Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if she will make it her policy to provide free menstrual products to homelessness shelters.
Answered by Rushanara Ali - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Government does not directly commission homelessness shelters or services. In 2025/26 the Government is investing £1 billion in homelessness services, an increase of £233 million on the previous year. Local authorities can use this funding to provide a range of services to meet local need, which may include the provision of menstrual and other sanitary products.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if she will make it her policy to ensure that (a) all cars sold in the UK must have had safety tests undertaken on them that include specifically-female crash dummies in both the driver and passenger seats and (b) data from such tests is (i) recorded and (ii) published.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The latest international vehicle regulations covering frontal impact protection developed under the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) currently use a crash test dummy representative of a female occupant in the front passenger seat. The Government is currently considering mandating this regulation in Great Britain as part of an extensive package of vehicle safety measures.
The UNECE has also established a group of experts, in which the Department for Transport is an active member, which is reviewing its Regulations to ensure all vehicle occupants benefit from comparable levels of protection irrespective of their sex, age or stature. This is likely to require testing with a greater number of female occupant locations.
The Department for Transport remains a member of the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP). This programme is complementary to regulation and includes impact tests using crash test dummies representative of a female occupant in the driver and opposite rear passenger seating positions.
Data from regulatory testing is recorded by the Type Approval Authority responsible for approval, but the data is highly technical and not routinely published. Summarised data from Euro NCAP testing is translated into easily understood safety information and is always published on its website - www.euroncap.com
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether he has had discussions with Artificial Intelligence developers to ensure they do not introduce gender bias in their algorithms.
Answered by Feryal Clark - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
It is crucial that AI systems are developed and deployed in a fair, inclusive and responsible way. That is why we have designated AI assurance as a key pillar of support for meeting the commitments made in government’s response to the AI Opportunities Action Plan.
As part of our work on AI assurance, we recently concluded our Fairness Innovation Challenge, which provided over £465,000 to fund the development of novel solutions to address bias and discrimination – including gender bias – in AI systems across four different sectors.
The Secretary of State and his department will continue to engage with AI developers on a range of matters related to model development and deployment.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make it his policy that publicly-funded medical trials (a) must be balanced by sex and (b) results must be sex-disaggregated.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Medical trials, wherever possible, should always be balanced by sex, however, certain clinical trials are designed to investigate conditions that are only specific to one sex, so enforcing a balance would not make sense on those occasions.
The Department commissions research through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). As outlined in the Research Inclusion Strategy 2022-2027, the NIHR is committed to exploring an approach which enables and encourages the research community to integrate sex and gender into their research design, including in the disaggregation of research findings. The Research Inclusion Strategy 2022-2027 is available at the following link:
https://www.nihr.ac.uk/about-us/who-we-are/research-inclusion/strategy-2022-27
On 10 March, the NIHR launched its sex and gender policy, which is expected to come into force later in 2025, with further information available at the following link:
https://www.nihr.ac.uk/integrating-sex-and-gender-health-and-care-research
Implementing such a policy will ensure that research accounts for sex and gender across every stage of the research cycle, thus facilitating both funding into topics that impact males and females, and a greater understanding of how they might be impacted differently by the same health condition.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will require the Health and Safety Executive to collect data on asbestos-related ovarian cancer cases.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is responsible for collection of data of workplace injury and illness. Under Regulation 9 of the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 (RIDDOR), it requires the responsible person to report a diagnosis of any cancer attributed to an occupational exposure to a known human carcinogen in their current job. When reporting, the responsible person must provide details on the affected person's occupation or job title and a description of the work that led to the disease.
Estimated numbers of cases of certain kinds of cancer other than mesothelioma and lung cancer that are attributable to past exposure to asbestos are available from previous HSE sponsored research into the burden of occupational cancer in Great Britain. However, ovarian cancer in relation to asbestos was not considered at the time this research was carried out, and so estimates are not currently available and HSE has no plans to collect this data.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she plans to add pharmacy to the list of degree courses that will be funded if an applicant already has a degree.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Under the Lifelong Learning Entitlement, additional entitlement may be available for priority subjects or longer courses in addition to an individual’s core 4-year entitlement. Details of these additional entitlements will be announced in due course.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent progress her Department has made on the implementation of a GCSE in British Sign Language.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The new British Sign Language (BSL) GCSE is a key feature of our commitment to enhancing the status of BSL in education and society.
The department published subject content for the BSL GCSE in December 2023.
As is the usual process for introducing a qualification, the independent qualifications regulator, Ofqual, is currently running a public consultation on its proposed assessment arrangements and expects to confirm its decision on the qualification rules in autumn 2025. At this point, any exam board that chooses to offer the GCSE will be able to start developing specifications.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will make it her policy to introduce traceable labels on nitrous oxide canisters to identify the point of sale.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
I refer the Honourable Member to the answer given by the Home Office on 9 May 2025 to PQ 49048.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what steps he plans to take to help make it easier for (a) tenants and (b) leaseholders to install heat pumps.
Answered by Miatta Fahnbulleh - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Warm Homes Plan will help upgrade homes across the country, including those occupied by tenants and leaseholders, by making them cleaner and cheaper to run, from installing new insulation to rolling out solar and heat pumps.
The Government is helping make heat pumps more efficient and easier to install, through increasing funding for the Boiler Upgrade Scheme to £295 million for this financial year, ensuring more families can benefit from £7,500 off the cost of a heat pump. The Government has also allowed heat pumps to be installed within 1m of the property boundary without applying for planning permission.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will meet with (a) Adoption UK and (b) other representative organisations to discuss the adoption and special guardianship support fund.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
In my role as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children and Families, I have recently met with Adoption UK and other representative organisations to discuss the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF) and other issues during the adoption sector roundtable on 21 May 2025.
I also met with adopters at the Adoption Reference Group meeting on 6 May 2025, which again discussed the ASGSF, as well as other adoption support issues.
The department is intending further engagement with sector bodies on the approach to managing the ASGSF in future years.