Asked by: Ben Obese-Jecty (Conservative - Huntingdon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the National Infrastructure & Service Transformation Authority Annual Report 2024/25, published on 11 August 2025, for what reasons the senior responsible officer delivery confidence assessment in the Police National Database programme has changed from amber to red.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Police National Database is a live intelligence-sharing service. It provides a national view of 6.3 billion searchable records, 19.9m images and information from 198 systems/databases. It is used by 49 UK police forces and 56 Law enforcement agencies, and around 1.3m searches are made each month.
The change in confidence rating from amber to red was primarily related to delays to a platform upgrade and transition to the cloud.
The Home Office is currently considering its options for future delivery of the Police National Database transformation programme and further information will be issued once a decision has been taken.
Asked by: Ben Obese-Jecty (Conservative - Huntingdon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the news story entitled Live Facial Recognition technology to catch high-harm offenders, published on 13 August 2025, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of extending the use of this capability from Bedfordshire to the tri-force area that includes Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office has funded the roll-out of ten live facial recognition (LFR) vans to seven host police forces, with Bedfordshire Police being one of those forces. Access to the LFR vans is available to all forces including Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire, subject to operational need and local decision-making.
No formal assessment is therefore needed by the government as the capability is already available to those forces should they choose to deploy it.
Asked by: Cameron Thomas (Liberal Democrat - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent discussions she has had with Gloucestershire Constabulary on anti-social behaviour.
Answered by Sarah Jones - 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 and through the Crime and Policing Bill, we are strengthening the powers available to police and other relevant agencies under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 to improve the tools agencies have at their disposal to tackle ASB.
As part of the Safer Streets Summer Initiative Gloucestershire Constabulary have been focusing on Anti-Social Behaviour, Retail Crime and Street Crime in six town centres.
The Safer Streets Summer Initiative launched on 30 June and ran until 30 September 2025, targeting over 600 town centres across England and Wales, through visible policing and swift, meaningful consequences.
On 10 April, the Prime Minister announced the details of the Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee which includes that every force area will have a dedicated lead officer for ASB. They will work with communities to develop an action plan to reduce and prevent ASB. Forces will be expected to publish their respective plan by April 2026.
Asked by: Tom Morrison (Liberal Democrat - Cheadle)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to provide frontline police officers with training to (a) recognise and (b) address antisemitism.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government is determined to tackle all forms of hate crime, including antisemitic hate crime.
The College of Policing is responsible for setting the national training standards and operational guidance (known as authorised professional practice) in England and Wales that guide officers and staff in responding to hate crime, promoting a consistent and victim-sensitive approach across forces.
Improving investigative standards, including in relation to hate crime, is a national priority. The College is supporting this work through targeted interventions aimed at increasing knowledge, consistency, improving outcomes, and strengthening public confidence in policing. This includes making specific reference to antisemitism (in line with the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition) within hate crime guidance to reflect both religious and racial hostility; incorporating hate crime training within initial entry route into policing learning; and improving supervisory learning to ensure hate crime is prioritised and that the most vulnerable in our communities are safeguarded.
Whilst the police are operationally independent and work in line with the College of Policing’s operational guidance, we expect the police to fully investigate these appalling offences and work with the Crown Prosecution Service to ensure perpetrators face the full force of the law and are brought to justice.
The College of Policing has also launched the Neighbourhood Policing Programme – Career Pathway training, as part of the Government’s Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee. This programme has a specific focus on engaging with and supporting communities to build trust and confidence.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an estimate of how many arrestees waived their right to make no comment during police interviews in the latest period for which data is available.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office does not collect information on the content of police interviews, including whether suspects waive their right to make no comment during police interviews. This information may be held by individual police forces.
The Home Office collects and publishes data on arrests by police. The most recent publication relating to arrest statistics can be found at the link below:
Stop and search, arrests and mental health detentions, March 2024 - GOV.UK
The Home Office takes a judicious approach to the collection of data from police in order to avoid disproportionate burdens on forces. More information on the Annual Data Requirement is available at the following link:
Home Office Annual Data Requirement (ADR) data – Privacy Information Notice - GOV.UK
Asked by: Suella Braverman (Conservative - Fareham and Waterlooville)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she plans to allocate additional resources to rural police forces to help tackle rural crime.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government is committed to giving police the resources they need to tackle a range of different crimes. The Chancellor has announced a real terms increase in police spending power over the next three years. The allocation of funding to police forces remains an important consideration and as with previous years, more details on force funding allocations for 2026-27, including decisions on police force funding allocations, will be made via the provisional police funding settlement later in the year.
It is the responsibility of Chief Constables and locally elected Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs), including Mayors who exercise PCC or equivalent functions, to take decisions around their resourcing. They are best placed to make decisions with their communities based on their local knowledge and experience.
Through our Safer Streets Mission, rural communities will be safeguarded, with tougher measures to clamp down on anti-social behaviour, strengthened neighbourhood policing and stronger measures to prevent farm theft and fly-tipping. The Home Office have worked closely with the National Police Chief’s Council to deliver their updated Rural and Wildlife Crime Strategy for 2025-2029. The strategy will set out operational and organisational policing priorities in respect of tackling crimes that predominantly affect rural communities.
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what her Department's timetable is for publishing its planned consultation on bringing the licensing of shotguns under Section 2 of the Firearms Act 1968 in line with the licensing requirements under Section 1 of that Act.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government response to the 2023 firearms licensing consultation, published on 13 February this year, included a commitment to having a public consultation on strengthening the licensing controls on shotguns, to bring them more into line with the controls on other firearms in the interests of public safety. We intend to publish this consultation later this year.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average processing time for asylum claims was broken down by (a) individual route and (b) month since July 2024.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office publishes data on asylum in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’. Data on the number of claims awaiting an initial decision, broken down by duration, is published in table Asy_D03 and data on the number of people claiming asylum, by route of entry to the UK, is published in table Asy_D01a. These data tables are published as part of the asylum detailed datasets.
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential (a) current and (b) future impact of the number of people seeking asylum in the UK because of the impact of climate change in their countries of origin.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office regularly assess all potential current and future causes of asylum and irregular migration to the UK, including the impact of climate change on the movement of people. The Home Office and other Government departments consider all available evidence to assess the situation.
There is mixed evidence on the impact of climate change on migration flows. FCDO conducted a Rapid Evidence Assessment and found strong evidence that climatic shock events are linked to increased internal and, to a lesser extent, international, migration. In the medium- to long-term, other gradual climate-related emergencies may impact migratory movements, though this is likely to be within the borders or to the immediate neighbours of countries with low climate resilience. The report found there are no rigorous global estimates of the number of people displaced by or migrating in response to weather shocks or climate change, and high-end projections of future climate-related migration are not considered credible.
Asked by: Helen Grant (Conservative - Maidstone and Malling)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to her Department's press release entitled Tribunal system reforms to speed up asylum decisions, published on 24 August 2025, whether she plans to stipulate time limits for dealing with cases.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Secretary confirmed in a statement to the House of Commons on 1 September that further information regarding Tribunal system reforms will be provided in due course. The statement can be accessed here: Borders and Asylum - Hansard - UK Parliament