Written questions by Mohamed.

If she will make an assessment of the potential merits of restoring the scope of cases covered by legal aid to those provided for prior to the Legal Aid, Sentencing, and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012.

Legal aid is a vital part of the justice system. It underpins our plans to build a justice system that works for victims, supports access to justice, and ultimately upholds the rule of law.The Government is committed to ensuring an effective and sustainable legal aid system and is keen to work closely with practitioners and their representative bodies on this. We are carefully considering options for reform following evidence gathered on the health of the system, including, for example, information gathered as part of the Review of Civil Legal Aid.To support housing legal aid work, we are providing £1.5 million in grant funding for the recruitment of trainee housing solicitors until November 2025.We also recognise the importance of the broader legal support system, beyond legal aid, in helping people to access justice. We are providing over £10 million of grant funding, up to March 2025, to identify what works best in the delivery and provision of legal support for people with social welfare legal problems. This includes the ‘Improving Outcomes Through Legal Support’ grant, which supports the work of 59 organisations to sustain and improve access to early legal support and support at court.It also includes the ‘Online Support and Advice’ Grant, which ensures the provision of online support across a range of civil, family and tribunal problems.

If she will make an assessment of the potential merits providing grants to legal aid providers to help increase the accessibility of legal aid.

Legal aid is a vital part of the justice system. It underpins our plans to build a justice system that works for victims, supports access to justice, and ultimately upholds the rule of law.The Government is committed to ensuring an effective and sustainable legal aid system and is keen to work closely with practitioners and their representative bodies on this. We are carefully considering options for reform following evidence gathered on the health of the system, including, for example, information gathered as part of the Review of Civil Legal Aid.To support housing legal aid work, we are providing £1.5 million in grant funding for the recruitment of trainee housing solicitors until November 2025.We also recognise the importance of the broader legal support system, beyond legal aid, in helping people to access justice. We are providing over £10 million of grant funding, up to March 2025, to identify what works best in the delivery and provision of legal support for people with social welfare legal problems. This includes the ‘Improving Outcomes Through Legal Support’ grant, which supports the work of 59 organisations to sustain and improve access to early legal support and support at court.It also includes the ‘Online Support and Advice’ Grant, which ensures the provision of online support across a range of civil, family and tribunal problems.

Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to prevent sewage discharges into rivers in Sheffield.

The Government has taken immediate and substantial action to address water companies who are not performing for the environment or their customers. In July, we announced swift action to begin resetting the water sector, including ringfencing vital funding for infrastructure investment and placing customers and the environment at the heart of water company objectives. In September, the Government introduced the Water (Special Measures) Bill to give regulators new powers to take tougher and faster action to crack down on water companies damaging the environment and failing their customers. These are the first critical steps in enabling a long-term and transformative reset of the entire water sector. I would also refer the hon. Member to the Written Statement made by the Secretary of State on 18 July, HCWS3.

Communities and Local Government, if her Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of giving leaseholders more powers to establish their own management companies.

The Government intend to act quickly to provide homeowners with greater rights, powers, and protections over their homes by implementing the provisions of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024. These include measures that will make it easier for leaseholders to exercise their right to take over the management of their properties; enable the introduction of a new valuation scheme that leaseholders must follow to calculate how much they should pay to enfranchise, which includes the removal of the requirement for leaseholders to pay marriage value; and deliver reforms to drive up the transparency of service charges to make them more easily challengeable if leaseholders consider them to be unreasonable. We will set out details in due course about the extensive programme of secondary legislation needed to bring the Act into force. An impact assessment for the Act, including on the removal of marriage value, was published in December 2023 and received a green rating from the independent Regulatory Policy Committee.Over the course of this Parliament, the Government will further reform the leasehold system. We will enact remaining Law Commission recommendations relating to enfranchisement and the Right to Manage, tackle unregulated and unaffordable ground rents, reinvigorate commonhold through a comprehensive new legal framework, and ban the sale of new leasehold flats so commonhold becomes the default tenure. The Government has made clear it intends to publish draft legislation on leasehold and commonhold reform in this session so that it may be subject to broad consultation and additional parliamentary scrutiny. We will announce further details in due course.

Whether she has had recent discussions with the International Monetary Fund on the Debt Sustainability Framework for Low Income Countries.

The UK is engaging with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on the Debt Sustainability Framework for Low Income Countries (LIC-DSF) as part of the ongoing joint World Bank-IMF review of the Framework. We welcome the review, as it is an important exercise to ensure that the LIC-DSF remains fit for purpose in providing nuanced and balanced assessments of countries’ debt situations, and supporting sustainable management of debt.

What steps she is taking to support low-income pensioners.

Winter Fuel Payments will continue to be paid to pensioner households with someone receiving Pension Credit or certain other income-related benefits. They will continue to be worth £200 for eligible households, or £300 for eligible households with someone aged 80 and over. We know there are low-income pensioners who aren’t claiming Pension Credit, and we urge those people to apply. This will passport them to receive Winter Fuel Payment alongside other benefits – hundreds of pounds that could really help them. The State Pension is the foundation of income in retirement and will remain so protecting 12 million pensioners through the triple lock. Based on current forecasts, the full rate of the new state pension is set to increase by around £1,700 over the course of this Parliament. The Household Support Fund (HSF) is also being extended for a further six months, from 1 October 2024 until 31 March 2025. An additional £421 million will be provided to enable the extension of the HSF in England, plus funding for the Devolved Governments through the Barnett formula to be spent at their discretion, as usual. We are also providing support for pensioners through our Warm Homes Plan which will support investment in insulation and low carbon heating – upgrading millions of homes over this Parliament. Our long-term plan will protect billpayers permanently, reduce fuel poverty, and get the UK back on track to meet our climate goals. The Warm Home Discount scheme in England and Wales provides eligible low-income households across Great Britain with a £150 rebate on their electricity bill. This winter, we expect over three million households, including over one million pensioners, to benefit under the scheme.

Communities and Local Government, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that private car park charges are reasonable.

The Government is determined to drive up standards in the private parking sector. The Private (Code of Practice) Act 2019 places a duty on the Government to prepare a code of practice containing guidance about the operation and management of private parking facilities. We will announce our plans for the new Code in due course.

Communities and Local Government, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing an independent appeals service for drivers to challenge parking charges.

The Government is determined to drive up standards in the private parking sector. The Private (Code of Practice) Act 2019 places a duty on the Government to prepare a code of practice containing guidance about the operation and management of private parking facilities. We will announce our plans for the new Code in due course.

If she will make an assessment of the potential merits of providing funding for vocational qualifications at level three for the 2025-26 academic year.

The department funds vocational and technical qualifications for post-16 learners and will continue to fund them in 2025 in line with its broader policy on qualifications.The government is clear that learners should study high quality qualifications that support its missions to grow the economy and break down barriers to opportunity. In July, the department announced that it was undertaking a rapid review of qualifications and paused the defunding due to take place on 1 August 2024. This review is well underway and will confirm the funding status for the Level 3 qualifications on the defunding lists.There are qualifications on these lists which have low and no enrolments. These will have funding removed, although we also accept that there are exceptions, such as niche qualifications, and we will allow for this.The department is open to qualifications continuing to be funded where they are needed. This could include large qualifications and those that overlap with T Levels where necessary. This may be in the short or longer term, and the department is clear that it wants to continue to reform qualifications so that quality improves.The review of qualifications reform will be completed by the end of the year.The department has also introduced new technical and academic qualifications at Level 3 and at Level 2 and these will be available from August 2025.The qualifications landscape available in 2025 and beyond will include options in addition to A levels and T Levels, where they are needed to support economic growth, support employers and learners and broaden opportunity.