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 assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of annually uprating Local Housing Allowance to the 30th percentile of local market rents.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government) (Equalities)
The Department for Work and Pensions has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.
Asked by: Mary Glindon (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether LNER will introduce card readers with tactile buttons on their trains for visually impaired people.
Answered by Keir Mather - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
LNER’s Train Managers already use payment devices with tactile buttons and markings. LNER’s café bar devices currently use touchscreens and LNER is exploring accessibility improvements.
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 she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to provide long-term funding for milk provision schemes which are separate to government-funded breakfast clubs and free school meals.
Answered by Paul Waugh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department works across government on policies to support children's health and nutrition. We know milk is excellent for children’s growth and development. The School Food Standards state lower fat milk or lactose reduced milk must be available to children who want it for drinking, at least once a day during school hours.
The government continues to fund the Department of Health and Social Care-led Nursery Milk Scheme, a statutory scheme which enables eligible early years childcare providers to reclaim the cost of providing 189ml (one-third of a pint) of milk each day to a child under five years who is provided with two hours or more of childcare on that day.
The government also continues to support the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs-led School Milk Subsidy Scheme, which subsidises the provision of individual portions of milk in schools, and has committed to consult on any plans for change.
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, with reference to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology's press release entitled New law to tackle AI child abuse images at source as reports more than double, published on 12 November 2025, when she plans to provide designated bodies powers to test AI models.
Answered by Satvir Kaur - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Government is committed to tackling child sexual abuse and protecting the public from harms posed by emerging technologies. Through implementing the provisions set out in the Crime and Policing Act 2026 the Government will enable organisations authorised by the Home Secretary to test AI models for child sexual abuse material, non-consensual intimate imagery and extreme pornography.
As this is the first regime of its kind and given the highly sensitive nature of the material that may be generated during testing the defence will only be granted once the necessary safeguards and operational arrangements are in place.
My department is working closely with industry and the third sector to establish a robust regime which we plan to launch as soon as it is safe and practical to do so, subject to Parliamentary scheduling.
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 recent discussions her Department has had with counterparts in His Majesty's Treasury on the Hydrogen Strategy update.
Answered by Martin McCluskey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero have engaged with His Majesty’s Treasury throughout development of the Hydrogen Strategy. The renewed strategy will set out Government’s vision and objectives for hydrogen, and how we intend to work with industry to continue to transform ambition into action.
We plan to publish the Hydrogen Strategy, alongside a package of other hydrogen policy documents, as soon as possible this year.
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.