It is because we are concerned about the impact of inflation and increases in interest rates that the Autumn Statement protected the most vulnerable by uprating benefits and pensions with inflation, strengthening the energy price guarantee, and providing cost of living payments.

We will report on progress towards delivering the missions through an annual report laid before parliament.

Schools will receive an additional £2 billion in each of 2023/24 and 2024/25 academic years as a result of the 2022 Autumn Statement. The core schools budget, which covers schools’ day-to-day running costs, including schools’ energy bills and the costs of providing income-related free school meals, has risen from £49.8 billion in 2021/22 to £53.8 billion in 2022/23 and will continue to rise to £57.3 billion in 2023/24 and £58.8 billion in 2024/25. By 2024/25, funding per pupil will have risen to its highest ever level in real terms. These increases provide support to schools to deal with the impact of inflation on their budgets.

From October 2022 to 31 March 2023, schools will benefit from the Energy Bill Relief Scheme. This provides a price reduction to protect schools from excessively high energy bills over the winter period.

The department is clear that school uniforms should be affordable. No school uniform should be so expensive that pupils or their families feel unable to apply to or attend a school of their choice. In November 2021, the department issued statutory guidance on the cost of school uniforms to ensure the cost of school uniforms is reasonable. The guidance is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cost-of-school-uniforms/cost-of-school-uniforms. Governing boards should be compliant with much of the guidance by September 2022 and fully compliant by summer 2023.

Teachers’ pay is reviewed on an annual basis by the independent School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB), which considers the current economic climate. Pay awards this year provide a careful balance between recognising the vital importance of teachers, whilst delivering value for the taxpayer, and being careful not to drive inflation. The department has implemented the STRB’s recommendation of an 8.9% pay uplift to teacher starting salaries outside London in 2022/23, bringing them up to £28,000. The department has also implemented the STRB’s recommendation of a 5% pay uplift for experienced teachers and leaders in 2022/23. This is the highest pay award for experienced teachers in 30 years. Teachers and other classroom staff will also benefit from wider government cost of living support announced for households.

The department supports a range of initiatives to increase access to high quality extra curricular activities. This includes investing £3.4 million between 2021 and 2024 to support the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award to expand into more schools in the most disadvantaged areas of the country and investing over £200 million a year in the Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme. HAF provides free holiday club places with activities and healthy food for children from low-income families during the summer, Easter, and Christmas school holidays. Additionally, both pupil premium and recovery premium can be used to fund extra-curricular activities.

The government spends over £1 billion annually delivering free school meals (FSM) to pupils. Around 1.9 million disadvantaged pupils are eligible for free school meals (FSM) as well as an additional 1.25 million infants who receive a free meal under the Universal Infant Free School Meal (UIFSM) policy. Core schools funding has increased, which includes the FSM factor in the National Funding Formula £470 per eligible pupil this year. Universal Infant Free School Meal funding has also been uplifted to £2.41 per meal per child in June 2022 and backdated to 1 April 2022 in recognition of the cost pressures faced by schools.

The government has announced further support, worth £26 billion, for next year. This is designed to target the most vulnerable households and families. This is on top of the £37 billion cost of living support provided by the government this year.

The challenges of rising inflation to the T26 and T31 shipbuilding programmes are being addressed through routine finance processes as part of the shipbuilding pipeline.

Treasury Ministers meet regularly with Ministers at the Department for Education to discuss matters of shared interest, including student finance. The Government are considering options for changes to loans and grants for 2023-24, and an announcement will follow in due course.

Whether he has had recent discussions with the Secretary of State for Education on the potential merits of increasing student maintenance loans in line with actual rather than forecast levels of inflation.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I have a lot of respect for him and I recognise the issue that he refers to. Of course, many higher education providers have hardship funds that students can apply to, and there is £261 million—a quarter of a billion pounds—of student premium funding available this year to support disadvantaged students. On the specific issue of the uprating, of course there needs to be a delay to operationalise those additional sums. That is at the core of the issue. However, as I said, the Department for Education will report on the matter in due course.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies reports that the real value of maintenance loans is the lowest for seven years. Rents, which account for 45% of bills, are rising; food costs are rising; one in 10 students are using a food bank; and 80% say they cannot make ends meet. Why does the Minister not make his Christmas present a proper increase in the level of maintenance loans? Because it is a loan, he would not even have to pay for it.

The Government has accepted in full the recommendations made by the independent Pay Review Body on a pay deal for National Health Service staff. In formulating its recommendations, the Pay Review Body considers evidence from a range of stakeholders, including the NHS and trade unions. It also considers factors such as recruitment, retention, morale and motivation, affordability and the economic context, including inflation.

The student loan repayment system incorporates a number of protections for those making loan repayments. Repayments are calculated as a fixed percentage of earnings above the relevant repayment threshold, currently £27,295 for a post 2012 undergraduate plan and £21,000 for a post graduate loan. These do not change as a result of the interest rate charged or the amount borrowed. If a borrower’s income drops, so does the amount they repay. If income is below the relevant repayment threshold, or a borrower is not earning, then they do not have to make repayments at all. Any outstanding debt, including interest accrued, is written off after the loan term ends, or in case of death or disability, at no detriment to the borrower. There are no commercial loans that offer this level of protection.

To further protect borrowers, the government, by law, must cap maximum student loan rates to ensure the interest rate charged on the loan is in line with market rates for comparable unsecured personal loans. The government monitors student loan rates against the Bank of England’s data series for the effective interest rates on new and existing unsecured personal loans.

The government recognises the additional cost of living pressures that have arisen this year. We have taken action to support people with the cost of living, including through the Energy Bill Relief Scheme, which provides a price reduction over the winter period. This is alongside the Energy Price Guarantee which is saving the average household over £900.

The Office for National Statistics release statistics on UK inflation. These show that the annual rate of CPI inflation was 10.7% in November, down from 11.1% in October.

The Office for Budget Responsibility has confirmed global factors are the primary cause of current inflation. Inflation is high here – but higher in Germany (11.3%), the Netherlands (11.2%), and Italy (12.5%).

The Defence Equipment Plan 2022-23 is a financial reporting document reflecting a picture in time aligned to the Annual Budgeting Cycle (ABC). This year's ABC closed at the end of March 2022 and therefore the affordability analysis of the Plan reflects the position up until that point. The Equipment Plan is a baseline from which the Department plans around challenges with inflation being one such example.

Following the conclusion of the Secretary of State’s annual up-rating review, subject to Parliamentary approval, the Standard Minimum Guarantee in Pension Credit will increase by 10.1% from April 2023. This is in line with the increase in prices in the year to September 2022 and it will also extend CPI protection to those who rely on the Standard Minimum Guarantee in Pension Credit at a cost of £700 million above the statutory minimum requirement.

Other elements of Pension Credit will also increase by 10.1%, including the additional amounts for disabled people and carers, and the threshold for access to the Savings Credit for those who reached State Pension age before April 2016.

The current Cold Weather Payment scheme represents a contribution towards additional heating costs, paid at the time of need.

The government understands the pressures people are facing with the cost of living and has taken further decisive action to support people with their energy bills. The government’s Energy Price Guarantee will save a typical British household around £900 this winter, based on what energy price would have been under the current price cap – reducing bills by roughly a third. This is in addition to the over £37bn of cost of living support announced earlier this year which includes the £400 non-repayable discount to eligible households provided through the Energy Bills Support Scheme.

Around two thirds of police funding comes from central Government grants, as well as additional funding for specific purposes like crime reduction programmes. The remaining funding is drawn from a share of council tax known as “precept”. In total for 2022-23, the Government will provide around £10bn of grant funding to PCCs, with up to £4.9bn drawn from police precept.

Setting precept levels is a decision for elected Police and Crime Commissioners, taking into account local priorities. Central Government set upper limits on the amount that precept may be increased each year in England. Any proposed increase above that limit is subject to a local referendum. Council tax policy in Wales is a matter for the devolved Government.