Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, on what date he will publish the Warm Homes Plan.
Answered by Martin McCluskey - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
We are working across government on a comprehensive Warm Homes Plan to cut energy bills for good. We will publish more details soon.
Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if her Department will hypothecate funding saved from hotel closures for legal aid to reduce the backlog of asylum claims.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
As per the Spending Review the Government has committed to delivering savings of £1.1bn by 28/29 from exiting hotels and these savings have been factored into the Home Office budget. The Spending Review settlement includes transformation funding to accelerate the transformation of the asylum system and end the costly use of asylum hotels in this Parliament by clearing the asylum backlog, increasing appeals capacity and continuing to return those with no right to be here. This will deliver the Plan for Change commitment to restore order to the asylum system.
Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to increase flood resilience in (a) Bermondsey and Old Southwark constituency and (b) other flood-prone areas.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government, through the Environment Agency (EA), is investing £2.65 billion between 2024/25 and 2025/26 to build and maintain flood and coastal defences, better protecting around 52,000 properties from flooding.
The Thames Barrier and tidal wall defences provide significant protection from tidal flood risk to Bermondsey and Old Southwark constituency. The EA is managing tidal flood risk through this century by implementing the Thames Estuary 2100 Plan. This will require defences to be raised by 0.5m by 2050 to keep pace with climate change on top of ongoing maintenance of these assets.
Last year London Borough of Southwark completed the Lost Peck Flood Alleviation scheme supported by £1.39 million of EA capital grant. This improved surface water flood risk to 207 residential properties in neighbouring constituencies. The Borough and the EA continue to work together to develop a pipeline of surface water flood alleviation schemes throughout London Borough of Southwark.
Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists's report entitled A work in progress: evaluating the women’s health strategy, published in July 2025, whether he plans to update his Department's Women's health strategy for England to align it with the 10 Year Health Plan.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The 2022 Women's Health Strategy identified many important issues which remain valid, and we have already made excellent progress turning the commitments in the strategy into tangible action. This includes delivering 5.2 million extra appointments, tackling gynaecology waiting lists using the private sector, and we will shortly make emergency hormonal contraception free in pharmacies. We now need to update the Women’s Health Strategy to align with the 10-Year Health Plan and identify areas where we need to go further.
Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if he will take steps to require short-term holiday lets to (a) provide a fire extinguisher and (b) meet the same minimum fire safety standards as other rental accommodation.
Answered by Samantha Dixon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Article 13 of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 requiresthose responsible for fire safety in their premises to, where necessary, ensure it is equipped with appropriate fire-fighting equipment.
We published guidance for short term lets in April 2023 titled A Guide to making your small paying-guest-accommodation safe from fire which expands on this requirement and states the following:
In the event of a fire, evacuating the premises is the safest thing to do and guests should not be expected to use firefighting equipment. If you have staff on the premises, or if they regularly visit the premises, firefighting equipment should be provided, and staff should be trained on how to use the equipment. You should make sure that the instructions on how to use any firefighting equipment are clear, that there is a warning that evacuation is preferable, and that staff should not put themselves at risk or tackle anything other than a very small fire. In self-catering accommodation, although guests are not expected to use fire-fighting equipment, you may wish to provide a small fire extinguisher and/or fire blanket in the kitchen area.
We also published an update in 2024, which provides more detail on application of the Fire Safety Order to short term lets and expected fire safety standards in such premises.
Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to ensure representatives of the People’s Republic of China employed in the (a) UK embassy, (b) consulate and (c) Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London do not engage in (i) supranational suppression and (ii) intimidation tactics against Hong Kongers now living in the UK.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
The safety and security of Hong Kongers in the UK is of the upmost importance. The UK will always stand up for the rights of the people of Hong Kong.
We continually assess potential threats in the UK, and take protection of individuals’ rights, freedoms, and safety very seriously. Any attempt by any foreign state, including China, to intimidate, harass or harm individuals in the UK will not be tolerated.
Wherever we identify such threats, we will use any and all measures, including through our world-class intelligence services, to mitigate the risk to individuals.
The UK’s response to tackling state-directed threats is world leading. The National Security Act 2023 ensures that the appropriate tools and system-wide safeguards are in place to robustly counter state threats.
Guidance can be found on GOV.UK providing those who believe themselves to be at-risk of TNR with practical advice for their safety both physically and online.
Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure that the Building Safety Regulator works within its intended timeframes to process applications.
Answered by Samantha Dixon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
We recognise there have been operational challenges within the Building Safety Regulator (BSR), which is why we announced a series of reforms to strengthen it in June. Improvements to ensure applications are processed within the intended timeframes are already underway. These include:
The BSR previously committed to improving operations by December, with faster processing of new build applications and decisions on most of the existing new-build caseload. To increase transparency and accountability, the BSR published performance data on 16 October and will continue to do so on a monthly basis to track progress against this commitment.
Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when her Department will announce the pilot areas for Respect Orders.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
In February, we introduced new Respect Orders through our Crime and Policing Bill. The Bill recently completed Second Reading in the House of Lords, with Committee Stage expected to begin in November.
Respect Orders will be tough behavioural orders aimed at tackling the most persistent adult anti-social behaviour offenders. Further details on next steps for the Respect Order will be provided in due course.
Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help raise awareness of the reintroduction of maintenance grants.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This government is committed to supporting the aspiration of every person who meets the requirements and wants to attend higher education (HE). We must, therefore, reform the HE system to better support disadvantaged students. That is why we announced, on 29 September 2025, that we will introduce new targeted means-tested maintenance grants for students from low-income households studying courses aligned with our missions and the Industrial Strategy, funded by a levy on income from international student fees.
We reiterated this commitment in the Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper on the 20 October 2025, which sets out our ambition for a world leading and financially sustainable HE sector that delivers value for students, widens participation, drives local and national growth and supplies the skills our labour market needs.
We will set out further details on targeted maintenance grants at the Autumn Budget.
Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when his Department plans to publish new guidance on the Crisis and Resilience Fund.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We plan to publish guidance for the Crisis and Resilience Fund in January 2026. Provisional allocations will be published as part of the provisional Local Government Finance Settlement, ahead of the scheme going live in April 2026.