Asked by: Apsana Begum (Labour - Poplar and Limehouse)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps she is taking to increase UK humanitarian aid to protect (a) women and (b) children targeted by sexual violence in Sudan.
Answered by Chris Elmore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
I refer the Hon. Member to the responses provided in the Urgent Question debate on the Conflict in Sudan on 5 November 2025.
Asked by: Apsana Begum (Labour - Poplar and Limehouse)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to pages 37 of her Department's statutory guidance entitled Relationships and sex education (RSE) and health education, updated on 15 July 2025, if she has made an assessment of the potential merits of including first response for drug misuse as part of mandatory training for secondary school pupils.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
All state funded schools are required to teach first aid as part of the statutory health education set out in the relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) statutory guidance. Independent schools are required to cover health education as part of their responsibility to provide personal, social, health and economic education.
The statutory RSHE guidance includes basic first aid for primary school children, for example dealing with common injuries, such as head injuries, and pupils in secondary schools are taught further first aid, for example specifically how to administer CPR and the purpose of defibrillators and how to use them.
Schools also have the autonomy to decide how they teach first aid, including teaching additional topical content and which resources to use. Many schools incorporate additional content, which can include how pupils should deal with a first response emergency situation, including how to respond to knife wounds, drug misuse and road traffic injury.
The department’s defibrillator programme completed in 2023 and was the largest rollout of defibrillators across England to date and provided over 20,000 defibrillators to almost 18,000 schools, ensuring that all state-funded schools in England have access to a device.
Defibrillators are designed so they can be used by anyone with no prior training. As part of the department’s roll out, we provided awareness videos to schools showing how simple defibrillators can be to use, and asked schools to share these videos in staff meetings and assemblies.
Asked by: Apsana Begum (Labour - Poplar and Limehouse)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to pages 37 to 38 of her Department's statutory guidance entitled Relationships and sex education (RSE) and health education, updated on 15 July 2025, if she has made an assessment of the potential merits of including first response for knife wounds as part of mandatory training for secondary school pupils.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
All state funded schools are required to teach first aid as part of the statutory health education set out in the relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) statutory guidance. Independent schools are required to cover health education as part of their responsibility to provide personal, social, health and economic education.
The statutory RSHE guidance includes basic first aid for primary school children, for example dealing with common injuries, such as head injuries, and pupils in secondary schools are taught further first aid, for example specifically how to administer CPR and the purpose of defibrillators and how to use them.
Schools also have the autonomy to decide how they teach first aid, including teaching additional topical content and which resources to use. Many schools incorporate additional content, which can include how pupils should deal with a first response emergency situation, including how to respond to knife wounds, drug misuse and road traffic injury.
The department’s defibrillator programme completed in 2023 and was the largest rollout of defibrillators across England to date and provided over 20,000 defibrillators to almost 18,000 schools, ensuring that all state-funded schools in England have access to a device.
Defibrillators are designed so they can be used by anyone with no prior training. As part of the department’s roll out, we provided awareness videos to schools showing how simple defibrillators can be to use, and asked schools to share these videos in staff meetings and assemblies.
Asked by: Apsana Begum (Labour - Poplar and Limehouse)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to page 37 of her Department's statutory guidance entitled Relationships and sex education (RSE) and health education, updated on 15 July 2025, if she has made an assessment of the potential merits of including first response for road traffic accidents as part of mandatory training for secondary school pupils.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
All state funded schools are required to teach first aid as part of the statutory health education set out in the relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) statutory guidance. Independent schools are required to cover health education as part of their responsibility to provide personal, social, health and economic education.
The statutory RSHE guidance includes basic first aid for primary school children, for example dealing with common injuries, such as head injuries, and pupils in secondary schools are taught further first aid, for example specifically how to administer CPR and the purpose of defibrillators and how to use them.
Schools also have the autonomy to decide how they teach first aid, including teaching additional topical content and which resources to use. Many schools incorporate additional content, which can include how pupils should deal with a first response emergency situation, including how to respond to knife wounds, drug misuse and road traffic injury.
The department’s defibrillator programme completed in 2023 and was the largest rollout of defibrillators across England to date and provided over 20,000 defibrillators to almost 18,000 schools, ensuring that all state-funded schools in England have access to a device.
Defibrillators are designed so they can be used by anyone with no prior training. As part of the department’s roll out, we provided awareness videos to schools showing how simple defibrillators can be to use, and asked schools to share these videos in staff meetings and assemblies.
Asked by: Apsana Begum (Labour - Poplar and Limehouse)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what discussions she has had with the British Library on resolving the industrial action by the Public and Commercial Services Union.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The British Library is an arms-length body, sponsored by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. It is under the control and management of the British Library Board, whose responsibilities and functions are laid out in the British Library Act 1972.
The British Library is operationally independent of government and the day to day management of the Library - including staff pay - is a matter for the organisation to determine. DCMS is aware negotiations are taking place on this dispute and hopes for a speedy response.
Asked by: Apsana Begum (Labour - Poplar and Limehouse)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will ensure that UK Border Force eGates are configured to permit entry to holders of Irish passport cards travelling from outside the Common Travel Area.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
I refer the Honourable Member to the Answer I gave her on 8 April to Question 42838.
Asked by: Apsana Begum (Labour - Poplar and Limehouse)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to help tackle people who commit fraud by developing fake romantic relationships on (a) Tiktok and (b) other steaming platforms and manipulate victims into transferring large sums of money.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
The Online Safety Act (OSA) was passed in November 2023 and requires all in-scope platforms to tackle fraud originating on their platforms. Fraud is included in the Act as an illegal harm, meaning in-scope companies must take proactive measures to stop fraudulent content appearing on the platform, and remove fraudulent material quickly when they become aware of it. In addition, the Act's Additional Duties for Categorised Services will require the largest companies to provides features for users to verify users on their platforms, and interact with other verified accounts.
Ofcom, acting as the independent regulator, will have the power to levy significant fines on companies who they deem are not doing enough to tackle fraud on their platforms. As of 17 March 2025, Ofcom's illegal harm duties are now in force, and the regulator will now start assessing platforms' compliance with their new obligations under the Act, and will launch enforcement action where they uncover concerns.
Asked by: Apsana Begum (Labour - Poplar and Limehouse)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether his Department has had recent discussions with (a) Tiktok and (b) other social media platforms on taking steps to help reduce incidents of fraud where people develop fake romantic relationships and manipulate victims into transferring large sums of money.
Answered by Feryal Clark
Fraud is a priority offence under the Online Safety Act. This means that since the illegal harms duties came into force in March, user-to-user services, including TikTok, must take proactive steps to prevent users from encountering fraudulent content on their platforms and swiftly remove it where it does. These duties apply to a range of fraud types, including romance scams, and are enforceable by Ofcom.
Ministers and officials in DSIT have regular discussions with in-scope platforms on the implementation of the Online Safety Act and their broader efforts to tackle fraud.
Asked by: Apsana Begum (Labour - Poplar and Limehouse)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 17 March 2025 to Question 36526 on Legal Ombudsman, what steps her Department is taking to (a) identify and (b) resolve complaint cases awaiting investigation for more than four years; and whether the Legal Ombudsman has a procedure for prioritising those cases where delay may cause further harm to the complainant.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The legal profession in England and Wales, together with its regulators, operate independently of government. The Office for Legal Complaints (OLC) is the independent body responsible for administering the Legal Ombudsman (LeO) Scheme and the Legal Services Board (LSB), in its role as oversight regulator, has statutory duties in relation to monitoring the OLC.
My officials have engaged with the LeO, which has advised that, at present, it has no complaints that have been waiting four or more years for allocation for investigation. There are two cases where initial contact with the LeO occurred over four years ago, but where enquiries were either premature (not previously responded to by the legal provider, as required by legislation) or lacked sufficient information to proceed.
The LeO has also advised it operates a policy for prioritising cases where a continued delay is likely to have an adverse impact on the complainant, such as cases involving vulnerability, significant medical issues or a required reasonable adjustment.
Asked by: Apsana Begum (Labour - Poplar and Limehouse)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of extending the Destitute Domestic Violence Concession to include all migrant survivors of domestic abuse.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Tackling violence against women and girls is a top priority for this government and our mission is to halve levels of violence against women and girls within a decade.
We are reviewing all the issues impacting migrant victims of domestic abuse including the scope and operation of both the Migrant Victims of Domestic Abuse Concession (formerly the Destitution Domestic Violence Concession) and the provisions of Appendix Victim of Domestic Abuse.
We will communicate the outcome of these reviews as soon as is practicable.