Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to improve access to homelessness services for people sleeping rough.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Government has increased funding for homelessness services by £316 million to a total of more than £1 billion in 2025/26. This includes £255.5 million through the Rough Sleeping Prevention and Recovery Grant for local authorities to tackle rough sleeping. We announced £69.9 million top-up funding for the grant in October 2025.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will make it a statutory duty for judges to comply with guidance in the Equal Treatment Bench Book.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
In line with the principle of judicial independence, it is the senior judiciary and not the Government who have statutory responsibility for judicial guidance and training.
It would therefore not be constitutionally appropriate for the Government to seek to prescribe how this responsibility should be discharged.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to ensure safe, transparent and non-discriminatory judicial use of artificial intelligence.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The judiciary are constitutionally independent and have established their own procedures and policies governing the use of artificial intelligence. Guidance for judicial office holders on the appropriate and responsible use of AI has been issued by the judiciary and is publicly available on the judiciary’s website.
Judicial office holders, like civil servants within the Ministry of Justice, have been provided with secure versions of Microsoft Copilot. The deployment of this tool for judicial use has been subject to a data protection impact assessment to ensure compliance with data protection legislation and principles.
The judiciary’s approach to AI is designed to ensure that any use of AI by judicial office holders is safe, transparent, and consistent with the principles of fairness and non-discrimination, while preserving judicial independence.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will take steps to require public authority respondents in Judicial Review hearings to confirm compliance with the duty of candour at Permission Stage.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The duty of candour is a well-established principle in judicial review, and its application is clearly set out in the Administrative Court’s Judicial Review Guide.
The duty of candour applies at all stages of judicial review proceedings. This duty requires all parties to ensure that relevant information is put before the Court, whether it supports or undermines their case. There is a particular obligation on public authorities to ensure that this duty is fulfilled given they are engaged in a common enterprise with the Court to fulfil the public interest in upholding the rule of law.
At the permission stage, public authorities are required to identify any material facts, highlight any matters of factual dispute and provide a summary of the reasoning underlying the measures in question. The Court can take into account a lack of candour in deciding whether to grant permission.
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will take steps to amend the Civil Procedure Rules to make explicit that litigants-in-person are not to be denied procedural safeguards normally afforded to represented parties, including circulation of draft reserved judgments.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Civil court rules governing judgments and orders are set out in Part 40 of the Civil Procedure Rules (CPR) and are supplemented by Practice Directions (PD). PD40E provides additional directions in relation to reserved judgments before they are handed down. Paragraph 2.3 of PD40E states that the court will provide a copy of the draft judgment to the parties’ legal representatives, however, paragraph 2.4 goes on to state that a copy of the draft judgment may be supplied to the parties provided that they: 1) do not disclose it or its substance to anyone else; and 2) do not take any action in relation to the judgment until it is handed down. This, therefore, provides for litigants in person to be given an embargoed/draft judgment and to engage with the steps taken before such a judgment is handed down.
It is also important to recognise that Part 1 of the CPR sets out the overriding objective of the rules. These overriding objectives include ensuring that the parties are on an equal footing and can participate fully in proceedings. This is the principal safeguard under pinning how the rules operate in practice.