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Written Question
UK Border Force: Staff
Thursday 28th March 2024

Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many disabled people worked for Heathrow Border Force before the Heathrow Change Programme.

Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)

The Home Office do not hold the requested information on how many people working for Border Force Heathrow prior to the Change Programme had declared a disability, in an easily accessible format.


Written Question
UK Border Force: Pay
Thursday 28th March 2024

Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many Heathrow Border Force staff have gone down a pay grade as part of the Heathrow Change Programme; and what proportion of such staff are (a) women and (b) disabled people.

Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)

No members of staff have gone down a pay grade as part of the Heathrow Change Programme.


Written Question
Gender Based Violence: Victims
Thursday 28th March 2024

Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to his Department's policy paper entitled Tackling violence against women and girls strategy, published on 21 July 2021, what progress his Department has made on ensuring support is provided to survivors of gender-based violence.

Answered by Laura Farris - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Ministry of Justice) (jointly with Home Office)

We have completed or closed over half of all cross-government commitments in the Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Strategy (2021) and Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan (2022).

This includes:

  • Allocating £6.6 million to deliver interventions that improve our understanding of ‘what works’ to prevent violence against women and girls.
  • Ensuring consistency in support services through introducing national commissioning standards through the Victims Funding Strategy.
  • Launching the VAWG Support and Specialist Services Fund with £8.3m of funding support victims facing the greatest barriers.
  • Supporting the passage of the Worker Protection (Amendment of the Equality Act 2010) Act 2023 which places a new duty on employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of employees.
  • Invested over £150m of funding through Safer Streets and Safety of Women at Night fund on a range of projects focused on improving public safety, including for women and girls.
  • Doubled funding for the National Domestic Abuse helpline and other helplines such as the Revenge Porn Helpline and the Suzy Lamplugh Trust’s National stalking helpline.
  • Relaunched the Flexible Fund in January 2024 with a further £2m investment to help remove barriers to domestic abuse victims leaving their abusers, after its successful £300,000 pilot in 2023.

Written Question
Asylum: Rwanda
Thursday 28th March 2024

Asked by: Stephen Kinnock (Labour - Aberavon)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will publish details on the (a) level of financial and (b) other incentives his Department plans to offer to asylum seekers to encourage them to voluntarily relocate to Rwanda.

Answered by Michael Tomlinson - Minister of State (Minister for Illegal Migration)

Voluntary relocation to Rwanda builds on our already widely used voluntary returns scheme – details of this can be found at the following link:- Voluntary and assisted departures.docx (publishing.service.gov.uk).


Written Question
Delivery Services: Undocumented Migrants
Thursday 28th March 2024

Asked by: Stephen Kinnock (Labour - Aberavon)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether his Department holds information on illegal working via the use of rented profiles on food delivery apps.

Answered by Michael Tomlinson - Minister of State (Minister for Illegal Migration)

The HO holds some information in relation to individuals who rent profiles on food delivery apps. However, we do not routinely publish the information you have requested and we are unable to provide this information, as it could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.


Written Question
Shoplifting
Thursday 28th March 2024

Asked by: Lord Swire (Conservative - Life peer)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what discussions they have had with Retailers Against Crime on the rise in organised shoplifting.

Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)

The Government recognises the significant impact shoplifting and violence towards shopworkers has on businesses, communities, and consumers, as well as the loss to the economy. The Government has been clear we expect a zero-tolerance approach to retail crime and shoplifting.

It’s difficult to produce reliable estimates of the cost of shoplifting. Many incidents do not come to the attention of the police, so data on the number of shoplifting crimes recorded by them only provide a partial picture. While official statistics from the Commercial Victimisation Survey (CVS) provide reliable estimates of the prevalence and frequency of shoplifting, the CVS no longer collects data the number of shoplifting offences or the overall cost of these crimes. When the CVS has collected this information in the past, retailers found it difficult to recall precise numbers of crimes they experienced, and the associated costs. As a result, these estimates we judged to be insufficiently reliable.

Home Office ministers have not met Retail Against Crime. The National Retail Crime Steering Group (NRCSG), which the Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire, the Rt Hon Chris Philp, co-chairs alongside the British Retail Consortium, ensures the response to retail crime is as robust as it can be. The NRCSG meets quarterly and comprises senior representatives from policing, the retail sector, retail trade associations, security providers and Government departments.

At this forum, the Retail Crime Action Plan is a standing agenda item. At the last NRCSG, policing colleagues updated me on the implementation of the plan. Statistics published by the National Police Chiefs’ Council show early signs of progress. A dip-sample of data from 31 police forces of over 1,500 crimes show police attended 60% of incidents reported by retailers where violence had been used, with 16% of forces sampled reporting 100% attendance to this type of incident.

The Government is supporting Pegasus, a unique private-public partnership, which involves retailers providing data, intelligence and evidence to Opal, the national police intelligence unit on organised acquisitive crime, to develop a better strategic picture and help forces crack down on serious offenders.

The Home Office will continue to work with members of the NRCSG, including policing and retailers to tackle shoplifting, including organised, as well as other crime experienced within retail settings through our wider work.


Written Question
Knives: Crime
Wednesday 27th March 2024

Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the charge rate for knife crime offences was in England in (a) 2018 and (b) 2023.

Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)

Overall levels of violent crime experienced by the general population are down by 51% since 2010, according to the Crime Survey for England and Wales. Levels of serious youth violence, as measured by the number of under-25 hospital admissions following an assault with a knife or other bladed instrument, are down by 25% in England and Wales compared with the year ending 2019.

The Home Office collects and publishes data on the investigative outcomes of crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales. These data can be found in the Home Office Open Data Tables, available here: Police recorded crime and outcomes open data tables - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).


Written Question
Migrant Workers: Domestic Service
Wednesday 27th March 2024

Asked by: Stephen Kinnock (Labour - Aberavon)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the conclusions of the Independent Review of the Overseas Domestic Workers Visa by James Ewins, published on 16 December 2015, relating to protection of employment rights of migrant workers in private households, if he will (a) review and (b) reverse changes to the rules for that visa.

Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)

The Home Office keeps immigration route policy under review, including that for the Overseas Domestic Worker route. We have introduced a number of reforms to the route for overseas domestic workers since 2015; designed to build on existing safeguards and in line with the broader immigration system. Employers of overseas domestic workers must act in accordance with UK employment law, and workers who find themselves a victim of modern slavery are protected by the National Referral Mechanism and may be eligible to apply for permission to stay as a domestic worker who is a victim of modern slavery.


Written Question
Migrant Workers: Domestic Service
Wednesday 27th March 2024

Asked by: Stephen Kinnock (Labour - Aberavon)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the Independent Review the Overseas Domestic Workers Visa by James Ewins, published on 16 December 2015, what the Government's policy is on the implementation of proposed changes in that review to the overseas domestic worker visa rules that have not yet been implemented.

Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)

The Home Office keeps immigration route policy under review, including that for the Overseas Domestic Worker route. We have introduced a number of reforms to the route for overseas domestic workers since 2015; designed to build on existing safeguards and in line with the broader immigration system. Employers of overseas domestic workers must act in accordance with UK employment law, and workers who find themselves a victim of modern slavery are protected by the National Referral Mechanism and may be eligible to apply for permission to stay as a domestic worker who is a victim of modern slavery.


Written Question
Migrant Workers: Domestic Service
Wednesday 27th March 2024

Asked by: Stephen Kinnock (Labour - Aberavon)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when his Department last reviewed the potential risk of abuse and exploitation of migrant workers under the overseas domestic worker visa rules.

Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)

The Home Office keeps immigration route policy under review, including that for the Overseas Domestic Worker route. We have introduced a number of reforms to the route for overseas domestic workers since 2015; designed to build on existing safeguards and in line with the broader immigration system. Employers of overseas domestic workers must act in accordance with UK employment law, and workers who find themselves a victim of modern slavery are protected by the National Referral Mechanism and may be eligible to apply for permission to stay as a domestic worker who is a victim of modern slavery.