Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of reviewing the No Recourse to Public Funds income thresholds to ensure equity of eligibility for all children when expanding access to the free school meals to children from families in receipt of universal credit.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The department has permanently extended free school meal eligibility to children in all households with no recourse to public funds, provided they meet income thresholds set out in public guidance.
This ensures that children can access support regardless of their background or circumstances, including the immigration status of their parents.
The income thresholds for No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) households were designed to account for the differences in household income between NRPF households and those with access to additional state support to ensure parity.
The government has set out plans to extend free school meals to all children from households in receipt of Universal Credit from September 2026. The department continues to keep all aspects of the free school meals system under review.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress his Department has made on developing national guidance for Auditory Verbal therapy for deaf children since March 2025; and whether he plans to establish a timeline for publishing that guidance.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has plans to introduce monitoring arrangements to assess compliance with the updated school food standards once they are in force.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The department aims to revise the School Food Standards and is engaging with stakeholders to ensure they support our work to create the healthiest generation of children in history.
School governors and trustees have a statutory duty to ensure compliance, holding school leaders to account for meeting the School Food Standards. Through our review, we will engage with the sector on a range of matters, including improving compliance.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when he plans to launch the consultation on updating school food standards.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The department aims to revise the school food standards and is engaging with stakeholders to ensure they support our work to create the healthiest generation of children in history. We intend to consult on these revisions and further details on timings will be available in due course.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent progress he has made in meeting the 18-week referral-to-treatment standard in Washington and Gateshead South constituency.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Washington and Gateshead South constituency is served by the North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB). Performance against the 18-week Referral to Treatment standard for this ICB has improved from 68.9% to 70.5% since the Government came to office, and the waiting list has dropped by 11,854.
The Elective Reform Plan, which was published in January 2025, sets out the productivity and modernisation efforts needed to reach the 92% standard by March 2029, which improve patient care in the Washington and Gateshead South constituency and across England. We have set a national ambition that by March 2026, 65% of patients will wait no longer than 18 weeks, with every trust expected to deliver a minimum 5% improvement on current performance over that period. We are making progress in several areas including demand management, validation of waiting lists, diagnostics reform, including straight to test pathways, and clinically-led pathway reform in priority specialties.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many public sector workers have received an above-inflation pay rise in Washington and Gateshead South constituency since 5 July 2024.
Answered by James Murray - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
We value all our public sector workers, and pay awards reflect the important work that our nurses, teachers, doctors, prison officers and soldiers do to keep the country running.
The overwhelming majority of awards announced in 2025/26, including for all of the above workforces, announced are above the OBR’s forecast for CPI inflation over the 2025/26 pay year.
Whilst I cannot confirm the number of public sector workers in the Washington and Gateshead South constituency in receipt of those pay awards, all those workers set out above will benefit from the above inflation pay uplift.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of measures to reduce child poverty on children in Washington and Gateshead South constituency.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Estimates of the total impact on low income poverty levels, and the number of children gaining, from the main changes included in the strategy for the United Kingdom as a whole are available here: Child Poverty Strategy: Impact on low income poverty levels and children gaining in the UK: December 2025 - GOV.UK. Across the United Kingdom, the measures set out in the strategy are expected to reduce the number of children in poverty by 550,000 in the final year of this Parliament, compared to our estimates without these measures.
Estimates for the number of children and households that are expected to gain from the removal of two-child limit policy at constituency level are available here: Poverty impacts of social security changes at Budget 2025 - GOV.UK. The number of children who are expected to gain from the removal of the two-child limit policy in the Washington and Gateshead South constituency is 2,620.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to ensure adequate policing in Washington and Gateshead South constituency.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government’s Safer Streets Mission sets a clear expectation for policing to deliver safer communities and improved public confidence. An effective, well-supported police service is central to achieving this.
For 2025-26, a total of up to £422.2 million will be available for Northumbria Police through the police funding settlement, an overall increase of up to £28.8 million when compared to the 2024-25 settlement.
This includes:
It is for Chief Constables and directly elected PCCs, and Mayors with PCC functions, to make operational decisions based on their local knowledge and experience. This includes how best to allocate and deploy the resources at their disposal to provide an effective service to local communities.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many pensioners in Washington and Gateshead South constituency are covered by the pension triple lock.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
Caseload statistics for State Pensions are available via Stat-Xplore - Log in. The latest published data currently relate to the quarter ending May 2025.
The State Pensions Triple Lock applies to recipients of the core element of State Pension. Based on latest data, the number of pensioners resident in the Washington and Gateshead South constituency who are in receipt of the State Pension, and therefore covered by the Triple Lock, is 20,085.
This total has been adjusted to exclude a very small number of individuals, who receive only Graduated Retirement Benefit, a category of the Pre-2016 State Pension system, as such payments are uprated using CPI.
The constituency referenced above encompasses Gateshead South as well as the entire Washington area, including Washington Central, Washington South, Washington North, Washington East and Washington West.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, if his Department will meet with fireworks industry stakeholders, such as Fireworks Impact Coalition, to discuss calls for a comprehensive review of fireworks legislation.
Answered by Kate Dearden - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
I will continue to engage with businesses, consumer groups and charities to gather evidence on fireworks-related issues. I also recently met with the Scottish Government, and a number of MPs to discuss fireworks policy and hope to meet with the Fireworks Impact coalition in the near future.
The insights from these discussions, as well as other evidence gathered on the impact of fireworks will guide future action.