Asked by: Lord Bishop of Leicester (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, in the light of the National Audit Office’s report Investigation into asylum accommodation, published on 20 March, which found that (1) using large sites to accommodate asylum seekers could cost £46 million more than using hotels, and (2) the Home Office rated their own plans as “high risk or undeliverable”, why the large sites accommodation programme will be continued.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Government has always been clear that the use of asylum hotels is unacceptable, and that’s why we acted swiftly to reduce the impact on local communities by moving asylum seekers on to barges and former military sites.
Thanks to the actions the Government has taken to maximise the use of existing space and our work to cut small boat crossings by a third last year, the cost of hotels will fall, and we are now closing dozens of asylum hotels every month to return them to communities.
Large sites provide adequate and functional accommodation for asylum seekers and are designed to be as self-sufficient as possible, helping to minimise the impact on local communities and services. They reduce demand on an already pressured private rental market and their larger capacity allows the Home Office to be agile in responding to fluctuations in demand.
It is better value for money for the taxpayer to continue with these sites than to continue using hotels. The latest assessment of value for money, which excludes committed or spent costs in line with the Green Book methodology, shows that large sites would be £153 million cheaper than hotels.
Despite the need to stand up large sites at speed, controls were in place to assure value for money for the taxpayer. Operational challenges at the sites have changed our costs since original estimates. We continue to keep costs under review while developing ways to reduce it.
The latest Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA) review has upgraded the rating of the programme, meaning that the successful delivery of time, quality and cost is feasible.
Asked by: Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many complaints to Border Force are not answered within the service standard of 20 days.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The latest transparency data showing performance against service standards in relation to replies to customer complaints for UKVI, Immigration Enforcement and Border Force is available at the following: Customer service operations data: Q3 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Earl of Clancarty (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they intend to improve crime reporting in relation to national heritage, including through the development of a heritage crime marker to highlight protected sites and other cultural property in police call handling.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Crime Survey for England and Wales shows neighbourhood crime is down 48% compared to findings from the year ending March 2010; however, this Government recognises the significant impact crimes affecting heritage sites can have.
The Home Office is working closely with Historic England to prevent and tackle theft from historic buildings, monuments and sites, and through the established, expert Stolen Goods Working Group, is collaborating with policing and other partners, to deliver a programme of work that will make it harder for criminals to profit financially from acquisitive crime, including heritage crime.
The Home Office has encouraged the police, as part of their neighbourhood policing commitment, to work with communities to develop an understanding of the scale and extent of these crimes, whilst welcoming their commitment made last year to pursue all reasonable lines of enquiry so more perpetrators can be bought to justice.
In addition, crime prevention advice is published by Secured By Design, the police security initiative, including advice on how to improve the security of buildings and their surroundings, here: Secured by Design - Secured by Design.
Asked by: Earl of Clancarty (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they intend to take to combat the theft of stone from historic sites.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Crime Survey for England and Wales shows neighbourhood crime is down 48% compared to findings from the year ending March 2010; however, this Government recognises the significant impact crimes affecting heritage sites can have.
The Home Office is working closely with Historic England to prevent and tackle theft from historic buildings, monuments and sites, and through the established, expert Stolen Goods Working Group, is collaborating with policing and other partners, to deliver a programme of work that will make it harder for criminals to profit financially from acquisitive crime, including heritage crime.
The Home Office has encouraged the police, as part of their neighbourhood policing commitment, to work with communities to develop an understanding of the scale and extent of these crimes, whilst welcoming their commitment made last year to pursue all reasonable lines of enquiry so more perpetrators can be bought to justice.
In addition, crime prevention advice is published by Secured By Design, the police security initiative, including advice on how to improve the security of buildings and their surroundings, here: Secured by Design - Secured by Design.
Asked by: Lord Patten (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment, if any, have they made of the number of illegal migrants who have reached the UK from or via Tunisia in each of the last 3 years.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Home Office publishes statistics on detected irregular arrivals to the UK in the ‘Irregular migration to the UK statistics’ release published on gov.uk. Data on detected irregular arrivals by nationality is published in table Irr_D01 of the ‘Irregular migration to the UK detailed datasets’ with the latest data up to the end of December 2023.
Please note these statistics do not include details of countries of transit, and nationality may differ from country of origin.
Asked by: Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what procedures Border Force has in place to learn lessons from incidents of unnecessary detention or of the loss of paper-work such that a complaint takes 11 months to process.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
A Transformation Programme of work is currently underway to reduce the time taken to process incoming complaints within service level agreement. Part of the programme includes identifying and sharing lessons learned to improve the overall service at the border and monitor detention related complaints.
Asked by: Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government why no reason is given to inward travellers for being held for 6 hours; why they are offered no food or drink during such detention; and why no apology is offered when nothing untoward has been found in their travel to the UK.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
A passenger remains liable to examination on arrival in the United Kingdom until all necessary enquiries have been concluded and a decision is made on their application for permission to enter or admission.
Anyone detained beyond two hours is detained in compliance with the relevant guidance and legislation (notably The Short Term Holding Facility Rules 2018). The detained person is informed of their bail rights and reasons for their detention, and this is explained in a language that they understand.
Temperature controlled food was temporarily withdrawn from BF managed facilities during 2023 whilst we implemented a new training and governance procedure to ensure we were complaint with current food standards. Throughout this period, we followed Government guidance, continuing to serve water, hot drinks and snacks.
We always look to minimise detention as far as possible; however, the power to detain must be retained in the interests of maintaining effective immigration control.
It would not be appropriate for Border Force to apologise for conducting legitimate border security checks.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of St Albans (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what consideration they have given to producing a rural crime strategy which would be fully integrated into the overall Government Crime Strategy, as called for in the National Rural Crime Network’s recent report, Rural Crime: Serious, Organised and International, published on 10 March.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
We welcome the National Rural Crime Network’s report and will consider its recommendations.
This Government is committed to tackling the threat from Serious and Organised Crime (SOC). In December 2023, we published the 2023 Serious and Organised Crime Strategy that commits to reducing SOC in the UK by disrupting and dismantling organised crime groups and networks operating in and against the UK.
Serious and organised crime is a major threat to the national security and prosperity of the UK. It costs lives, blights communities, hampers economic growth, and corrodes the global reputation of the UK and its institutions.
The Government welcomed the rural and wildlife crime strategy published by the National Police Chiefs’ Council in September 2022, this provides a comprehensive framework through which policing, and partner agencies can work together to tackle rural and wildlife crime, including where it is linked to other forms of serious and organised crime such as the drugs trade.
The National Rural Crime Unit works closely with Interpol to share information about stolen agricultural and construction machinery. As a result of the partnership it has established with INTERPOL, equipment has been recovered from criminal gangs across Europe.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of St Albans (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what consideration they have given to the National Rural Crime Network’s call for the Home Office to undertake a comprehensive economic impact assessment of rural crime in its report Rural Crime: Serious, Organised and International, published on 10 March.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
We welcome the National Rural Crime Network’s report and will consider its recommendations.
This Government is committed to tackling the threat from Serious and Organised Crime (SOC). In December 2023, we published the 2023 Serious and Organised Crime Strategy that commits to reducing SOC in the UK by disrupting and dismantling organised crime groups and networks operating in and against the UK.
Serious and organised crime is a major threat to the national security and prosperity of the UK. It costs lives, blights communities, hampers economic growth, and corrodes the global reputation of the UK and its institutions.
The Government welcomed the rural and wildlife crime strategy published by the National Police Chiefs’ Council in September 2022, this provides a comprehensive framework through which policing, and partner agencies can work together to tackle rural and wildlife crime, including where it is linked to other forms of serious and organised crime such as the drugs trade.
The National Rural Crime Unit works closely with Interpol to share information about stolen agricultural and construction machinery. As a result of the partnership it has established with INTERPOL, equipment has been recovered from criminal gangs across Europe.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of St Albans (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the UK’s decision to leave the EU on the UK’s ability to track down or trace stolen plant and agricultural machinery.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
We welcome the National Rural Crime Network’s report and will consider its recommendations.
This Government is committed to tackling the threat from Serious and Organised Crime (SOC). In December 2023, we published the 2023 Serious and Organised Crime Strategy that commits to reducing SOC in the UK by disrupting and dismantling organised crime groups and networks operating in and against the UK.
Serious and organised crime is a major threat to the national security and prosperity of the UK. It costs lives, blights communities, hampers economic growth, and corrodes the global reputation of the UK and its institutions.
The Government welcomed the rural and wildlife crime strategy published by the National Police Chiefs’ Council in September 2022, this provides a comprehensive framework through which policing, and partner agencies can work together to tackle rural and wildlife crime, including where it is linked to other forms of serious and organised crime such as the drugs trade.
The National Rural Crime Unit works closely with Interpol to share information about stolen agricultural and construction machinery. As a result of the partnership it has established with INTERPOL, equipment has been recovered from criminal gangs across Europe.