Baroness Eaton

The DRS (Deposit Return Scheme) aims to reduce littering of in-scope containers. Once the DRS is operational, our Impact Assessment analysis estimates savings to local authority street cleaning costs of around £30 million per year.

Many of the containers not returned through the scheme may continue to travel through local authority waste streams such as kerbside recycling. The introduction of a DRS has a varying impact on local authorities recycling collections; there may be efficiency savings from collecting and processing less material, however we also understand the DRS will remove a material from local authority recycling streams. Details can be found in the Final Impact Assessment.

We anticipate the scheme administrator – the Deposit Management Organisation – working closely with local authorities to ensure as much material is returned as possible and to help meet collection targets and keep material within the closed-loop model of the DRS.

We will consider enforcement of single-use vapes alongside other types of illicit vapes. In the coming months we will be working closely with the Department for Health & Social Care and relevant enforcement bodies to understand how we can support those enforcing the ban.

Protecting communities around the country from flooding is one of the new Secretary of State’s five core priorities for Defra.

The Government fully supports the important work internal drainage boards (IDBs) do in managing water and flood risk, benefiting communities, businesses and the environment. To support this important work, and in recognition of the significant impact flooding has on farms and rural communities, the Government has announced [Written Ministerial Statement HCWS214] additional financial support for IDBs.

For calendar year 2024 to date, 75% of incident reports received by the Environment Agency (EA) have been assessed within the target time of one hour. All incidents reported to the EA are classified by their risk to the public and environment. The EA cannot report the time taken to respond to individual incidents by locality but plans for future upgrades to systems should enable this.

The EA inspects flood risk assets on a frequency of between six and 60 months, depending on risk. If the EA is alerted to a concern with an asset, an inspection can be undertaken before the due date. If an asset is identified below required condition, it is fixed within 60 days or, if the damage is significant, a more detailed assessment is completed to determine appropriate actions. Where an asset is likely to remain below required condition for more than 60 days, mitigation measures are put in place to ensure the asset can operate until the full repair is complete. If an asset requires urgent repairs and there is an immediate risk, emergency repairs are undertaken.

Whilst the Environment Agency (EA) has flood risk assets in many locations, many of these are in the river channels or are the line of defence between water and dry land. For this reason, flood zones do not provide the best measure of what flood risk areas the EA’s assets protect.

The EA instead looks at assets based on their 'consequence system' which rates the impact of assets on people, property and land.

Below are the planned maintenance costs for April 2024 to March 2025 split over these flood risk consequences:

These totals are based on work planned for 2024-25 and are subject to change. These Totals also include wider asset management costs that are integral to delivering and supporting works in these consequences areas.

The wellbeing and safety of women accessing abortion services, including early medical abortion at home, is our first and foremost priority. Before prescribing abortion medicine for use at home, either an in-person or a virtual consultation is held with the woman concerned. If any health issues are identified during a virtual consultation which could make home use of early medical abortion medicine potentially unsuitable, the woman will be asked to attend an in-person appointment for further assessment.

The Home Office will continue to provide dedicated Prevent funding to 27 local authorities considered to face the highest threat from terrorism to help them to go above and beyond the requirements of the statutory Prevent duty. This funding can be used by local authorities to fund dedicated Prevent posts, including Prevent Education Officers.

In ensuring that views of key external stakeholders are sought and partners engaged with, the Home Office has dedicated Regional Engagement Leads who liaise directly with local authorities or via Regional Strategic Migration Partnerships (SMP). SMPs are Local Government led partnerships funded by, but independent of, the Home Office, whose role is to coordinate and support delivery of national programmes in asylum and refugee schemes as well as agreed regional and devolved migration priorities.

In ensuring that views of key external stakeholders are sought and partners engaged with, the Home Office has dedicated Regional Engagement Leads who liaise directly with local authorities or via Regional Strategic Migration Partnerships (SMP). SMPs are Local Government led partnerships funded by, but independent of, the Home Office, whose role is to coordinate and support delivery of national programmes in asylum and refugee schemes as well as agreed regional and devolved migration priorities.

Section 9 of the Public Order Act 2023 does not make any reference to silent prayer.

Section 9 makes it a criminal offence for a person who is within a Safe Access Zone to do any act with the intent of, or reckless as to whether it has the effect of, influencing any person’s decision to access, provide or facilitate the provision of abortion services, obstructing or impeding any person accessing, providing, or facilitating the provision of abortion services, or causing harassment, alarm or distress to any person in connection with a decision to access, provide, or facilitate the provision of abortion services.

£633.24 million in funding through the Homelessness Prevention Grant will be made available to local authorities in 2025/26 to support them to deliver services to prevent and respond to homelessness. This includes an uplift of £192.9 million compared to 2024/25.

Successive years of failure to invest in local preventative services has seen far too many homeless families forced into temporary accommodation. A new prevention ringfence for 2025/26 has been introduced to maintain prevention activities during this period. This will mean that LAs will have to spend 49% of their funding on prevention, relief and staffing activity and 51% on temporary accommodation.

These proportions are based on spend declarations submitted in 2023/24. We have published a regional analysis of spend declarations which is available at- Homelessness Prevention Grant 2025-26: technical note - GOV.UK

We recognise the value that close relationships between Local Resilience Forums and elected politicians can bring and we encourage all Local Resilience Forums to engage with their elected representatives when preparing for risks and during response and recovery.

Through the Government’s programme to strengthen Local Resilience Forums, Local Resilience Forums will test new models for local governance and accountability to elected leaders. They will also explore the opportunities for resilience from devolving powers to Strategic Authorities.

The government is ready to consider local authority requests for Bellwin Scheme support. This can reimburse immediate eligible response costs for authorities affected by emergencies and disasters in their area including severe weather events after they occur.

Link to the Bellwin guidance: Bellwin scheme of emergency financial assistance to local authorities: guidance notes for claims - GOV.UK.

On 5 February the Minister for English Devolution and Local Government wrote to all councils in two-tier areas and small neighbouring unitaries to invite them to prepare proposals for reorganisation. This invitation set out guidance from the Secretary of State for proposals including that new unitaries must be the right size to achieve efficiencies, improve capacity and withstand financial shocks. As a guiding principle, new councils should aim for a population of 500,000 or more. There may be certain scenarios in which this 500,000 figure does not make sense for an area, including on devolution, and this rationale should be set out in a proposal.

The Department takes its duties as set out in the Equality Act 2010 very seriously, and has due regard to the Act when taking decisions throughout the policymaking process.

The government sought views, as part of the provisional local government finance settlement 2025-26, on the impact of the Settlement proposals on persons who share a protected characteristic. A summary of the government's response to the consultation can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/consultation-provisional-local-government-finance-settlement-2025-to-2026/outcome/provisional-local-government-finance-settlement-2025-to-2026-consultation-summary-of-responses#impacts-of-these-proposals.

We also asked for views in our consultation on local authority funding reform regarding the impact of the proposals on protected characteristics. The government will publish a response to this consultation late Spring 2025.

In the Academic Year 2023-24 (the latest period for which statistics have been published), 16,726 appeals were disposed, of which 11,157 appeals had outcomes decided. Of the 11,157 decided, 11,007 were decided in favour of the appellant (upheld¹). This represents 66% of all outcomes (conceded, decided and withdrawn) and 99% of the total appeals decided in this Academic Year.

HM Courts and Tribunals Service (which administers the First-tier Tribunal for Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND)) is working with colleagues from the Department for Education to understand the increase in Education, Health Care Plans (EHCPs); the increasing demand on the Tribunal; and also, how to improve initial decision making by Local Authorities.

Information about appeal outcomes to SEND is published at: Tribunals statistics quarterly: July to September 2024 - GOV.UK.

¹Appeals are counted as upheld when the majority of the Local Authority’s decision is overturned.