Asked by: Chris Philp (Conservative - Croydon South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to Answer of 24 June 2025 to Question 59762 on Immigration, what progress her Department has made on each of the proposals she plans to bring into effect.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Restoring Control of the Immigration System White Paper published 12 May 2025 set out reforms to legal migration, so that we can restore order, control and fairness to the system, bring down net migration and promote economic growth.
On 1 July 2025 we laid Immigration Rules changes that delivered the first of the package of reforms set out in the White Paper:
Further Immigration Rules changes were laid on 14 October 2025 to deliver tighter control, while continuing to attract top global talent. Details of which can be found here: Statement of Changes to Immigration Rules and Explanatory memorandum to the statement of changes to the Immigration Rules: HC 1333, 14 October 2025 (accessible) - GOV.UK
Further measures will be announced in due course.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people have been arrested for protesting the proscription of Palestine Action.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government is absolutely clear that support for proscribed organisations is unacceptable. Anyone expressing support for a proscribed organisation should expect to be investigated by the police.
To be clear, those who want to oppose the proscription of Palestine Action can do so freely and lawfully – that is not itself an offence. It is an offence when protest is focused on showing support for an organisation that has been proscribed.
The Home Office releases statistics which cover arrests for terrorist-related activity on a quarterly basis. The latest release for the quarter ending June 2025 can be found here:
.Operational decisions, including arrests, are a matter for the police, who are independent of Government.
Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if her Department will take steps to encourage police forces to prioritise funding for frontline roles rather than spending on diversity, equality, and inclusion.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Police forces that reflect the communities they serve are crucial to tackling crime and maintain public trust and confidence in a modern diverse society.
Decisions about police recruitment and the allocation of resources are a matter for Chief Constables and Police and Crime Commissioners and are therefore managed locally by forces. It is for Chief Constables and directly elected PCCs, and Mayors with PCC functions to make decisions based on their local knowledge and experience.
The Home Office does not hold data centrally on the number of diversity, equality and inclusion roles in police forces, or on the amount spent by forces on these roles.
Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much police forces spent on jobs where the primary function of the role is to provide advice on diversity, equality, and inclusion in the last 12 months.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Police forces that reflect the communities they serve are crucial to tackling crime and maintain public trust and confidence in a modern diverse society.
Decisions about police recruitment and the allocation of resources are a matter for Chief Constables and Police and Crime Commissioners and are therefore managed locally by forces. It is for Chief Constables and directly elected PCCs, and Mayors with PCC functions to make decisions based on their local knowledge and experience.
The Home Office does not hold data centrally on the number of diversity, equality and inclusion roles in police forces, or on the amount spent by forces on these roles.
Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people are employed by the police in roles where the primary focus is on diversity, equality and inclusion.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Police forces that reflect the communities they serve are crucial to tackling crime and maintain public trust and confidence in a modern diverse society.
Decisions about police recruitment and the allocation of resources are a matter for Chief Constables and Police and Crime Commissioners and are therefore managed locally by forces. It is for Chief Constables and directly elected PCCs, and Mayors with PCC functions to make decisions based on their local knowledge and experience.
The Home Office does not hold data centrally on the number of diversity, equality and inclusion roles in police forces, or on the amount spent by forces on these roles.
Asked by: Jayne Kirkham (Labour (Co-op) - Truro and Falmouth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will consider the introduction of mandatory autism awareness training for staff working in the police.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Training on mental ill health and autism is already integrated throughout the initial police learning programme which all new recruits must complete.
Policing is operationally independent, and it is a matter for the chief constables of each force to decide what additional training their officers should undertake. The National Police Chiefs’ Council has produced an e-learning course and a glossary of terms on neurodiversity, which are available to all police officers.
Asked by: Simon Opher (Labour - Stroud)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she plans to respond to the consultation entitled National guidance for community scrutiny panels, which closed on 19 October 2023.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Community scrutiny is a valuable means by which local communities can have a voice in how they are policed.
The consultation on the national guidance for community scrutiny panels ran under the previous government. We have no plans to respond to this consultation.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will consider the potential merits of requiring Disclosure and Barring Service checks to include civil offences where a safeguarding issue was involved.
Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The purpose of a criminal record check issued by the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) is to provide information to employers and others to help them judge the suitability of an individual for a particular role.
On the highest level enhanced DBS checks, which are used for the most sensitive roles working with children or vulnerable adults, chief officers of police have the discretion to include non-criminal information held on their systems, if they consider it relevant and proportionate to disclose, to support safeguarding.
DBS checks are only one part of a broader safeguarding framework. Employers and organisations are expected to consider a range of factors when assessing suitability for roles, including references, employment history, and other relevant information.
We continually keep the disclosure and barring regime under review to ensure it remains effective and proportionate.
Asked by: Will Forster (Liberal Democrat - Woking)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to reduce the backlog of Leave to Remain applications.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
To help reduce the number of outstanding claims for protection we are investing in a programme of transformation and business improvement initiatives that will speed up and simplify our processes, reduce the time people spend in the asylum system and decrease the number of people who are awaiting an interview or decision.
The Home Office is investing in innovative techniques, including AI, to explore how we can improve productivity, speed up processing the asylum backlog, and restore order in the asylum system.
We are also committed to ensuring our operational teams who process applications for leave to remain, have the resources they need to run an efficient and effective system, and we actively monitor workflows to ensure sufficient resources are in place to meet demand.
Asked by: Ben Obese-Jecty (Conservative - Huntingdon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many commercial flights there have been with people being removed under the UK’s migration treaty with France since 1 September 2025; and how many people have been removed under this treaty.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
As published on GOV.UK on 9 October, 2 group flights saw 19 individuals returned to France. This was following the successful returns of an additional 7 individuals prior in the weeks prior to that. Further flights to France through the UK-France Agreement on the Prevention of Dangerous journeys are scheduled to take place over the coming days and weeks.