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.
Asked by: Sureena Brackenridge (Labour - Wolverhampton North East)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to help promote human rights in Guinea.
Answered by Anneliese Dodds - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The UK is committed to supporting efforts to promote and protect human rights, democracy, and the rule of law in Guinea. We raise human rights issues of concern with the Guinean authorities and provide programme support to local partners, particularly on the rights of women and girls.
The UK is clear about the importance of a return to constitutional order, maintaining good governance and ensuring the rule of law in Guinea. The Minister for Africa discussed this recently with Guinea's Minister for Planning and International Cooperation. We will continue to urge the Government of Guinea to guarantee the rights of all people in Guinea in accordance with its constitution and international standards.
Asked by: Sureena Brackenridge (Labour - Wolverhampton North East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that pupils who are considered hard to place under school admission requirements receive suitable school placements.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The school admissions code requires every local authority to have a Fair Access Protocol (FAP), agreed with the majority of the mainstream state-funded schools in its area, to ensure that unplaced and vulnerable children, and those who are having difficulty in securing a school place in-year, are allocated a school place as quickly as possible, minimising the time the child is out of school.
All admission authorities, including academies, are required to participate in the FAP for their area. This includes admitting pupils when asked to do so in accordance with the Protocol, even if the school is full. Where an admission authority fails to comply with the FAP, they may be directed to do so by the local authority, in the case of maintained schools, and currently by my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education in the case of academies.
To further strengthen this framework, the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill includes measures to allow local authorities to not only direct a maintained school to admit a child, but also to direct academies in the same way. It aims to streamline existing direction processes and provide a more robust safety net for vulnerable children, by giving local authorities the levers they need to secure school places for children more quickly and efficiently when the usual admissions processes, including the use of the FAP, have been exhausted.
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 local authorities to provide temporary accommodation that does not have a detrimental impact on (a) local people and (b) town centres in Wolverhampton.
Answered by Rushanara Ali - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Government recognises that homelessness levels are far too high and this can have a devastating impact on those affected, including young people. We will look at these issues carefully and will consider youth homelessness as we develop our long-term, cross-government strategy working with Mayors and councils across the country, to get us back on track to ending homelessness.
The Homelessness Prevention Grant is allocated to councils across England based on local homelessness pressures and is used to meet local needs. Wolverhampton will receive £1,892,940.00 for 2025-26 through the Homelessness Prevention Grant.
Temporary accommodation must be suitable in relation to the applicant and to all members of their household who normally reside with them, or who might reasonably be expected to reside with them. Applicants may ask for a review on request of the housing authority’s decision that the accommodation offered to them is suitable.
The £1.2 billion Local Authority Housing Fund will provide capital funding directly to English councils and is expected to provide up to 7,000 homes by 2026. It will create a lasting asset for UK nationals by building a sustainable stock of affordable housing for local communities. The Local Authority Housing Fund will ease local homelessness pressures, reduce spending on unsuitable B&B accommodation, and provide safe and sustainable housing for those on Afghan resettlement and Ukrainian sponsorship schemes.