Asked by: Cat Eccles (Labour - Stourbridge)
Question
To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, what steps she is taking to help end discrimination against the trans community.
Answered by Nia Griffith - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Wales Office)
It is crucial that LGBT+ people are safe, included and protected from discrimination. To achieve this we must end the recent politics of division. Trans people are protected from harassment and discrimination on the basis of gender reassignment in the Equality Act 2010.
Work is already underway to fulfil the commitments set out in the Government’s manifesto, advancing the rights and protections afforded to trans people including: delivering a trans-inclusive ban on conversion practices; ensuring that all trans people receive appropriate and high-quality health care; and equalising all existing strands of hate crime to make transphobic hate crime an aggravated offence.
Asked by: Cat Eccles (Labour - Stourbridge)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps has she taken to ensure (a) fairness and (b) transparency in the allocation of social housing.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Local housing authorities set their own allocation schemes, governed by a legal framework set by central government. This allows councils to design schemes in a way that best meets local needs.
Local housing authorities must publish a summary of their allocation scheme and ensure that advice and information is available free of charge to everyone in their area about the right to apply for an allocation of accommodation.
Applicants have the right to information that will enable them to assess how their application is likely to be treated under the authority’s allocation scheme, including whether they are likely to fall within any of the priority categories and whether accommodation appropriate to their needs is likely to be made available.
Allocation schemes must also be framed so as to give applicants the right to be informed of certain decisions and the right to review certain decisions.
To ensure that the most vulnerable in society can access the housing support they need, this government has exempted domestic abuse victims and young care leavers, alongside veterans, from local connection tests to facilitate their access to social housing. We will be updating statutory guidance to reflect these changes and will keep this guidance under review.
Asked by: Cat Eccles (Labour - Stourbridge)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Budget Statement 2024, the Spring Statement 2025 and the Spending Review 2025, what forecast she has made of levels of child poverty during this Parliament.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department publishes the estimated impact of specific policies where appropriate. The Department, for example, recently made public the impact of the expansion of the Free School meal extension announced as part of the Spending Review 2025. The impact assessment can be found here [Free School Meals expansion - Impact on poverty levels - GOV.UK].
The impact demonstrated that Free School Meals will lift 100,000 children out of poverty by the end of parliament, establishing a long-term Crisis and Resilience Fund supported by £1 billion a year [including Barnett impact]
Delivering our manifesto commitment to tackle child poverty is a priority for this Government. The Child Poverty Taskforce is progressing work to publish the Child Poverty Strategy in autumn that will deliver fully funded measures to tackle the structural and root causes of child poverty.
The Strategy will look at levers across four key themes of increasing incomes, reducing essential costs, increasing financial resilience; and better local support especially in the early years. This will build on the reform plans underway across government and work underway in Devolved Governments.
As a significant downpayment ahead of Strategy publication, we have already taken substantive action across major drivers of child poverty through Spending Review 2025. This includes an expansion of Free School Meals that will lift 100,000 children out of poverty by the end of the parliament, establishing a long-term Crisis and Resilience Fund supported by £1 billion a year (including Barnett impact), investing in local family support services, and extending the £3 bus fare cap. We also announced the biggest boost to social and affordable housing investment in a generation and £13.2 billion including Barnett impact across the Parliament for the Warm Homes Plan.
Our commitments at the 2025 Spending Review come on top of the existing action we have taken which includes expanding free breakfast clubs, capping the number of branded school uniform items children are expected to wear, increasing the national minimum wage for those on the lowest incomes and supporting 700,000 of the poorest families by introducing a Fair Repayment Rate on Universal Credit deductions.
Asked by: Cat Eccles (Labour - Stourbridge)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what recent assessment she has made of the potential merits of holding the second stage of the Leveson Inquiry.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government has clearly laid out its priorities in the manifesto and in the King’s speech, and the second part of Leveson is not among them.
Asked by: Cat Eccles (Labour - Stourbridge)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department has taken to facilitate accessibility to the arts for young people outside of the visual media sector.
Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Improving access to the arts for children and young people is a priority of this Government.
To increase children and young people’s access to enrichment opportunities in the arts and culture, alongside sports and wider youth services, the recently announced Dormant Assets Scheme Strategy has allocated £132.5 million in England towards youth. In addition, 79% of Arts Council England’s National Portfolio Organisations work with children and young people, such as theatres, opera and dance companies. For example, the Royal Opera House works with schools and community groups across the country to engage people in opera and ballet.
Arts Council England funds the National Youth Dance Company and National Youth Music Organisations which play a vital role in increasing young people's access to the arts in the UK by offering high-quality training and performance opportunities, and by conducting outreach to schools and communities with higher proportions of young people from underrepresented and disadvantaged backgrounds.
The Department for Education has also launched an expert-led, independent Curriculum and Assessment Review covering ages 5 to 18, chaired by Professor Becky Francis CBE. The Review seeks to deliver a rich, broad, inclusive and innovative curriculum that readies young people for life and work. This includes creative subjects such as art, music and drama.
Asked by: Cat Eccles (Labour - Stourbridge)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps is she taking with Cabinet colleagues to help reduce child poverty.
Answered by Darren Jones - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The government is determined to tackle child poverty and will publish an ambitious strategy this autumn that will address its structural and root causes. As a downpayment on that strategy, we are expanding Free School Meals in England to all children with a parent receiving Universal Credit (UC), lifting 100,000 children out of poverty by the end of this parliament.
The Spending Review also funded the biggest boost to social and affordable housing in a generation, committed £13.2 billion for the Warm Homes Plan, and provided £1 billion a year including Barnett impact to enable a new, multi-year Crisis and Resilience Fund. Beyond this, we have increased the National Living Wage by 6.7%, introduced the Fair Repayment Rate so that around 1.2 million families keep more of their UC award each month, expanded the Warm Home Discount to every billpayer on means-tested benefits, and announced an uplift to the UC Standard Allowance, which will rise to 5% above inflation by 2029-30.
Asked by: Cat Eccles (Labour - Stourbridge)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what recent discussions she has had with the BBC on the balance of political views in their programming.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Secretary of State was clear in her statement to Parliament that the scenes from the Bob Vylan performance at Glastonbury were utterly appalling and unacceptable. This Government will not tolerate antisemitism – it has absolutely no place in our society and we will be unrelenting in our work to root it out and it should not be given a platform.
The BBC is editorially independent, and decisions on what content to broadcast, and how they broadcast that content, are a matter for the BBC. However, it is right that the BBC has acknowledged that the livestream of the performance should have come off air and that they are reviewing their guidance. There remain very serious questions at the highest levels of the BBC about operational oversight and the way in which editorial standards are implemented.
As set out to Parliament, the Secretary of State has spoken to both the BBC Director General and Chair directly and has written to the Chair to ask for an urgent and detailed explanation about what immediate steps they intend to take. We expect answers to these questions without delay and expect lessons to be learned and rapid action to be taken.
Ofcom is also in the process of obtaining further information from the BBC as a matter of urgency, including what procedures were in place to ensure compliance with its own editorial guidelines.
Charter Review will consider editorial standards for the BBC. The Government will also build on the Media Act and Ofcom’s Public Service Media review by taking action to support public service media and the wider television ecosystem. As set out in the Creative Industries Sector Plan, the Government will update the policy and regulatory framework to respond to the changing market and promote a more level playing field, while maintaining universal access to distinctive and trusted public service content. This work will complement the BBC Charter Review.
Asked by: Cat Eccles (Labour - Stourbridge)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps she is taking to help reduce reoffending rates.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
We are tackling the root causes of reoffending by investing in a range of interventions which address offenders’ underlying criminogenic needs and support their rehabilitation journey. This includes education, employment, accommodation and substance misuse treatment services.
We continue to work with prisons to improve offenders’ access to purposeful activity, such as education, which we know reduces the likelihood of reoffending. We have also recently launched regional Employment Councils, which will bring businesses together with Probation Services and the Department for Work and Pensions to support offenders in prison and the community.
Recognising that reoffending is twice as high among those released homeless, compared to those released to accommodation, we are expanding our community accommodation service; and working closely with the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government and other Departments on a new cross-government strategy to put us back on track to ending homelessness and to improve outcomes over this Parliament.
We are also reforming sentencing to ensure that we never run out of prison places again. Community sentences have been shown to be more effective than short custodial sentences at reducing reoffending. We are working closely with the Department for Health and Social Care to support the increased use of Drug Rehabilitation Requirements and Alcohol Treatment Requirements as robust alternatives to custody, in line with the recommendations of the Independent Sentencing Review.
Asked by: Cat Eccles (Labour - Stourbridge)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of released convicts go on to reoffend within two-years of their release.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The proven reoffending rate and methodology is calculated using a one-year follow up period. Providing this information for a new two-year reoffending measure would be of disproportionate cost.
The proven reoffending rate for adult offenders released from custody was 37.5% for the 2022/23 offender cohort (latest year for which reoffending data is available).
Asked by: Cat Eccles (Labour - Stourbridge)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, if he will take legislative steps to regulate AI.
Answered by Feryal Clark - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Most AI systems are regulated at point of use by our existing regulators, and a range of rules already apply to AI systems, like data protection and competition legislation. That’s why, in response to the AI Action Plan, the Government committed to working with regulators to boost their capabilities.
However, advanced AI systems pose distinct opportunities and risks. This is why the Government intends to bring forward AI legislation, to deliver on our manifesto commitment and ensure we can safely realise AI’s potential for economic growth and progress. We will launch a consultation on legislative proposals later this year.