Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department has had discussions with the Fire Brigades Union, in the context of the report entitled Dangerous cladding: the government’s remediation portfolio, published by the National Audit Office on 4 November 2024.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government is the lead on building remediation and is due to meet the Fire Brigades Union in the new year.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much her Department has spent on consultancy fees in each year since 2021.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office holds information on consultancy fees and reports this in its Annual Report and Accounts.
Refer to the links and pages below for the available published information that relates to consultancy spending.
Pages 155-157 (Pages 159-161 on the pdf reader) of the 2023-24 Home Office Annual Report and Accounts
Home Office Annual Report and Accounts 2023 to 2024 (publishing.service.gov.uk)
Pages 173-175 of the 2022-23 Home Office Annual Report and Accounts
Home Office Annual Report and Accounts 2022-2023 (publishing.service.gov.uk)
Pages 107-108 of the the 2022-23 Home Office Annual Report and Accounts
Home_Office_ARA_21-22_Final_-_Gov.uk.pdf (publishing.service.gov.uk)
Pages 99-101 of the 2020-21 Home Office Annual Report and Accounts
HO annual report and accounts 2020-21 (publishing.service.gov.uk)
Information relating to financial year 2024-25 will be available following the end of the financial year and once the Home Office Annual Report and Accounts have been laid before Parliament.
Note that the Home Office reports by its financial year (April-March), rather than on a calendar year basis.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many non-crime hate incidents were recorded by each police force in each year since 2014.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office does not currently centrally collate information on the number of non-crime hate incidents recorded by individual police forces.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will reimburse police forces with the cost of proposed increases to employer national insurance contributions.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government will fully compensate police forces for the impact of the changes to National Insurance Employer contributions.
Details on the allocation of this funding will be confirmed at the provisional police settlement in mid-December.
Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds Central and Headingley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if her Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of amending the Licensing Act 2003 to include a legal definition of the term drunk.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The High Court has set out in case law (Neale v E 1984) that the word ‘drunk’ should be given its ‘ordinary and natural meaning’.
It is an offence under S.141 of the Licensing Act 2003 knowingly to serve alcohol to someone who is drunk. It is also an offence under S.142 of the Licensing Act 2002 to obtain alcohol for someone who is drunk. Those who commit either offence could be fined up to £1000.
Ultimately the decision to serve alcohol to a person is taken by an appropriate person within a licensed premises – for example a designated premises supervisor.
Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds Central and Headingley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department plans to extend the temporary off-sales regulatory easement in the Business and Planning Act 2020 beyond 31 March 2025.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office conducted a consultation on the future of the temporary off-sales regulatory easement earlier this year. A response will be published in due course.
Asked by: Tom Morrison (Liberal Democrat - Cheadle)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department has made an impact assessment of changes in the numbers of Police Community Support Officers in Greater Manchester.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
This Government wants to ensure that policing has the support that they need so that they can get back to tackling the issues that that matter to the public. That is why we are delivering an additional 13,000 police officers, PCSOs and special constables in neighbourhood policing roles and ensuring every community has a named officer to turn to.
We are considering the implementation of our plans around neighbourhood policing and the growth in neighbourhood officers as a key priority. We are doing this alongside key partners across policing to ensure that we deliver an effective plan that delivers the best service for the public.
Asked by: Colum Eastwood (Social Democratic & Labour Party - Foyle)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she plans to (a) review and (b) raise the classification of pregabalin under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
Pregabalin is currently controlled under Class C of the Misuse of Dugs Act 1971. The Government takes expert advice from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), which is the independent advisory body on drugs, on the classification of substances under the 1971 Act and scheduling under the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001.
Controlled drugs are placed in the appropriate class and schedule following consideration of advice from the ACMD on the potential harms of misuse, and an assessment of their medicinal or therapeutic usefulness and the need for legitimate access. The ACMD announced in February this year that they are looking to launch an updated harms assessment for gabapentinoids, which includes pregabalin, to review the position of these drugs under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. The Government will consider the findings of the ACMD’s review once published.
The ACMD’s work programme is available on the Gov.UK website: ACMD work programme 2024 - GOV.UK
Asked by: Matt Bishop (Labour - Forest of Dean)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of the suspension of firearm certificate grants by Gloucestershire Constabulary.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
Chief Constables have operational responsibility for consideration of firearms licensing applications and the allocation of resources to firearms licensing units.
However, we expect police forces to ensure that all applications for firearm certificates, whether new applications or those for renewal, are dealt with as efficiently as possible subject to addressing public safety risks.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Reform UK - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the oral contribution of the Minister for Border Security and Asylum in response to the question from the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth during Oral Questions to the Home Office on 25 November 2024, what data will be published; when that data will be published; and whether that data will include crimes committed by irregular migrants.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
I refer the Honourable Member to the statistics published on Thursday 28 November by the Home Office which can be found on the Migration statistics gov.uk page.
Data on Foreign national offenders in UK prisons is available in the House of Lords Library and comes from the Ministry of Justice’s Offender management statistics quarterly release.