Written questions by Dhesi.

Communities and Local Government, what recent steps she has taken with Cabinet colleagues to help alleviate child poverty in (a) Slough and (b) the Thames Valley region.

In the Labour manifesto we committed to developing an ambitious strategy to reduce child Poverty. I am part of the ministerial Child Poverty Taskforce which has since been established to drive this forward, aiming to publish a Child Poverty Strategy in Spring 2025. On 23 October we published our framework ‘Tackling Child Poverty: Developing Our Strategy’ and are exploring all available levers to drive forward short and long-term actions across government to reduce child poverty. Local authorities are key partners in tackling child poverty and we will continue to engage with them to ensure the Strategy supports and enables shared solutions.

Communities and Local Government, what recent steps she has taken to reduce homelessness in (a) Slough constituency and (b) Thames Valley region.

Homelessness levels are far too high. This Government recognises the devastating impact this can have on those affected. We are already taking the first steps to get back on track to ending homelessness. As announced at the Budget, funding for homelessness services is increasing next year by £233 million compared to this year (2024/25) and brings total spend to nearly £1 billion in 2025/26. Allocations for individual local authorities in England will be set out later in December, which will include Slough, West Dorset, the Thames Valley region and wider rural communities.The Deputy Prime Minister is leading cross-government work to tackle the underlying causes of homelessness and deliver long-term solutions to end all forms of homelessness, including rural and child homelessness. This includes chairing a dedicated Inter-Ministerial Group, bringing together ministers from across Government to develop a long-term homelessness strategy.We have also established an Expert Group to bring together representatives from across the homelessness and rough sleeping sector, local and combined authorities and wider experts. The role of this expert group is to provide knowledge, analysis and challenge to help Government understand what is working well nationally and locally and where improvements are needed.The department also has a lived experience forum to ensure the voices of those with lived experience of homelessness are reflected in the homelessness strategy.More widely, we are taking action to tackle the root causes of homelessness by delivering the biggest increase in social and affordable housebuilding in a generation and building 1.5 million new homes over the next parliament.The Government is also abolishing Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions, preventing private renters being exploited and discriminated against, and empowering people to challenge unreasonable rent increases.

Communities and Local Government, what steps the Government is taking to reduce the influence of foreign funding in democratic processes.

The Government is committed to strengthening our democracy and upholding the integrity of elections and, as stated in our manifesto, we intend to strengthen the rules around donations to political parties to protect our democracy.We are developing proposals to give effect to these commitments and will make them public in due course. Furthermore, the Government’s Defending Democracy Taskforce brings together all work on defending democracy to allow a whole of government approach in tackling threats to those processes.

Communities and Local Government, how their Department defines strategy.

The definition is detailed in the Functional Standards Common Glossary, which is published on the gov.uk website.

Communities and Local Government, how many and what proportion of buildings have registered for the Cladding Safety Scheme in Slough constituency.

The Cladding Safety Scheme is able to confirm how many buildings based in the Slough constituency have registered with the scheme. To date, there have been six applications to the Cladding Safety Scheme in the Slough constituency. Two buildings were confirmed as not requiring remedial works in their Fire Risk Appraisal External Wall PAS 9980 reports, which are required to confirm eligibility to the scheme. These applications are now closed. Four are confirmed as in programme and have received pre-tender financial support. They are now compiling their works packages. This includes appointing a professional team, scoping the project and developing a works specification.

Communities and Local Government, what steps they are taking to use (a) artificial intelligence and (b) data to help increase their Department's productivity.

MHCLG is committed to improving its productivity, including through artificial intelligence and effective use of data.MHCLG’s Foundational AI Team is currently in the group testing phase of introducing a licensed version of Microsoft’s Copilot to staff. This initiative is designed to evaluate the outcome of integrating Copilot into our department’s workflow to evaluate its effectiveness in enhancing productivity and collaboration. Staff involved in this testing phase are participating in periodic surveys and evaluation meetings so we can measure both the impact to productivity and staff satisfaction with Copilot’s current capabilities. If the testing phase is a success, we will consider a wider deployment to the department that is supported by appropriate evidence and business cases.The MHCLG’s Foundational AI Team is also exploring the in-house design and production of dedicated AI chatbot tools tailored to be used with specific sets of data and information that the department holds. These tools would be configured to use data from specific documents and datasets, making them highly responsive in individual areas of MHCLG’s work.To ensure this and other AI work across the entire department is done safely and securely, we are also refreshing the department's internal generative AI policy to make sure it is up to date regarding the use of sensitive data by staff.We will continue to regularly review our usage of AI and data to maximise productivity benefits for staff and the public.