Asked by: Sureena Brackenridge (Labour - Wolverhampton North East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to the Answer of 14 October 2024 to Question 7047 on Holiday Accommodation: Licensing, what progress she has made on developing a short-term rental registration scheme.
Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
We hope to be able to make further announcements soon.
Asked by: Sureena Brackenridge (Labour - Wolverhampton North East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to support economically inactive young people with seeking (a) education and (b) employment opportunities in Wolverhampton.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Our plan to get Britain working includes a new Youth Guarantee for all young people aged 18-21 in England to ensure that they can access quality training opportunities, an apprenticeship or help to find work. The West Midlands Combined Authority, of which Wolverhampton is a part, is one of the eight Mayoral Strategic Authorities in England set to receive grant funding to deliver the Youth Guarantee Trailblazers, as announced in the “Get Britain Working” White Paper from Spring 2025. We will use the learning from the Trailblazers to inform the future design and development of the Youth Guarantee as it rolls-out across the rest of England.
DWP currently provides young people aged 16-24 with labour market support through an extensive range of interventions at a national and local level. This includes flexible provision driven by local need, nationwide employment programmes and support delivered by work coaches based in our Jobcentres and in local communities working alongside our partners. For example, in Wolverhampton we’ve partnered with Wolves Foundation to set up a programme called “Mindshift” which takes place at Molineux football ground and supports young people with health conditions, in particular mental health conditions, into employment.
Asked by: Sureena Brackenridge (Labour - Wolverhampton North East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to ensure adequate funding of youth services in Wolverhampton.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Local authorities hold the statutory duty to secure, so far as is reasonably practicable, sufficient provision of educational and recreational leisure-time activities for young people. Local Authorities fund youth services from their Local Government Settlement in line with local need, and this was increased to more than £69 billion in 2025/26 - a 6.8% increase in cash terms compared to 2024/25. We will be launching the Local Youth Transformation pilot this year, which will support local authorities to build back capability to improve local youth offers.
This government has also committed to co-producing a new National Youth Strategy. As part of the Strategy, we will be consulting closely with young people and the youth sector. The Strategy will be published this summer.
Asked by: Sureena Brackenridge (Labour - Wolverhampton North East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what protections exist for pensioners in the case of scheme buyouts.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
Insurance buyout is a long-established way of defined benefit pension schemes securing members’ full pensions. Members are guaranteed to receive their full pension from an insurer, backed by a rigorous capital adequacy regime and underpinned by 100 per cent compensation from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.
Trustees have a fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of the members and must be satisfied that transferring the liabilities of the scheme to an insurer is in the best interests of the members before the transfer can take place.
Asked by: Sureena Brackenridge (Labour - Wolverhampton North East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to improve the accessibility of cultural activities in Wolverhampton.
Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
This government is committed to supporting culture, and making sure that arts and cultural activities will no longer be the preserve of a privileged few. As part of our Plan for Change, we are committed to ensuring that arts and culture thrives in every part of the country, with more opportunities for more people to engage, benefit from and work in arts and culture where they live.
The government supports the arts predominantly through Arts Council England (ACE) funding. ACE’s open funding programme, National Lottery Project Grants, is currently accessible to organisations and individuals across the country, including those in Wolverhampton. This programme provides over £100 million of support annually to individuals and organisations, and since 2020 has invested over £2.3 million into arts projects across Wolverhampton. Alongside this funding, organisations in Wolverhampton currently receive £1,029,081 per annum through ACE’s National Portfolio programme.
Our new Creative Foundations Fund, announced in February, will also invest £85 million into arts and cultural organisations across England to support urgent capital works to keep venues across the country up and running and open to the public. In addition to this, we were pleased to announce last week that Wolverhampton Art Gallery has been awarded a major Capital grant of over £1.6m from Round 4 of the Museum Estate and Development Fund (MEND), and that a fifth Round will launch shortly.
Asked by: Sureena Brackenridge (Labour - Wolverhampton North East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to tackle antisocial behaviour in Wolverhampton.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
Tackling anti-social behaviour (ASB) is a top priority for this Government and a key part of our Safer Streets Mission.
The Government’s Plan for Change, announced by the Prime Minister on 5 December, included our plan to reduce ASB. This will include a dedicated lead officer in every police force working with communities to develop a local ASB action plan.
As part of our wider reforms, we are delivering on our commitment to strengthen neighbourhood policing, putting 13,000 neighbourhood police, community support officers and special constables into local communities so residents have a named officer they can turn to when things go wrong.
We will also crack down on those causing havoc on our high streets and in communities by introducing tougher powers in the Crime and Policing Bill to tackle repeat offending, including the new Respect Order to tackle the most persistent ASB offenders.
Asked by: Sureena Brackenridge (Labour - Wolverhampton North 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 her Department is taking to support councils to build additional social housing in Wolverhampton.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to Question UIN 31737 on 27 February 2025.
Asked by: Sureena Brackenridge (Labour - Wolverhampton North East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has had discussions with the Secretary of State for Business and Trade on the Growth and Skills Levy.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department’s levy-funded growth and skills offer, with apprenticeships at the heart, will deliver greater flexibility for learners and employers in England, aligned with our industrial strategy creating routes into good, skilled jobs in growing industries. As a first step, this will include shorter duration and foundation apprenticeships in targeted sectors.
Three trailblazers in the key priority sectors of green energy, healthcare and film/TV production will be among the first to pioneer, and benefit from, the flexibilities that new shorter duration apprenticeships offer. These will support more people to gain high-quality skills at work, fuelling innovation in businesses across the country.
The department is working across government on these plans including working closely with the Department for Business and Trade; and in December, my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education and my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Business and Trade hosted a joint CEO Broadcast with businesses to discuss the levy-funded growth and skills offer.
Asked by: Sureena Brackenridge (Labour - Wolverhampton North East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department plans to take steps to help promote the uptake of foundational apprenticeships in (a) Wolverhampton and (b) other areas with high levels of youth population.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This government has a driving mission to break down barriers to opportunity and to grow the economy. Too many young people are struggling to access high-quality opportunities and this government wants to ensure that more young people can undertake apprenticeships.
The department is developing new foundation apprenticeships to give more young people a foot in the door at the start of their working lives whilst supporting the pipeline of new talent that employers will need to drive economic growth.
Foundation apprenticeships will be a work-based offer in broad foundation level occupations that will support young people in key sectors where there are real vacancies and enable them to progress to more occupationally-specific apprenticeships or other vocational training in the sector. Progression routes will be a critical part of the offer. The department will set out more detail on foundation apprenticeships, including the sectors they will be available in, in due course.
Asked by: Sureena Brackenridge (Labour - Wolverhampton North East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what representations she has received on changes to minimum income requirements for family visas.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
On the 10th September 2024, the Home Secretary commissioned the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) to review the financial requirements in the Family Immigration Rules.
The MAC has completed a call for evidence which gathered the views of stakeholders and those affected by changes to family rules and saw more than 2,000 responses. The comments received will inform the review being conducted by the MAC.
There have also been representations in the form of parliamentary questions and written correspondence both from members of both houses and members of the public.
On 20 January Members of Parliament took part in a debate regarding the MIR in Westminster Hall.
The findings of the MAC review will be carefully considered by Ministers alongside other representations received.
There will be no changes to the current threshold of £29,000, until the MAC review is complete.