Asked by: Juliet Campbell (Labour - Broxtowe)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of simplifying the registration process for British National (Overseas) visa holders to register as British citizens.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
Children who came to the UK with parents who are British National (Overseas) visa holders may apply for settlement after 5 years’ qualifying residence, followed by citizenship after a further twelve months.
Children born in the UK to a BN(O) visa holder will be able to apply for British citizenship immediately once the parent becomes settled in the UK. Children born in the UK to BN(O)s who have already become settled will become British citizens automatically.
BN(O)s also have an entitlement to register as British citizens if they meet the requirements. This is a simpler process for becoming a citizen than naturalisation.
Asked by: Lord Agnew of Oulton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government how much the Home Office has spent in each year since 2020 under the RM6141 and RM6302 language services frameworks; and whether the department has used or maintained any separate or competing frameworks, contracts or commercial routes for the procurement of language services during the same period, and, if so, how much has been spent through them.
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: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department monitors the number of (a) EEA and (b) non-EEA resident workers qualified in (i) construction, (ii) maintenance and (iii) seafaring roles who transit through the UK to work on offshore renewable energy projects licenced by the UK Government in waters over 12 nautical miles from the coastline.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The Frontier Worker Permit scheme implements our commitments under the Citizens’ Rights Agreements to protect the rights of EU, other EEA and Swiss citizens who were frontier working in the UK before the end of the transition period on 31 December 2020 for as long as they continue to be frontier workers.
It is not possible to extract data from Home Office systems on Frontier Worker permits by occupation. Accordingly, there have been no discussions with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero about Frontier Worker permit holders employed in the offshore renewable energy sector.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will monitor the number of Frontier Worker Permits held by non-resident workers in the offshore renewable energy sector; and what discussions officials in her Department have had with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero on Frontier Worker Permits held by those workers.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The Frontier Worker Permit scheme implements our commitments under the Citizens’ Rights Agreements to protect the rights of EU, other EEA and Swiss citizens who were frontier working in the UK before the end of the transition period on 31 December 2020 for as long as they continue to be frontier workers.
It is not possible to extract data from Home Office systems on Frontier Worker permits by occupation. Accordingly, there have been no discussions with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero about Frontier Worker permit holders employed in the offshore renewable energy sector.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If she will take steps to monitor the number of Frontier Worker Permits held by non-resident workers in the offshore renewable energy sector; and what discussions her Department has had with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero on this issue.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The Frontier Worker Permit scheme implements our commitments under the Citizens’ Rights Agreements to protect the rights of EU, other EEA and Swiss citizens who were frontier working in the UK before the end of the transition period on 31 December 2020 for as long as they continue to be frontier workers.
It is not possible to extract data from Home Office systems on Frontier Worker permits by occupation. Accordingly, there have been no discussions with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero about Frontier Worker permit holders employed in the offshore renewable energy sector.
Asked by: Tony Vaughan (Labour - Folkestone and Hythe)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department plans to implement stalking protection notices that would be issued by police officers pending a full application to court.
Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
Stalking Protection Orders (SPOs) are civil orders which can be imposed on anyone who has carried out acts associated with stalking and who poses a risk. They are available to the police on application to the court and can impose restrictions considered necessary. The police may also apply for an interim SPO, for example, if there is an immediate risk of harm but further investigation is required to meet the criteria for a full SPO, or when the court is unable to provide the full order in time.
We are legislating through the Crime and Policing Bill to enable the courts to impose SPOs on conviction and acquittal of their own volition.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps is she taking to help reduce the number of GPS thefts from tractors on farms.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
This Government is committed to tackling rural crime, safeguarding rural areas through stronger measures to prevent equipment theft and strengthened neighbourhood policing.
We are committed to implementing the Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act 2023, which aims to prevent the theft and re-sale of high-value equipment, particularly for use in an agricultural setting. We hope to introduce the necessary secondary legislation later this year.
This financial year we are providing the first Home Office funding since 2023 for the National Rural Crime Unit, a national policing unit which help forces tackle rural crime priorities and is a great example of farmers and police working together at national and local level including tackling equipment theft.
Additionally, the Crime and Policing Bill will introduce a new power for the police to enter and search premises to which items have been electronically tracked by GPS or other means, where the items are reasonably believed to have been stolen and are on those premises, and where it has not been reasonably practicable to obtain a warrant from a court.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of freedom of information requests made to her Department have exceeded the statutory deadline in the past year.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office’s Freedom of Information (FOI) performance data, including request volumes and timeliness, is published quarterly and is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/government-foi-statistics
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many non-crime hate incidents have been investigated by police forces in England and Wales in each of the last two years.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
I refer the Hon Member to the answer I gave on 18 February 2025 to his Question UIN 30042.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to help tackle paramilitarism.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Home Office)
The work to tackle paramilitarism in Northern Ireland is led by the Northern Ireland Executive and delivered through the Executive Programme on Paramilitarism and Organised Crime.
The UK Government provides 50% of the funding for the cross-Executive Programme: currently £8m per year. As announced in the Spending Review, a further £8m has been secured for the period from April 2026 to March 2027. The allocation of funding across the Programme is a matter for the Executive and the Programme Sponsor Group.