Asked by: Margaret Mullane (Labour - Dagenham and Rainham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions she has taken with her French counterpart about identifying individuals responsible for knowingly putting overloaded and potentially unseaworthy vessels to sea from the French coast.
Answered by Anna Turley - Minister of State (Home Office)
France is the UK's closest operational partner in tackling small boat crossings. The Home Secretary maintains regular engagement with her French counterpart on our shared objectives of saving lives, securing the border and disrupting the organised criminal gangs behind this vile trade.
Through joint law enforcement cooperation, intelligence sharing and coordinated operational activity, the UK and France work together to identify, investigate and bring to justice those who profit from putting migrants' lives at risk, including by facilitating departures in overcrowded and unseaworthy vessels.
Those involved in organising, enabling or facilitating illegal entry into the UK by small boat may be prosecuted under section 25 of the Immigration Act 1971, carrying a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. In addition, earlier this year the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act introduced a new offence of endangering another during a sea crossing, reflecting the seriousness with which the Government views conduct that creates or increases a risk of serious injury or death to those on board.
We continue to monitor and respond to the evolving tactics used by people-smuggling networks, working with the French authorities to target resources where they can deliver the greatest operational effect.
Asked by: Margaret Mullane (Labour - Dagenham and Rainham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department has considered the potential merits of commissioning wheelchair services to prescribe specific paediatric wheelchairs to uders under 5.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
I refer the Hon Member to the answer provided on 8 July 2026 in response to Question 15027.
Asked by: Margaret Mullane (Labour - Dagenham and Rainham)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether the department has considered whether debt restructuring or cancellation will be offered to local authorities struggling with high levels of debt and interest rates.
Answered by Jim McMahon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The local government finance framework gives authorities wide freedoms to borrow and invest, enabling them to set their own capital strategies in response to local needs. It is standard for councils to borrow and to hold debt in the normal course of business, and it remains their responsibility to manage their own budgets. Councils must, however, act within the safeguards of the system and only borrow what they can afford.
The Government does not normally consider debt support to be an appropriate form of financial assistance consistent with the principles of prudence and local accountability. By exception, the Government has made the unprecedented commitment to provide debt repayment support for Woking and Thurrock councils. This reflects the highly exceptional circumstances that these councils hold significant unsupported debt which cannot be managed locally due to historic capital practices and the value for money case for acting to protect taxpayers from the ever-increasing cost of debt. It is essential that the system protects taxpayers as a whole and does not impose pressures that would ultimately be felt elsewhere in the public sector.