My hon. Friend from nearly the city of Southend is absolutely right to mention the importance of keeping the right level of trains running. I mentioned that we funded £10.1 billion—an unprecedented amount—to keep these trains running during the covid crisis to make sure that essential workers can get to work. Of course people should not be travelling to work unless they cannot do that work from home. He will be interested to know that there have been discussions with Build UK and the Construction Leadership Council, particularly on that c2c line and concern about those trains coming into Canning Town. We will keep a close eye on this, and I have asked Sir Peter Hendy, the chair of Network Rail, to also work to ensure that we are alerted as soon as there are any signs of congestion and make sure that these lines can operate safely.

The 2020 spending review provided a total of £10.1 billion of confirmed funding for the Department for Transport to support passenger rail services in England during the covid outbreak.

The Government has set out a plan for recovery that focusses on backing business, improving skills, and creating jobs. For example, the £30 billion Plan for Jobs provides new funding to ensure more people will get tailored support to help them find work. This includes launching the £2 billion Kickstart Scheme fund and investing £2.9 billion in the Restart programme over 3 years to support and encourage the UK’s labour market. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is also doubling the number of jobcentre Work Coaches to provide intensive support for both young people and the newly unemployed.

Additional measures include committing £8 million for digital skills boot camps, increasing apprenticeship opportunities, expanding sector-based work academies programme (SWAPs), launching the Job Finding Support Service, and increasing the funding for the Flexible Support Fund by £150 million in Great Britain.

Businesses can also access tailored advice through our Freephone Business Support Helpline, online via the Business Support website or through their local Growth Hubs in England. Furthermore, the Recovery Advice for Business scheme, supported by the Government and hosted on the Enterprise Nation website, offers small firms access to free, one-to-one advice with an expert adviser to help them through the coronavirus pandemic and to prepare for long-term recovery. Further information can be found at: https://www.enterprisenation.com/freesupport/.

The DC scheme is delivered internally by DWP, using DWP staff and other internal resources. There is no external resources budget set for it.

Most airport operators whether in the commercial private sector, or in public/private partnerships operate as private commercial undertakings.

In this regard, the UK’s aviation industry operates essentially without subsidy. It is therefore for local authorities to determine any additional funding for any aerodromes they own. Additionally, provision of public funding for airports needs to comply with the European Community State aid guidelines for airports and airlines.

No estimate has been made centrally of the potential annual savings to the public purse from providing patients with timely nutritional care.

The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 cover the fundamental standards below which care must not fall, including meeting the nutritional and hydration needs of users. The regulations, which are considered during Care Quality Commission inspections, specify that people who use services must have their nutritional needs assessed and mean that the risk of malnutrition and dehydration while they receive care and treatment is reduced.

To help tackle malnutrition in acute and community settings, NHS England published guidance on ‘Commissioning excellent nutrition and hydration’ in October 2015. The implementation of this guidance is a matter for the local National Health Service. The guidance is available at:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/commissioning/nut-hyd/

Since the publication of the independent review of the Early Access to Medicines Scheme (EAMS) the Government has made a number of improvements. Partners have worked together to provide updated guidance on the benefits and entry requirements for EAMS and are developing further guidance on collecting real world data in the scheme to support the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence appraisal.

Furthermore, the EAMS task group exists to provide a forum for industry to engage with and make suggestions to the Government, the devolved administrations and arm’s length bodies regarding EAMS, as per the recommendations of the 2016 review.

A support scheme to fund evidence collection in the Early Access to Medicines Scheme (EAMS) by small to medium size pharmaceutical companies will be launched soon.

In addition, the members EAMS task group will continue to collaborate to improve existing processes and create more learning materials for those involved in the scheme.

Since EAMS was launched in 2014, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority has awarded 50 promising innovative medicines designations and 18 positive scientific opinions as part of the scheme.

My hon. Friend has worked tirelessly with his neighbouring colleagues in Essex to secure not only the £41 million to which he refers. In fact, that figure is a component of the £118 million capital allocation made to the Mid and South Essex Sustainability and Transformation Partnership area in the Budget. This will provide significant investment not only in his local hospital in Southend, as he as mentioned, but in Basildon and in Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford. I am sure that he and his colleagues in Essex welcome that.

The autumn Budget committed to backing the NHS, so that by 2019-20, it will have received an additional £2.8 billion of revenue funding for frontline services, including £337 million for winter allocated last Friday and £3.5 billion of new capital investment by 2022-23 to transform the estate.

Information on the funding band on apprenticeship standards and frameworks by level can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/apprenticeship-funding-bands.

Apprenticeships are allocated to funding bands based on the costs of delivering training and assessment. There are a wide range of factors that influence the funding band, including the length of the apprenticeship and whether it is an apprenticeship framework or standard. The Institute for Apprenticeships has been responsible for advising the department on the allocation of funding bands since April 2017.

The Institute for Apprenticeships is an independent body with responsibility for the development and approval of apprenticeship standards, and for deciding funding band recommendations for those standards. I have therefore asked the Institute to write to the hon. Member for Southend West directly and respond to the question regarding the number of apprenticeship programmes that are awaiting funding band decisions.

A copy of that response will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses when it is available.

Levy paying employers are able to spend their levy funds on both apprenticeship frameworks and standards. There are over 200 apprenticeship standards which have been approved for delivery in addition to the 136 frameworks which are still available for delivery, offering a wide range of apprenticeships to suit business’ needs.

Apprenticeships funding expires from an employer’s account after 24 months if it has not been utilised. The government will distribute unused funding to committed employers, who can use this to fund further apprenticeship training.

The Institute of Apprenticeships is an independent body and carefully examine all funding recommendations, to ensure value for money in the apprenticeships system.

The additional £325 million announced by the Chancellor at the spring Budget is for use solely by Sustainability and Transformation Plans area capital bid projects. These funds are subject to the usual assurance processes by NHS England and Her Majesty’s Treasury.

My hon. Friend is a tireless advocate of the case for Southend. Indeed, we met in November to discuss some of these issues. It is worth pointing out that the Government have supported improvements to the A127, with more than £35 million of local growth funding. Furthermore, local authorities will have the opportunity to bid into the £490 million local transport pot as part of the national productivity investment fund.

We recognise the importance of infrastructure provision in all regions of the United Kingdom. That is why at autumn statement 2016 we committed additional capital to fund high-value economic infrastructure through the national productivity investment fund. We are committed to putting local and regional needs at the heart of this fund. For example, we are spending £1.1 billion on local projects to improve our existing transport networks. That will deliver improvements to hundreds of roads across the country.

The new funding formula is designed to ensure that funding is properly matched to need. It uses up-to-date data so that children who face entrenched barriers to their education receive the teaching and support that they need. I recognise that my hon. Friend will be disappointed by the impact of the proposals, on the basis of illustrative figures for the 2016-17 year for schools in Southend. As he knows, we are conducting a full consultation on the formula’s details, and I know he will continue to make his views known through that process.