Asked by: Al Pinkerton (Liberal Democrat - Surrey Heath)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to reduce anti-social behaviour by people on motorbikes in Surrey Heath constituency.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
Tackling anti-social behaviour is a top priority for this Government and a key part of our Safer Streets Mission.
Our Crime and Policing Bill will give the police greater powers to clamp down on all vehicles, including motorbikes, involved in anti-social behaviour, with officers no longer required to issue a warning before seizing these vehicles.
On 28 May, the Government launched a six-week consultation on proposals to allow the police to more quickly dispose of seized vehicles such as motorbikes, which have been used anti-socially.
Combined, these proposals will help tackle the scourge of vehicles ridden anti-socially and illegally by sending a clear message to would be offenders and local communities that this behaviour will not be tolerated.
Asked by: Ben Obese-Jecty (Conservative - Huntingdon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of approving the use of beyond-line-of-sight drones by police forces.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
Drone technology is developing at a rapid pace and decisions on operational equipment are made independently by police forces, who are best placed to assess their own operational needs.
The Home Office and operational partners are working closely across government, including with the UK Civil Aviation Authority and Department for Transport, to support police use of drones and explore the benefits that future drones’ capabilities may provide to police operations. This includes standardising police operations, trialling innovative use of drones to improve police productivity, and supporting the progression of a future operating model for police aviation.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many (a) asylum seekers and (b) recent arrivals were charged with (i) rape and (ii) sexual assault in each of the last five years.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
Available data on the age, ethnicity, gender and region of individuals prosecuted and convicted at criminal courts in England and Wales in the Ministry of Justice Outcomes by Offences data tool, can be downloaded from the Criminal Justice Statistics landing page, which is available online here:
Criminal justice statistics - GOV.UK
However, this data is not broken down by nationality or immigration status.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many foreign nationals were arrested for sexual offences in each of the last five years, broken down by nationality.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
Available data on the age, ethnicity, gender and region of individuals prosecuted and convicted at criminal courts in England and Wales in the Ministry of Justice Outcomes by Offences data tool, can be downloaded from the Criminal Justice Statistics landing page, which is available online here:
Criminal justice statistics - GOV.UK
However, this data is not broken down by nationality or immigration status.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of people arrested for sexual offences were foreign nationals in the last 12 months.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
Available data on the age, ethnicity, gender and region of individuals prosecuted and convicted at criminal courts in England and Wales in the Ministry of Justice Outcomes by Offences data tool, can be downloaded from the Criminal Justice Statistics landing page, which is available online here:
Criminal justice statistics - GOV.UK
However, this data is not broken down by nationality or immigration status.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of Norwich (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what percentage of issued passports in each of the past five years have been returned to His Majesty's Passport Office due to errors not of the applicant’s making.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
The information requested is not currently available from published statistics, and the relevant data could only be collated and verified for the purpose of answering this question at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Independent - York Central)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has had recent discussions with the Foreign Secretary on taking steps to help support Palestinians to access locations to verify their biometric data for UK visa applications.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
There are currently two UK Visa Application Centres operating in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, in Ramallah and Jerusalem. The centres in Ramallah and Jerusalem are open twice per week and once every two weeks respectively for biometrics enrolment. The UK Visa Application Centre in Gaza has been closed since 7 October 2023 due to the conflict in the region and to ensure the safety of staff and customers. UKVI will continue to monitor the situation and work closely with the supplier, VFS, to re-open this centre when it becomes safe to do so. There are also Visa Application Centres in neighbouring countries, such as Egypt and Jordan, which are open daily if customers are able to travel to these locations.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to work with community groups on the knife crime amnesty initiative in Buckingham and Bletchley constituency.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government is operating extended surrender arrangements throughout July focused on Greater London, West Midlands and Greater Manchester, as the three highest areas of knife crime in England and Wales. These arrangements involve a mobile surrender van which is being operated by the charity Faz Amnesty to allow people to anonymously surrender knives and weapons along with the provision of surrender bins in partnership with the charity Word 4 Weapons. Faz Amnesty will be looking to work across wider locations in the future.
We are also running a separate surrender and compensation scheme to allow the public to surrender ninja swords and claim compensation at designated police stations across England and Wales. The list of designated police stations, including those within Thames Valley Police is available on Gov.UK at: Ninja sword surrender and compensation scheme - GOV.UK
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to help prevent crimes relating to arson.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government is committed to tackling and preventing arson. We know the serious impact that arson can have on both individuals and the wider community.
We are committed to ensuring fire services have the resources they need to do their vital work and to keep the public safe from fires, including those caused by arson. We are also delivering on our commitment to restore and strengthen neighbourhood policing, ensuring thousands of additional police officers and police community support officers are out patrolling in our town centres and communities to make the streets safer. As part of the Neighbourhood Policing Grant, £200 million has been allocated to forces for 2025/26 to support this commitment. Nottinghamshire Police has been allocated £3,570,488 and will deliver an increase of 30 police officers, 20 Police Community Support Officers and 20 Special Constables by 31 March 2026.
The Home Office is also providing £66.3 million funding in 2025-26 to forces in England and Wales to deliver high visibility patrols in the areas worst affected by knife crime, serious violence and anti-social behaviour, including criminal damage caused by arson. Nottinghamshire Police will receive £1,529,097 of this funding.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of local authorities’ (a) powers and (b) resources to enforce Public Spaces Protection Orders (PSPO) requiring dogs to be kept on leads in public parks; and what steps her Department is taking to support councils in (i) extending PSPO coverage where necessary and (ii) improving public (A) awareness and (B) enforcement to reduce dog-related incidents in shared green spaces.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 provides the police and local authorities with a range of flexible tools and powers, including Public Spaces Protection Orders, that they can use to tackle dog-related incidents in public spaces.
Appropriate use of the powers is a local decision for local authorities, police and other agencies. The Home Office regularly engages with police and local authority partners to discuss the effectiveness of the legislation.
We are making changes to some of the powers in the 2014 Act via the Crime and Policing Bill to ensure the powers – based on engagement with police and local authorities – are as effective as possible. These changes include increasing the upper limit for a fixed penalty notice for breach of a Public Spaces Protection Order from £100 to £500 to act as a stronger deterrent to anti-social behaviour, including dog-related incidents in public spaces.