Asked by: Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps her Department is taking to ensure Homes England allocate appropriate funding for developments that provide new wheelchair accessible homes.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Capital funding guidance for the Affordable Homes Programme 2021-26 sets out that certain categories of supported housing for older and disabled people should be built to be wheelchair accessible.
In July 2024, the government published targets for the 2021-26 Affordable Homes Programme which confirmed that 5% of homes delivered in the programme will be for supported housing.
Asked by: Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of steps taken by his Department to (a) track the final destination of F-35 components and (b) ensure F-35 components are not used by the Israeli military.
Answered by Douglas Alexander - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
Once parts are exported from the UK to the global F-35 programme, the UK does not have access to information about the movement of individual components, and does not have control over whether components in the global spares pool or aircraft assembly facilities are used for specific customer nations or not. However, the UK has suspended the export of F-35 components directly to Israel, where these are for use by Israel.
The only way to prevent UK-produced parts reaching Israel would therefore be for the UK Government to stop the export of parts to the entire F-35 programme, which would prejudice the security of the UK and our allies.
Asked by: Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the proposed changes to Personal Independence Payment in the her Department's Green Paper entitled Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working, published on 18 March 2025, on levels of poverty among carers in Battersea.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
No assessment has been made on this basis.
The government's impact assessment regarding Health and Disability Reform is available at Spring Statement 2025 health and disability benefit reforms – Impacts.
This government is committed to supporting unpaid carers, who provide invaluable support to elderly or disabled people.
As the Green Paper sets out, we will consider any impacts our reforms might have on benefits for unpaid carers as part of our wider consideration of responses to the consultation and as we develop our detailed proposals for change. We will also continue to work closely with the Department for Health and Social Care to ensure everyone’s health and care needs are met.
We are taking other action to improve Carer’s Allowance separate to the Green Paper. We have pegged the weekly Carer’s Allowance earnings limit to 16 hours’ work at National Living Wage (NLW) levels, and in future it will increase when the NLW increases. The Carer’s Allowance earnings limit increased to be £196 a week net earnings on 7 April 2025, compared to £151 in 24/25. This is the largest ever increase in the earnings limit since Carer’s Allowance was introduced in 1976 and the highest percentage increase since 2001.
Asked by: Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps she is taking to help increase the number of black girls participating in sport.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government believes that opportunities to play sport and get physically active should be available to everyone.
We recognise that there are barriers which prevent some people from getting active with women and girls and those from ethnically diverse communities less likely to be active than other groups.
We are committed to breaking down the barriers that contribute to these persisting inequalities in participation and want to ensure that everyone can experience the physical, mental and social benefits that come with being active.
As part of this, our Arm's Length Body for grassroots sport, Sport England, prioritises tackling inequalities by targeting investment towards the most inactive groups.
Sport England’s This Girl Can campaign has inspired millions of women and girls to get active. The next phase of This Girl Can, Tackling Inequalities, primarily targets women who are most likely to be inactive in society, including those from black backgrounds.
Sport England anticipates that 1.6 million women who are less active will be active as a result of the campaign by 2028. This is in addition to already active women who may report being motivated by the campaign.
Asked by: Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help reduce child poverty in Battersea constituency.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Tackling child poverty is at the heart of this Government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity. The Child Poverty Taskforce is progressing work to publish its strategy as soon as possible. We are exploring all available levers to drive forward short and long-term actions across government to reduce child poverty.
The strategy will look 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.
The vital work of the Taskforce comes alongside our commitments to triple investment in breakfast clubs to over £30 million, introduce a Fair Repayment Rate for deductions from Universal Credit, improve the adequacy of the standard allowance with the first sustained above inflation rise in the basic rate of Universal Credit since it was introduced and increase the National Living Wage to £12.21 an hour to boost the pay of three million workers.
Asked by: Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what recent steps Government Departments have taken to comply with the Supreme Court's ruling on For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
We will review and update policy wherever necessary to ensure it complies with the latest legal requirements.
Asked by: Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether his Department has made any (a) formal or (b) informal assessment of the potential risk of genocide in Gaza.
Answered by Hamish Falconer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The UK's long-standing policy is that any formal determination as to whether genocide has occurred is a matter for a competent national or international court, rather than for governments or non-judicial bodies. It should be decided after consideration of all the evidence available in the context of a credible judicial process.
Asked by: Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, if he will have discussions with the Israeli government on the bombing of the European Hospital in Khan Younis on 13 May 2025.
Answered by Hamish Falconer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The recent attacks on the European Hospital in Khan Younis are deeply concerning. As the Foreign Secretary outlined in his statement on the 20th of May, Israel has repeatedly struck hospitals, and these have rendered the European hospital non-functional. In March, the UK, France and Germany called on Israel to do more to prevent harm to medical personnel and premises in the course of their military operations.
Amid Israel's expanded military operations, the healthcare system in Gaza is now on the brink of collapse. We remain gravely concerned by the lack of adequate medical care in Gaza as nearly all hospitals are damaged or partly destroyed according to the World Health Organization.
My officials and I are in regular dialogue with our Israeli counterparts on the protection of healthcare facilities in Gaza. We will continue to make both public and private representations to the Government of Israel to protect healthcare staff and facilities.
Asked by: Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department collects data on the ethnicity of applicants for (a) settled and (b) pre-settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
A detailed breakdown of the EU Settlement Scheme statistics is available to the public via GOV.UK. Within the latest published statistics, Immigration system statistics data tables - GOV.UK, a list of data fields sets out what data is collected, as part of the EU Settlement Scheme application.
Asked by: Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what quality controls her Department has put in place to help ensure that people accessing their digital immigration status receive accurate information.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
eVisas are a key part of delivering a border and immigration system which will be more digital and streamlined, a change that will enhance the applicant’s experience and increase the immigration system’s security and efficiency.
The transition to eVisas has seen millions of people already receiving and using eVisas successfully. By the end of April 2025 over 4.3 million people had created an online (UKVI) account to access their eVisa. Between Q4 2019 and Q1 2025, the 'view and prove' service has seen over 41.9 million views by individuals and over 6.3 million views by organisations checking immigration status.
The rollout of eVisas does not affect a person’s immigration status. The information in an eVisa is based on the information held on a person’s underlying immigration case, which is recorded in the same way as when we issued biometric residence permits. We have been recording this immigration case information digitally for over 20 years, on various caseworking systems, and if someone encounters an issue with their eVisa we can search those records to find their information and confirm their status.
If a person believes there is an error with their eVisa, they should report it to the Home Office using the dedicated ‘Report an error with your eVisa’ form which is available at: https://www.gov.uk/report-error-evisa.
We are continually improving our systems and welcome feedback on errors and how access to eVisas can be enhanced.