Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment he has made of the extent of the use of chemical weapons in the conflict in Sudan.
Answered by Hamish Falconer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Foreign Secretary made clear in his statement on 23 May that any use of chemical weapons is unacceptable. We remain deeply concerned by the US determination that the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) have used chemical weapons in Sudan. It is imperative that the SAF engages constructively with the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in order to facilitate a thorough and impartial investigation. We expect the SAF to abide by its obligations under the Chemical Weapon Convention not to develop, produce, possess, or use chemical weapons.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, if he will make an estimate of the number and proportion of (a) children and (b) adults who access the internet through a virtual private network.
Answered by Feryal Clark - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government does not hold this information. However, Ofcom’s Technology Tracker (2024) indicates that 30% of the UK’s population over 16 years old has connected to the internet using a virtual private network (VPN) for work, education or other purposes. This increases to 38% for 16-17 year olds. This data does not demonstrate how regularly respondents use VPNs to access the internet.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether the Defending Democracy Taskforce has made an assessment of the potential implications for its policies of the report by Demos entitled Epistemic Security 2029: Protecting the UK’s information supply chain and strengthening democratic discourse for the next political era, published on 29 November 2024.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology is a core member of the Defending Democracy Taskforce and is working to build information resilience and protect our democracy, including through key levers such as the Online Safety Act.
My officials have been in touch with Demos to learn more about their work and consider any potential policy implications arising from their research.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps the Defending Democracy Taskforce (a) has taken and (b) plans to take to help tackle threats to democracy outside of election periods.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Defending Democracy Taskforce is driving forward a programme of work to secure the democratic integrity of the UK from the full range of threats. Alongside its work to protect elections, since the General Election the Taskforce has:
Engaged with international partners to share lessons learnt and expertise to help tackle similar threats to our democracies.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether human rights issues in Kyrgyzstan were discussed at the first meeting of the Kyrgyz-British Strategic Dialogue in February 2025.
Answered by Stephen Doughty - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
I raised human rights issues with my Kyrgyz counterpart during the inaugural UK-Kyrgyz Strategic Dialogue in February 2025. We regularly raise human rights at ministerial level with Kyrgyzstan.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether human rights issues in Kyrgyzstan have been examined within the framework of the Developing Countries Trade Scheme.
Answered by Stephen Doughty - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The UK Government reserves the right to suspend preferences on particular goods, or to suspend a country from the Developing Countries Trading Scheme (DCTS) if it finds that they have seriously and systemically breached international conventions in relation to human rights.
When considering suspensions, the UK may assess, among other things, the impact on the beneficiary country's economic and development prospects, the impact on the country's most vulnerable people and the effectiveness of a suspension in bringing about change.
The UK continues to encourage all states to uphold their international human rights obligations, and hold all those who violate or abuse human rights to account. Our Embassy in Bishkek actively monitors the human rights situation in Kyrgyzstan and ministers have raised concerns regarding human rights and media freedom with the Kyrgyz Government.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the potential implications for his policies of trends in levels of suicide among women impacted by conflict in Sudan.
Answered by Hamish Falconer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The human cost of the conflict in Sudan is appalling with the warring parties showing a total disregard for the wellbeing of civilians and women and girls bearing the brunt of the violence. Reports that survivors of sexual violence are said to be increasingly contemplating suicide is an indication of how desperate the context is. The UK is doing all it can to address and respond to such abuses. In February, Lord Collins chaired a UN Security Council Briefing on conflict-related sexual violence in Sudan, emphasising the need for an immediate cessation of hostilities. The UK has also led efforts at the Human Rights Council to establish and renew the mandate for the UN Fact-Finding Mission which is crucial for supporting future accountability efforts in Sudan. On 24 April, the Foreign Secretary issued a statement calling for the warring parties to adhere to their commitments under the Jeddah Declaration to protect civilians. This followed the UN Security Council statement, released on 16 April, condemning the escalation of violence and calling for the parties to urgently implement UN Security Council Resolution 2736.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment her Department has made of the potential implications for its policies of Social Housing Action Campaign's research entitled Tribunals Research Finds Overcharging in 70% of Cases as HA Service Charge Income Soars, published in February 2025; what assessment she has made of trends in the level of service charges being found unreasonable in law; and what steps her Department is taking to prevent unreasonable service charge decisions.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The government recognises the considerable financial strain that rising services charges place on leaseholders and tenants. The level of service charge that leaseholders pay depends on a range of factors, including the terms of a lease or tenancy agreement and the age and condition of a building.
By law, variable service charges must be reasonable. Overcharging through service charges is completely unacceptable. Should leaseholders wish to contest the reasonableness of their service charges they may make an application to the appropriate tribunal.
My Department does not hold data on the number of unreasonable service charge challenges that are upheld by the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber).
The Leasehold and Freeport Reform Act 2024 includes measures designed to drive up the transparency of service charges to make them more easily challengeable if leaseholders consider them to be unreasonable. Once commenced, these will ensure all leaseholders receive minimum key financial and non-financial information on a regular basis, including introducing a standardised service charge demand form and an annual report.
The government is committed to acting quickly to implement the provisions of the Act. Further detail can be found in the Written Ministerial Statement made on Thursday 21 November 2024 (HCWS244).
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social care, whether he has held recent discussions with the African Diaspora Malaria Initiative partnership.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The UK Health Security Agency and the Malaria Reference Laboratory work closely together and are in regular communication with the African Diaspora Malaria Initiative. The initiative is a diaspora-led charitable initiative whose primary objective is the eradication of malaria in the United Kingdom’s African diaspora.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps (a) her Department and (b) the Building Safety Regulator is taking to reduce decision times by the regulator for approving multi-storey residential blocks.
Answered by Alex Norris - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
MHCLG and the Building Safety Regulator (BSR) both recognise the impact of Gateway delays on the construction pipeline of high-rise projects and are taking action to address the current challenges.
The Department is working closely with the BSR to improve processing times and has already taken several actions. As a new function, the BSR has needed to refine and improve its processes. We have provided funding to the BSR to recruit an extra 30 frontline staff to bolster its capacity. On 14 May, the BSR also launched a campaign to directly recruit Registered Building Inspectors (RBIs) with significant further recruitment planned in June 2025. The impact of these mitigations will scale up in the coming months as the BSR continues to clear applications.
MHCLG and the BSR are also reviewing better ways to access specialist advice on multi-disciplinary teams (MDTs) which assess applications to enable faster assessment times.
Whilst the BSR and MHCLG are exploring all possible opportunities to strengthen the new Gateway process and guidance to industry, it is important to recognise that a significant volume of applications continue to be invalidated or rejected for not meeting the legislative requirements. These are buildings that, had they been constructed, might have placed residents at risk and/or living in housing that did not meet long-standing requirements. It is also important to note that additional information requests for missing details in applications can add between at least 4-6 weeks onto the process. In recognition of this, the BSR issued new guidance in March 2025 to assist applications in preparing high quality applications.