Asked by: Jas Athwal (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to ensure timely chid maintenance payments for single parents.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Children in separated and single-parent families are statistically more likely to experience poverty compared to those in non-separated families. Through both statutory and non-statutory arrangements, Child Maintenance payments currently help keep around 120,000 children out of poverty each year.
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) is committed to ensuring that parents meet their financial responsibilities in full and on time. Recent system changes enable us to identify at-risk cases earlier, allowing caseworkers to intervene promptly where partial payments are made and before payments stop altogether.
Where parents fail to meet their obligations, the CMS will not hesitate to use the full range of enforcement powers available. These powers are applied fairly and in the best interests of children and separated families.
Asked by: Jas Athwal (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of establishing a statutory Code of Practice on the Sikh articles of faith to prevent discrimination.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office has made no assessment of the potential merits of establishing a statutory Code of Practice on Sikh articles of faith to prevent discrimination as religious discrimination is not a matter for the Home Office.
Asked by: Jas Athwal (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps her Department is taking to help tackle AI-driven (a) abuse and (b) discrimination.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Online Safety Act 2023 places robust duties on user-to-user and search services to tackle abuse and discrimination where it is illegal or harmful to children. These duties apply regardless of whether content is created by AI or not. Services must implement effective systems to prevent, identify, and swiftly remove illegal material. Additionally, in-scope service providers have a responsibility to protect children from ‘priority’ content that is harmful to children, which includes violent content or content that is hateful or abusive based on certain characteristics. Services must also put in place adequate mechanisms for users to report bullying and online harassment.
Asked by: Jas Athwal (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps her Department is taking to ban nudification apps from online app stores.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The government is concerned about the proliferation of AI-enabled products and services that facilitate the creation of deepfake non-consensual intimate images.
Government legislated to ban the non-consensual creation of sexually explicit deepfake images in the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, ensuring that offenders face the appropriate punishments for this atrocious harm. The government is aware of the concerns over the tools themselves and is looking into this closely.
Asked by: Jas Athwal (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps her Department is taking to make harmful pornographic content illegal on online platforms.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Online Safety Act protects users from harmful and illegal pornographic content. Extreme pornography is a priority offence, meaning that services must proactively mitigate and remove such content.
In addition, the Secretary of State and Victims Minister are introducing a new offence via the Crime and Policing Bill that will crack down on violent pornography, criminalising the possession and publication of images depicting strangulation and suffocation. This will also be designated as a priority offence under the Online Safety Act, meaning platforms will be required to take proactive steps to prevent users from seeing illegal strangulation and suffocation content.
Since 25 July 2025, services that host, publish or allow the sharing of pornography must also implement highly-effective age assurance to prevent children encountering pornographic content.
These measures are part of the government's Plan for Change to halve violence against women and girls, sending a strong message that dangerous and sexist behaviour will not be tolerated.
Asked by: Jas Athwal (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many schools reported deepfake intimate image abuse in 2024-25.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Schools are under no obligation to report data on deepfake intimate image abuse to the department.
The department’s statutory safeguarding guidance, 'Keeping children safe in education', which supports schools and colleges to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, includes robust advice on how to protect pupils online. The guidance is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/keeping-children-safe-in-education--2.
Asked by: Jas Athwal (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions her Department has had with relevant stakeholders on the use of proactive technology to (a) identify and (b) tackle (i) deepfakes and (ii) AI generated (A) intimate image abuse and (B) child sexual abuse images.
Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Home Office actively engages with relevant stakeholders on the use of proactive technology to identify and tackle AI-enabled harms, including deepfakes, intimate image abuse and child sexual abuse images.
Working in partnership with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, the Alan Turing Institute, and the Accelerated Capability Environment, the Home Office has led the Deepfake Detection Challenge. This initiative brought together experts and stakeholders to develop and evaluate detection tools, which are essential in addressing serious harms including online child sexual abuse. As offenders increasingly exploit AI, we must harness its potential for good.
A key outcome has been the creation of a tool which enables scientific evaluation of detection technologies, offering actionable metrics to support informed procurement decisions and helping end users select the most effective solutions. This capability is now being considered as a potential global standard and the next phase will continue to identify and benchmark AI-driven solutions.
In addition, we are engaging with industry across the AI ecosystem, recognising their vital role in mitigating and preventing AI-enabled harms.
The Home Office has also introduced world leading measures, becoming the first country to criminalise the possession, creation and distribution of AI tools to generate child sexual abuse material, as well as the possession of paedophile manuals that instruct others on creating such tools.
The Government remains committed to investing in innovation to combat these appalling crimes and will continue to collaborate with relevant stakeholders to do so.
Asked by: Jas Athwal (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of nudification apps on boys and girls under 18.
Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Government is aware of concerns about the impacts of nudification apps on children and in facilitating violence against women and girls. AI-generated child sexual abuse material can have direct impact on real children. Offenders use AI to create photorealistic abuse imagery that often features real children, for example children known to the offender or existing victims. We also know that offenders are using AI imagery to groom and blackmail children.
We are taking action on non-consensual intimate image abuse, having criminalised the creation of intimate images without consent (or reasonable belief in consent) in the Data (Use and Access) Act. This built on the existing offences introduced by the Online Safety Act for sharing, or threatening to share intimate images, including deepfakes.
Furthermore, in the Crime and Policing Bill, this Government is protecting children from the growing threat of online predators, by becoming the first country in the world to criminalise AI tools which generate child sexual abuse images.
We are going even further in the Crime and Policing Bill by introducing offences of taking an intimate image without consent, and installing equipment with the intent of taking an intimate image without consent, or a reasonable belief in consent.
Regarding a prohibition of ‘nudification’ apps, the Government is actively considering what action is needed to ensure that any intervention in this area is effective, and will provide an update in due course.
Asked by: Jas Athwal (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps she is taking to help reduce barriers to home ownership in London for first-time buyers.
Answered by Lucy Rigby - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
The most sustainable long-term method to improve housing affordability and help people into homeownership is to increase the supply of housing. The government is committed to building 1.5 million homes this parliament (compared to the 1 million homes delivered the last parliament). In December, we announced major changes to the National Planning Policy Framework, including the restoration of mandatory housing targets and changes to allow development on ‘grey belt’. These reforms were forecast by the OBR to deliver 170,000 additional homes and add £6.8bn to the economy by 2029/30.
We have worked with the FCA and the Bank of England, who have clarified and increased the flexibility of their mortgage regulations. This is helping more customers – especially first-time buyers – to borrow what they need to buy the homes they want, while retaining protections so that lending remains affordable and responsible.
Asked by: Jas Athwal (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps she is taking to help first-time buyers in (a) London and (b) general.
Answered by Lucy Rigby - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
The most sustainable long-term method to improve housing affordability and help people into homeownership is to increase the supply of housing. The government is committed to building 1.5 million homes this parliament (compared to the 1 million homes delivered the last parliament). In December, we announced major changes to the National Planning Policy Framework, including the restoration of mandatory housing targets and changes to allow development on ‘grey belt’. These reforms were forecast by the OBR to deliver 170,000 additional homes and add £6.8bn to the economy by 2029/30.
We have worked with the FCA and the Bank of England, who have clarified and increased the flexibility of their mortgage regulations. This is helping more customers – especially first-time buyers – to borrow what they need to buy the homes they want, while retaining protections so that lending remains affordable and responsible.