The Government is committed to reducing child poverty and supporting low-income families. We will spend around £276bn through the welfare system in Great Britain in 2023/24 including around £124bn on people of working age and their children.

From April, we uprated benefit rates by 10.1%. In order to increase the number of households who can benefit from these uprating decisions the benefit cap levels have also increased by the same amount.

With 1.05 million job vacancies across the UK, our focus remains firmly on supporting individuals, including parents, to move into, and progress in work, an approach which is based on clear evidence about the importance of employment - particularly where it is full-time - in substantially reducing the risks of child poverty and in improving long-term outcomes for families and children. The latest statistics show that in 2021/22 children living in workless households were around 5 times more likely to be in absolute poverty after housing costs than those where all adults work.

To support those who are in work, from 1 April 2023, the National Living Wage (NLW) increased by 9.7% to £10.42 an hour for workers aged 23 and over - the largest ever cash increase for the NLW.

At the Spring Budget, the Chancellor announced an ambitious package of measures designed to support people wherever they live in the UK to enter work, increase their working hours and extend their working lives.

We are investing billions in additional childcare support for parents of toddlers, investing in wraparound childcare in schools, and increasing financial support for, and expectations of, parents claiming Universal Credit.

This government understands the pressures people are facing with the cost of living which is why we are providing total support of over £94bn over 2022-23 and 2023-24 to help households and individuals with the rising bills.

For people who require additional support, the Household Support Fund has been extended until March 2024. This year long extension allows Local Authorities in England to continue to provide discretionary support to those most in need in response to the significantly rising cost of living. The Devolved Administrations will receive consequential Barnett funding, as with all England-only investment, to spend at their discretion.

For the period April 2023 to March 2024, the total Household Support Fund allocation for North Lincolnshire is £2,647,785.53.

The NHS Long Term Plan commits to increasing investment into National Health Service mental health services by at least £2.3 billion a year by March 2024. Part of this increased investment will enable an additional 345,000 children and young people to be able to access NHS funded mental health support, including through appointments with children and adolescent mental health services by March 2024.

To support this, our aim is to grow the mental health workforce by an additional 27,000 staff by March 2024. December 2022 figures show an increase of over 8,900, full-time equivalent staff in the mental health workforce compared to December 2021 and over 20,700 more compared to December 2010.

We are making good progress on expanding access to mental health care for children and young people year on year. 689,621 children and young people in England aged under 18 years old were supported with at least one contact in the year up to July 2022 compared to 618,537 in the year up to July 2021.

In February 2022, the National Health Service published a delivery plan setting out a clear vision for how the NHS will recover and reduce waiting times for elective services including elective surgery for children and young people.

Steps being taken include increasing capacity, seeking alternate capacity in other trusts or the independent sector, and engaging with patients to understand their choices.

To support this recovery the Government plans to spend more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25, in addition to the £2 billion Elective Recovery Fund and £700 million Targeted Investment Fund already made available to systems in 2021/22 to help drive up and protect elective activity.

Having virtually met our target to eliminate long waits of two years or more for elective procedures in July, we have also made significant progress in tackling waits of 78 weeks or more for elective services including elective surgery for children. NHS England will soon publish statistics that demonstrate what has been achieved to date.

Parents will have contact with a number of health care professionals including midwives, general practitioners (GPs) and health visitors, who are trained in child development and early identification of abnormalities, such as venous malformations and can advise parents where there are concerns or refer to specialist services. The newborn infant physical examination should be performed within 72 hours of birth by a qualified practitioner. A second examination is performed at six to eight weeks of age, usually by a GP, to identify abnormalities that develop or subsequently become apparent.

The department is firmly committed to ensuring that children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), including those with visual impairments, receive the support they need to achieve in their early years, at school and college.

We recognise that children with visual impairments have specific needs and, therefore, it is a legal requirement for qualified teachers of classes of pupils who have sensory impairments, to hold the relevant mandatory qualification (MQSI). Providers must be approved by my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, to offer these qualifications.

The department intends to develop a new approval process to determine providers of MQSIs from the start of academic year 2023/24. Our aim is to ensure a steady supply of teachers of children with visual, hearing, and multi-sensory impairment, in both specialist and mainstream settings.

We realise that this is an incredibly difficult time for students and are aware of the disproportionate impact that the COVID-19 outbreak will have on some students.

It is for higher education (HE) providers as autonomous bodies to identify and address the needs of their student body and many providers have boosted their existing welfare services to ensure students are able to access the support they need.

I have written to Vice Chancellors at every opportunity, outlining that student welfare should remain a priority and convened a working group of representatives from the higher education and health sectors to specifically address the current and pressing issues that students are facing during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Going forward, HE providers should continue to be innovative in how they identify issues and support their students

The department has also worked closely with the Office for Students (OfS) to help clarify that providers can draw upon existing funding to increase hardship funds and support disadvantaged students impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak. Providers are able to use OfS Student Premium funding worth around £256 million for this academic year towards student hardship funds.

As announced last month, we are also making available up to £20 million of additional hardship funding to support those that need it most, particularly disadvantaged students.

Guidance from the National Association of Student Money Advisers includes students with children as a priority group for hardship support.

Students will normally qualify for Child Benefit if they are responsible for a child under 16 (or under 20 if they stay in approved education or training). Full-time students with children can also apply for Childcare Grant and Parents' Learning Allowance. Full-time students who are single parents or student couples, one or both of whom are responsible for a child, and part-time students responsible for a child can apply for Universal Credit.

The Government has provided a substantial package of support for individuals through this difficult time. Parents of children who are self-isolating under Government guidance may be eligible for “new style” Contributory Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) if they are ineligible for SSP and unable to work from home. The Government has made it easier for people to claim by removing the seven-day waiting period which means people can get support from day one.

Parents on lower incomes can also benefit from the Government’s temporary £20 per week increase to the Universal Credit standard allowance and Working Tax Credit basic element for 2020-21. This means that for a single Universal Credit claimant (25 or over), the standard allowance has increased from £317.82 to £409.89 per month. The Government has also suspended the Universal Credit Minimum Income Floor to support self-employed people on low incomes until the end of April. In addition, the Government has invested over £900 million this year, increasing the Local Housing Allowance rates for Housing Benefit and Universal Credit to the 30th percentile of market rents.

The Department published expectations of the quality of remote education for schools on 2 July 2020 as part of the schools guidance for full opening, and for Further Education (FE) providers in August 2020 as part of the autumn term guidance. Additional information on these publications can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/actions-for-schools-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak/guidance-for-full-opening-schools and https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-maintaining-further-education-provision/what-fe-colleges-and-providers-will-need-to-do-from-the-start-of-the-2020-autumn-term.

Where a pupil is unable to attend school because they are complying with clinical or public health advice, we expect schools to be able to immediately offer them access to remote education. This should be done in line with previous guidance and the Temporary Continuity Direction, which has been in effect since 22 October 2020.

On 1st October 2020, the Department announced a further remote education support package to help schools and FE colleges meet the remote education expectations set out in guidance and Direction. Many elements of the support package are already in place and more will be available over the coming months to schools and FE colleges. These can be accessed through the remote education service, available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/remote-education-during-coronavirus-covid-19.

The support package includes access to the right technology to deliver remote education, peer to peer training on how to use this effectively, and practical tools, good practice guidance and school-led webinars. This adds to existing support including the resources available from Oak National Academy, which provides video lessons across a broad range of subjects for every year group from Reception to Year 11. Oak National Academy will remain a free optional resource for the 2020-21 academic year, with further information available at: https://www.thenational.academy/.

As part of over £195 million invested to support remote education and access to online social care, the Department is making over 340,000 laptops and tablets available during the 2020 Autumn term to support disadvantaged children whose face-to-face education may be disrupted. Schools can order devices for critically extremely vulnerable children while they are not attending school by contacting covid.technology@education.gov.uk.