Asked by: Martin Wrigley (Liberal Democrat - Newton Abbot)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of the proposed changes to the Skilled Worker route for Indefinite Leave to Remain on people already legally resident in the UK; and whether she plans to introduce transitional protections for people in the UK under the existing five‑year settlement pathway.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The earned settlement model, proposed in ‘A Fairer Pathway to Settlement’, is currently subject to a public consultation, running until 12 February 2026.
The Immigration White Paper included a commitment to consult on these changes. The changes involve significant reforms to the settlement pathway, and it is right that we consult to assess their impact on affected groups.
The consultation includes questions intended to seek respondents’ views on the impacts of the proposed model and also seeks views on whether there should be transitional arrangements for those already on a pathway to settlement.
Details of the final earned settlement scheme will be finalised once the consultation has closed and the responses analysed.
The final model will be subject to economic and equality impact assessments, which we have committed to publish in due course.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Clapham and Brixton Hill)
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 amending the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953 to include registration of the father during a registration of birth, unless reason to omit this information is given.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
There are currently no plans to change the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953 to amend the circumstances in which the father’s details may be entered on a birth registration.
The latest available data from the Office for National Statistics shows that, in 2024, over 95% of registrations included the details of both parents.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many online child sexual abuse offences have been recorded in England and Wales in the last 3 years.
Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
Online child sexual abuse offences are captured in police recorded crime via an online crime flag being applied to a series of offences deemed most likely to be child sexual abuse. This includes contact sexual offences and obscene publications offences which act as a proxy for indecent images of children (IIOC) offences.
In April 2015, it became mandatory for all forces to return quarterly information on the number of crimes flagged as being committed online as part of the Annual Data Requirement (ADR). Since April 2024 this has been supported by the National Data Quality Improvement Service (NDQIS) which aims to improve the quality and consistency of flagging. Data released prior to 2024 are not directly comparable due to the move to NDQIS.
The online crime flag refers to any crime committed either in full, or in part, through use of online methods or platforms. The online crime flag helps provide a national and local picture of how internet and digital communications technology are being used to commit crimes, and an understanding of the prominence of certain crimes that are happening online, compared to offline.
An offence should be flagged where online methods or internet-based activities were used to facilitate the offence (e.g. through email, social media, websites, messaging platforms, gaming platforms, or smart devices). In April 2024, recording guidelines were amended to clarify that offences committed via SMS text messages or online-platform-enabled phone calls should also be flagged.
These data are published quarterly via the Office for National Statistics (ONS), originally in ‘Other related tables’ and now in ‘Appendix tables’ as per links below.
Child sexual offences | Proportion | Obscene publications offences | Proportion | |
Year to September 2025 – Appendix Table C5 | 14,515 | 23% | 32,191 | 75% |
Year to September 2024 – Appendix table C5 | 13,987 | 23% | 28,269 | 71% |
Year to September 2023 – Other related tables, F11 | 12,568 | 20% | 26,024 | 64% |
Note: Data across the year are not comparable due to continued improvements to the processing of online flags.
The Government is committed to tackling all forms of child sexual abuse and exploitation and is committed to taking robust action to better safeguard children, ensuring victims and survivors receive appropriate care and support and pursuing offenders and bringing them to justice.
Asked by: Paul Kohler (Liberal Democrat - Wimbledon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people without leave to remain were removed from the UK in each of the last five years.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Home Office publishes data on returns in the ‘Immigration System Statistics quarterly release’. Data on returns can be found in Ret_01 of the ‘Returns summary tables’. This data goes up to September 2025 and includes only individuals who do not have valid leave to remain.
Asked by: Danny Beales (Labour - Uxbridge and South Ruislip)
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 making HM Passport Office data available to Electoral Registration Officers for the purposes of Automatic Voter Registration.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
His Majesty’s Passport Office shares data with other government departments, law enforcement agencies and local authorities to help fulfil their aims and objectives when it is legal to do so.
The merits of potential data sources to support voter registration is a matter for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
Asked by: Paul Kohler (Liberal Democrat - Wimbledon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many staff were employed in Border Force in each of the last five years.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The latest published staffing and finance figures for Border Force can be found in the Home Office Annual Report for 2020-2025 at:
HO annual report and accounts 2020-25 (Home Office annual reports and accounts - GOV.UK)
Asked by: Sarah Owen (Labour - Luton North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to ensure that Bedfordshire Police have sufficient resource to hit officer number targets.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government’s Safer Streets Mission sets a clear expectation for policing to deliver safer communities and improved public confidence. An effective, well-supported police service is central to achieving this.
For 2025/26, £376.8 million has been made available to forces to support achievement of officer number targets. This funding was distributed as follows:
For 2025/26, Bedfordshire Police have been allocated a total of up to £3,155,659 through the officer maintenance ringfenced grant, and £1,580,578 through the top-up grant, to maintain a total headcount of 1,466 officers.
Published statistics show the force achieved this target at the mid-year point. As at 30 September 2025, Bedfordshire Police had a total of 1,467 police officers (headcount).
For 2025/26, a total of up to £1,803,234 was also made available to Bedfordshire Police through the neighbourhood policing grant to grow by 38 FTE Neighbourhood Policing officers (30 FTE police officers and 8 FTE PCSOs).
As at 30 September, Bedfordshire Police had grown their neighbourhood policing function by 13 FTE.
Asked by: Neil Duncan-Jordan (Labour - Poole)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of reviewing the definition of coercive and controlling behaviour within the Serious Crime Act 2015 to include extremist groups, cults and gangs.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Controlling or coercive behaviour (CCB) is an insidious form of domestic abuse. The CCB legislative framework was introduced in 2015 and was explicitly designed to address patterns of behaviour within relationships where the perpetrator and victim are “personally connected”, as outlined in Section 2 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021. Expanding CCB beyond this context would risk undermining that clarity, creating uncertainty for police to identify, investigate and prosecute this offence.
We do not intend to expand the CCB offence beyond its current scope at this time.
Asked by: Lord Pack (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Hanson of Flint on 20 January (HL13300), whether they have now reviewed whether it is necessary for the prescribed standards for police driving training to be set by legislation; and if so, what was the outcome of that review.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
It is vital that police drivers are trained to a high standard in order to maintain public and driver safety. This is why the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 introduced new training requirements and a new test for police drivers, which are required by the Act to be prescribed in regulations.
The Government engages regularly with the College of Policing and other stakeholders to ensure that police driver training continues to meet these high standards. We will give full consideration to making changes if it becomes clear there is a need to do so to maintain flexibility of the standards
Asked by: Earl of Leicester (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government why they have cancelled Eva Vlaardingerbroek's electronic travel authorisation to the UK.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
It is our long-standing policy that we do not comment on individual cases.
However, in general terms I can advise you that all foreign nationals seeking entry to the UK meet the suitability requirements for an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA).
Following a refusal or cancellation, the customer may still apply for the appropriate UK visa, which allows for a full consideration of their circumstances and may provide an alternative avenue to travel.