Question

To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, what discussions she has had with organisations impacted by the delay in the publication of the EHRC Code of Practice on single-sex spaces.

Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)

The Code of Practice for Services, Public Functions and Associations provides guidance on all protected characteristics, not solely sex and gender reassignment. This is a legally complex document which will have an impact on service providers up and down the country. We are working at pace to review it with the care it deserves.

We have set out our expectation for service providers to follow the law as clarified by the Supreme Court in For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers ruling and seek specialist legal advice where necessary.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of Local Authorities commissioning gambling harms prevention; and of their capacity to do so.

Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

In April 2025, the statutory gambling levy came into effect to fund the research, prevention, and treatment of gambling-related harm across Great Britain. In its first year, the levy has raised nearly £120 million, with 30% allocated to gambling harms prevention activity.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which is responsible for the implementation and oversight of the gambling levy, remains confident that levy commissioners are best placed to make decisions on the future of their work programmes regarding the research, prevention, and treatment of gambling-related harms.

As prevention commissioners, the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) in England and the Scottish and Welsh administrations continue to work collaboratively on the development of their respective work programmes, drawing on expertise from across the system. OHID will employ a ‘test and learn’ approach as they transition to the new levy system, to better-understand what interventions are most effective in preventing gambling harms at a local, regional, and national level.

Local authorities are well placed to play a central role in preventing gambling‑related harms across local communities. An OHID-led stocktake of local authority activity in this space indicated that whilst some activity is already underway, there is appetite within local authorities to do more.

OHID are developing a fund for all upper-tier local authorities across England, which will aim to strengthen local capacity to tackle gambling‑related harm by facilitating improved understanding of local need and supporting the development of effective local and regional networks. This will be delivered alongside the Gambling Harms Prevention: Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise grant fund which launched in January to fund voluntary, community, and social enterprise organisations to deliver prevention activity across England until March 2028. Further information on the Gambling Harms Prevention: Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise grant fund is avaiable at the following link:

https://find-government-grants.service.gov.uk/grants/gambling-harms-prevention-voluntary-community-and-social-enterprise-vcse-grant-fund-1