable interest in the Pump Priming grants scheme, and the Government is pleased with the level of engagement, including from those new to the programme. There are no plans to expand the recently launched pump priming grants.</p><p> </p><p>Applications for Horizon Europe grants are made directly to the European Commission. All calls within Horizon Europe work programme 2024 and beyond are funded by the UK’s association to Horizon Europe.</p> answering member constituency Arundel and South Downs answering member printed Andrew Griffith question first answered 01/03/2024 11:35:24 answering member 4874 label Biography information for Andrew Griffith
tabling member	4058 label Biography information for Paul Blomfield

1680664

registered interest
date	19/12/2023
answering body	Ministry of Justice
answering dept id	54
answering dept short name	Justice
answering dept sort name	Justice
hansard heading	Courts and Tribunals
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to tackle court and tribunal backlogs.
tabling member constituency	Sheffield Central
tabling member printed	Paul Blomfield
uin	900812
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 09/01/2024 answer text <p>The pandemic and barristers’ disruptive action created a significant challenge for our courts, but we are working hard to reduce outstanding caseloads across all jurisdictions.</p><p>Thanks to our investment in judicial recruitment, we expect to recruit over 1,000 judges this financial year across all jurisdictions.</p><p>We are investing £220 million for essential modernisation and repair work in our court buildings over the next two years.</p><p>We also continue work to maximise the capacity of the tribunals, aided by a new electronic case management system.</p> answering member constituency Finchley and Golders Green answering member printed Mike Freer question first answered 09/01/2024 16:15:06 answering member 4004 label Biography information for Mike Freer
tabling member	4058 label Biography information for Paul Blomfield

1653876

registered interest
date	18/07/2023
answering body	Home Office
answering dept id	1
answering dept short name	Home Office
answering dept sort name	Home Office
hansard heading	Migrants and Overseas Students: Health Services and Visas
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment she has made of the potential impact of increasing the cost of (a) the immigration health surcharge and (b) student visas on (i) numbers of international students and (ii) international student diversification in the UK.
tabling member constituency	Sheffield Central
tabling member printed	Paul Blomfield
uin	194744
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 04/09/2023 answer text <p>The Home Office is increasing application fees across a range of immigration and nationality routes, including for people coming to live, work and study in the UK. Increasing application fees, together with the Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS), helps to fund vital services and allowing wider funding to be prioritised for public sector pay awards.</p><p>We will lay regulations and legislation in the Autumn to amend the immigration and nationality fees and the IHS levels, which will set out which immigration routes are impacted and will be accompanied by full economic impact assessments.</p><p>We keep fees and IHS levels under review.</p> answering member constituency Newark answering member printed Robert Jenrick grouped question UIN 194749 question first answered 04/09/2023 14:49:18 answering member 4320 label Biography information for Robert Jenrick
tabling member	4058 label Biography information for Paul Blomfield

1653877

registered interest
date	18/07/2023
answering body	Home Office
answering dept id	1
answering dept short name	Home Office
answering dept sort name	Home Office
hansard heading	Immigration: Fees and Charges
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the oral contribution by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury on 13 July 2023, Official report, column 526, what the changes to immigration fees will be.
tabling member constituency	Sheffield Central
tabling member printed	Paul Blomfield
uin	194745
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 04/09/2023 answer text <p>The cost of most work and visit visas will increase by 15%. The cost of study visas, certificates of sponsorship, settlement, citizenship, wider entry clearance and leave to remain visas, and priority visas will increase by at least 20%.</p><p>We will also equalise costs for students and for those using a priority service so people pay the same whether they apply from within the UK or from outside the UK.</p><p>We will lay Regulations in the Autumn that will set out the specific changes to immigration and nationality fees in more detail.</p> answering member constituency Newark answering member printed Robert Jenrick question first answered 04/09/2023 13:40:35 answering member 4320 label Biography information for Robert Jenrick
tabling member	4058 label Biography information for Paul Blomfield

1653878

registered interest
date	18/07/2023
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Overseas Students: Surcharges
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has made a recent assessment of the potential impact of increasing the cost of (a) the immigration health surcharge and (b) student visas on (i) the international student target within the International Education Strategy.
tabling member constituency	Sheffield Central
tabling member printed	Paul Blomfield
uin	194746
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 04/09/2023 answer text <p>The department has been successful in delivering our International Education Strategy ambition of hosting at least 600,000 students per year by 2030 for the last two years, and the government fully expects the UK to continue to be an attractive destination for international students.</p><p>The department is increasing fees across a range of immigration routes, including for people coming here to live, work and study, at a time of record high migration numbers. It is the government’s policy that those who use and benefit most from the immigration system should contribute towards the cost of operating the system, reducing the burden on the UK taxpayer.</p><p>The government’s visa fees are competitive globally and there is little evidence that fee increases to date have significantly affected demand on work, study and tourism routes.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Harlow answering member printed Robert Halfon question first answered 04/09/2023 13:44:17 answering member 3985 label Biography information for Robert Halfon
tabling member	4058 label Biography information for Paul Blomfield

1653881

registered interest
date	18/07/2023
answering body	Home Office
answering dept id	1
answering dept short name	Home Office
answering dept sort name	Home Office
hansard heading	Migrants and Overseas Students: Health Services and Visas
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent discussions she has had with (a) the Russell Group, (b) Universities UK and (c) other sector stakeholders on the potential impact of increasing the cost of (i) the immigration health surcharge and (ii) student visas on the higher education sector.
tabling member constituency	Sheffield Central
tabling member printed	Paul Blomfield
uin	194749
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 04/09/2023 answer text <p>The Home Office is increasing application fees across a range of immigration and nationality routes, including for people coming to live, work and study in the UK. Increasing application fees, together with the Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS), helps to fund vital services and allowing wider funding to be prioritised for public sector pay awards.</p><p>We will lay regulations and legislation in the Autumn to amend the immigration and nationality fees and the IHS levels, which will set out which immigration routes are impacted and will be accompanied by full economic impact assessments.</p><p>We keep fees and IHS levels under review.</p> answering member constituency Newark answering member printed Robert Jenrick grouped question UIN 194744 question first answered 04/09/2023 14:49:18 answering member 4320 label Biography information for Robert Jenrick
tabling member	4058 label Biography information for Paul Blomfield

1582925

registered interest
date	01/02/2023
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Students: Loans
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the letter of 26 January 2023 sent by the Office for Students to accountable officers at registered higher education providers, which states that £10 million which had been set aside for preparation for the Lifelong Loan Entitlement is no longer needed for the purpose originally identified, what progress has been made on implementing the Lifelong Loan Entitlement.
tabling member constituency	Sheffield Central
tabling member printed	Paul Blomfield
uin	137805
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 06/02/2023 answer text <p>The Lifelong Loan Entitlement (LLE) will be introduced from 2025. The government has already introduced key legislation as part of the Skills and Post-16 Education Act 2022.Building on these measures, on 1 February 2023 the government introduced the Lifelong Learning (Higher Education Fee Limits) Bill as a further step towards delivery of the LLE from 2025.</p><p>As part of the pathway towards the LLE, we will stimulate the provision of high-quality higher technical education (Levels 4 and 5) and have introduced pilots to inform future flexible and modular provision. As of the start of the 2022/23 academic year, we are trialling loan-funded access to tuition fees for over 100 short courses at Levels 4 to 6 at 22 providers across England. This will help us build and test towards the LLE, and will allow students to study and build up the skills they need more flexibly.</p><p>On 6 May 2022, the department concluded its consultation on the LLE, as part of the planned pathway to delivery from 2025. This consultation and other ongoing sector engagement is a critical part of delivering a transformation of student finance. We are carefully considering the contributions and will publish our response in due course.</p> answering member constituency Harlow answering member printed Robert Halfon question first answered 06/02/2023 12:57:35 answering member 3985 label Biography information for Robert Halfon
tabling member	4058 label Biography information for Paul Blomfield

1545393

registered interest
date	24/11/2022
answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
answering dept id	29
answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
hansard heading	Work Capability Assessment
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Answer of 5 January 2022 to Question 93755 on Work Capability Assessment, how many and what proportion of work capability assessments were (a) carried out by telephone, (b) paper-based, (c) video-based and (d) face-to-face in each of the last 12 months.
tabling member constituency	Sheffield Central
tabling member printed	Paul Blomfield
uin	95826
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 01/12/2022 answer text <p>The number and proportion of Work Capability Assessments (WCA) that have been carried out by (a) telephone, (b) paper-based, (c) video-based and (d) face-to-face in each of the last 12 months, can be found in the tables below.</p><p> </p><table><tbody><tr><td><p><strong>Number of WCA per channel</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>(a) Telephone</strong> <strong> </strong></p></td><td><p><strong>(b) Paper-based</strong> <strong> </strong></p></td><td><p><strong>(c) Video</strong> <strong> </strong></p></td><td><p><strong>(d) Face-to-Face</strong></p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>Nov-21</strong></p></td><td><p>33,390</p></td><td><p>7,690</p></td><td><p>3,450</p></td><td><p>5,810</p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>Dec-21</strong></p></td><td><p>29,830</p></td><td><p>6,090</p></td><td><p>2,860</p></td><td><p>5,320</p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>Jan-22</strong></p></td><td><p>43,070</p></td><td><p>6,560</p></td><td><p>4,000</p></td><td><p>220</p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>Feb-22</strong></p></td><td><p>37,890</p></td><td><p>7,540</p></td><td><p>4,170</p></td><td><p>3,590</p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>Mar-22</strong></p></td><td><p>37,540</p></td><td><p>7,510</p></td><td><p>4,670</p></td><td><p>8,070</p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>Apr-22</strong></p></td><td><p>30,610</p></td><td><p>6,630</p></td><td><p>3,560</p></td><td><p>7,170</p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>May-22</strong></p></td><td><p>35,190</p></td><td><p>7,150</p></td><td><p>3,810</p></td><td><p>8,960</p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>Jun-22</strong></p></td><td><p>31,350</p></td><td><p>6,130</p></td><td><p>3,540</p></td><td><p>7,380</p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>Jul-22</strong></p></td><td><p>31,420</p></td><td><p>6,430</p></td><td><p>3,240</p></td><td><p>7,380</p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>Aug-22</strong></p></td><td><p>32,630</p></td><td><p>6,680</p></td><td><p>3,840</p></td><td><p>8,160</p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>Sep-22</strong></p></td><td><p>31,890</p></td><td><p>6,480</p></td><td><p>3,760</p></td><td><p>7,420</p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>Oct-22</strong></p></td><td><p>35,240</p></td><td><p>6,310</p></td><td><p>3,500</p></td><td><p>7,910</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p><p>With channel proportion as:</p><p> </p><table><tbody><tr><td><p><strong>Proportion of WCA per channel</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>(a) Telephone</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>(b) Paper-based</strong> <strong> </strong></p></td><td><p><strong>(c) Video</strong> <strong> </strong></p></td><td><p><strong>(d) Face-to-Face</strong></p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>Nov-21</strong></p></td><td><p>66%</p></td><td><p>15%</p></td><td><p>7%</p></td><td><p>12%</p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>Dec-21</strong></p></td><td><p>68%</p></td><td><p>14%</p></td><td><p>6%</p></td><td><p>12%</p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>Jan-22</strong></p></td><td><p>80%</p></td><td><p>12%</p></td><td><p>7%</p></td><td><p>0%</p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>Feb-22</strong></p></td><td><p>71%</p></td><td><p>14%</p></td><td><p>8%</p></td><td><p>7%</p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>Mar-22</strong></p></td><td><p>65%</p></td><td><p>13%</p></td><td><p>8%</p></td><td><p>14%</p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>Apr-22</strong></p></td><td><p>64%</p></td><td><p>14%</p></td><td><p>7%</p></td><td><p>15%</p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>May-22</strong></p></td><td><p>64%</p></td><td><p>13%</p></td><td><p>7%</p></td><td><p>16%</p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>Jun-22</strong></p></td><td><p>65%</p></td><td><p>13%</p></td><td><p>7%</p></td><td><p>15%</p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>Jul-22</strong></p></td><td><p>65%</p></td><td><p>13%</p></td><td><p>7%</p></td><td><p>15%</p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>Aug-22</strong></p></td><td><p>64%</p></td><td><p>13%</p></td><td><p>7%</p></td><td><p>16%</p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>Sep-22</strong></p></td><td><p>64%</p></td><td><p>13%</p></td><td><p>8%</p></td><td><p>15%</p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>Oct-22</strong></p></td><td><p>67%</p></td><td><p>12%</p></td><td><p>7%</p></td><td><p>15%</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p><p><strong>Please note:</strong></p><p> </p><ul><li>Actual volumes are rounded to the nearest 10.</li><li>Proportions are based on actual figures.</li><li>Percentages may not add up to 100% due to rounding.</li><li>All of the above data is derived from contractual management information produced by the assessment providers.</li><li>Please note that on 8 December 2021 the country were instructed to follow Plan B measures to slow the spread of Omicron; as part of these instructions health assessment providers were instructed to pause face-to-face assessments until the restrictions were lifted on 27 January 2022.</li><li>The above data is derived from unpublished management information which is collected for internal departmental use only and has not been quality assured to Official Statistics Publication Standards.</li></ul> answering member constituency Corby answering member printed Tom Pursglove question first answered 01/12/2022 16:07:49 answering member 4369 label Biography information for Tom Pursglove
tabling member	4058 label Biography information for Paul Blomfield