Asked by: Mary Glindon (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether the Private Rented Sector Landlord Ombudsman will consider previous cases of inadequate conduct by landlords when making decisions on complaints.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Private Rented Sector Landlord Ombudsman will resolve tenant complaints about their landlords’ actions or behaviours. The purpose of Ombudsman redress is to provide fair, independent resolution of complaints and ensure that an individual making a complaint is appropriately remedied when things go wrong.
The Ombudsman will have the discretion to consider the individual circumstances of each complaint, based on the evidence provided by parties involved. This could include where evidence is provided of landlords' repeated poor conduct.
However, redress is not designed to 'punish' landlords. Local councils have a wide range of enforcement powers to tackle landlords who flout the rules and don’t keep their properties in an acceptable condition. We expect councils to take a proactive approach to enforcement in the private rented sector and give this the priority it deserves.
Asked by: Mary Glindon (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent progress his Department has made on reducing the time taken to provide a substantive response to casework enquiries from Members of Parliament.
Answered by Andrew Western - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department recognises that response times to casework enquiries from Members of Parliament have been impacted by increased volumes and the complexity of cases requiring detailed investigation.
To address this, the Department has deployed additional resources to complaints and correspondence teams, prioritised the reduction of backlogs, strengthened performance monitoring, introduced enhanced senior oversight, and improved case management processes to support faster and more consistent responses.
As a result of these measures, the Department has begun to reduce outstanding backlogs and increase case-handling capacity, helping to improve response times for hon. Members.
Where a complaint requires formal investigation, the Department aims to provide a full response within 15 working days. More complex cases may take longer, but customers are kept informed of progress and expected timescales.
The Department is committed to ensuring that hon. Members receive timely and accurate information on behalf of their constituents and is taking urgent action to restore performance to expected standards.
Asked by: Mary Glindon (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what steps his Department is taking to help households adapt to rising temperatures.
Answered by Martin McCluskey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Warm Homes Plan sets out our approach to upgrading the nation’s homes, including climate adaptation. Over this Parliament, we intend to introduce the most appropriate, cost-effective passive cooling measures into our capital schemes, to support low-income consumers and those in social housing.
Passive cooling measures include internal blinds, external shutters, reflective window films, and cooler building materials. These enhance thermal comfort in hot weather and, when paired with active cooling, help mitigate energy bill increases.
We recognise that in some cases active cooling is needed to protect those most vulnerable to overheating and have taken steps to enable access to clean heat technologies that can also provide cooling functionality when necessary. The Boiler Upgrade Scheme will provide £2,500 grants for air‑to‑air heat pumps, which can also provide cooling.
The Government also embed overheating considerations through the Decent Homes Standard (DHS), Awaab’s Law, and the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS).
Asked by: Mary Glindon (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help schools adapt to rising temperatures.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department takes periods of hot weather and heatwaves seriously and has published a climate risk assessment. We continue to support responsible bodies and schools to provide education in a safe environment. The department has also published guidance to support education settings during hot weather, available at: https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2026/06/hot-weather-and-heatwaves-guidance-for-schools-and-other-education-settings/. This advice draws on guidance from the UK Health Security Agency.
We are improving infrastructure and strengthening resilience across the education estate through our Education Estates Strategy. This includes a new Renewal and Retrofit Programme, backed by £710 million to 2029/30, to improve the condition of school and college buildings and increase resilience to climate change so buildings can last for decades to come and are net zero ready. We are investing almost £3 billion per year by 2034/35 in capital maintenance to improve the condition of the school and college estate, and investing almost £20 billion through to 2034/35 in the School Rebuilding Programme to rebuild over 750 schools across England with buildings that are future proofed against the risks of climate change.
Asked by: Mary Glindon (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to help workplaces adapt to rising temperatures.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government) (Equalities)
The Government is committed to ensuring workplaces are safe in the modern world, and in ‘Next Steps to Make Work Pay’ we committed to look at how to modernise health and safety guidance for extreme temperatures.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is Great Britain’s national regulator for workplace health and safety and provides guidance for employers to manage the risk to workers, including from extreme heat. HSE issued a press release on Friday 19 June to raise awareness of the workplace risks to workers in the hot weather. This year, HSE will also be launching a public consultation on proposed changes to the Approved Code of Practice for the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992, including those relating to workplace temperature.
Asked by: Mary Glindon (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the compatibility of using BMI threshold criteria for joint replacement surgery and the Government's commitment to reducing health inequalities in regions with (a) lower life expectancy and (b) higher rates of obesity and musculoskeletal conditions.
Answered by Sharon Hodgson
It is the responsibility of individual integrated care boards to determine policies for their local area, including that of Body Mass Index (BMI) threshold criteria for joint replacement surgery. As with all surgery, BMI should be considered as one part of a holistic, personalised perioperative evaluation of the risks versus clinical need for joint replacement surgery of an individual patient.
The National Health Service and local government provide a range of services to help people living with overweight and obesity to manage their weight, which may include individuals waiting for joint replacement surgery, where they meet other eligibility criteria. These range from multi-component behavioural programmes, such as the NHS Digital Weight Management Programme, to specialist services for those living with severe obesity and associated co-morbidities.
Asked by: Mary Glindon (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to improve the (a) data and (b) metrics used in musculoskeletal services.
Answered by Sharon Hodgson
Data is fundamental to the effective delivery of health services, underpinning service improvement and ultimately improving outcomes for patients.
Musculoskeletal (MSK) data for secondary care, including orthopaedics, spinal services, paediatric orthopaedics, and adult and paediatric rheumatology are regularly reviewed by the NHS England Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) specialty programmes in NHS England, and work is undertaken with hospitals and within NHS England to make improvements where they are identified.
The Joint Work and Health Directorate is also funding GIRFT to deliver the MSK Community Delivery Programme, which aims to improve MSK community services, reduce waiting lists, improve outcomes, and address health-related barriers to work.
The programme has a focus on strengthening MSK leadership, improving data recording and submission, supporting digitally enabled services, and using data and benchmarking to drive performance improvement.
Asked by: Mary Glindon (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure the quality and volume of musculoskeletal content in medical training match the prevalence of these conditions in the population.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The standard of training for doctors is the responsibility of the General Medical Council (GMC). The GMC sets the outcome standards expected at undergraduate level, and approves courses and medical schools to write and teach the curricula content that enables their students to meet these standards.
The curricula for postgraduate training are set by the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges for foundation training, and by the relevant individual royal colleges and faculties for specialty training. The GMC approves curricula and assessment systems for each training programme.
Whilst not all curricula necessarily highlight a specific condition, they all emphasise the skills and approaches that a doctor must develop in order to ensure accurate and timely diagnoses and treatment plans for their patients.
Curricula across the specialties where doctors in training might regularly treat patients with musculoskeletal conditions will contain competencies relating to understanding and identifying these conditions and their symptoms.
Asked by: Mary Glindon (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to increase enforcement action against image-editing tools powered by AI that can be used to generate child sexual abuse images.
Answered by Natalie Fleet
To ensure we keep pace with changes in technology, under the Crime and Policing Act, this Government has introduced a suite of new measures to keep children safe online by tackling the growing threat of AI Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM). We have introduced a brand-new criminal offence criminalising AI Models which have been designed or adapted to produce child sexual abuse imagery. These optimised models produce hyper-realistic CSAM that often contains the likeness of real children and are not currently illegal in the UK. We are also criminalising paedophile manuals which provide instructions on how to use AI to create child sexual abuse material. This Government will continue to proactively review legislation, and we will not hesitate to legislate further to ensure the protection of children online.
It is crucial that police and law enforcement have the capabilities and skills to effectively tackle child sexual abuse and exploitation. The Home Office continues to invest in a network of Undercover Online Officers (UCOLs) in Regional Organised Crime Units who deploy online to identify and pursue offenders seeking to sexually exploit children. Funding also supports both the National Crime Agency to use its unique capabilities to disrupt the highest harm offenders, and GCHQ’s aim to significantly reduce harm to children by addressing the volume and scope of online offending and helping to bring offenders to justice.
The Home Office, in collaboration with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, the Alan Turing Institute, and the Accelerated Capability Environment, has led the Deepfake Detection Challenge. Bringing together leading technology companies, such as Microsoft, academics and experts, the government is set to develop and implement a world-first deepfake detection evaluation framework, establishing consistent standards for assessing all types of detection tools and technologies to counter the generation of harmful content. This will help position the UK as a global leader in tackling harmful and deceptive deepfake content.
Asked by: Mary Glindon (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps the Government is taking to prevent image-editing tools powered by AI being used to generate child sexual abuse images.
Answered by Natalie Fleet
To ensure we keep pace with changes in technology, under the Crime and Policing Act, this Government has introduced a suite of new measures to keep children safe online by tackling the growing threat of AI Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM). We have introduced a brand-new criminal offence criminalising AI Models which have been designed or adapted to produce child sexual abuse imagery. These optimised models produce hyper-realistic CSAM that often contains the likeness of real children and are not currently illegal in the UK. We are also criminalising paedophile manuals which provide instructions on how to use AI to create child sexual abuse material. This Government will continue to proactively review legislation, and we will not hesitate to legislate further to ensure the protection of children online.
It is crucial that police and law enforcement have the capabilities and skills to effectively tackle child sexual abuse and exploitation. The Home Office continues to invest in a network of Undercover Online Officers (UCOLs) in Regional Organised Crime Units who deploy online to identify and pursue offenders seeking to sexually exploit children. Funding also supports both the National Crime Agency to use its unique capabilities to disrupt the highest harm offenders, and GCHQ’s aim to significantly reduce harm to children by addressing the volume and scope of online offending and helping to bring offenders to justice.
The Home Office, in collaboration with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, the Alan Turing Institute, and the Accelerated Capability Environment, has led the Deepfake Detection Challenge. Bringing together leading technology companies, such as Microsoft, academics and experts, the government is set to develop and implement a world-first deepfake detection evaluation framework, establishing consistent standards for assessing all types of detection tools and technologies to counter the generation of harmful content. This will help position the UK as a global leader in tackling harmful and deceptive deepfake content.