Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to expand the coverage of BBC World Service to enhance the UK's soft power.

Answered by Baroness Chapman of Darlington - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)

The BBC is editorially and operationally independent and decides the most effective and efficient way of delivering the World Service. Expanding coverage would be a decision for the BBC in line with its operational and editorial independence although if this were to involve the creation (or closing) of a full language service, the Foreign Secretary would need to approve, as per Framework Agreement requirements.

The Government highly values the BBC World Service, which provides impartial accurate news to a global audience of 320 million. HMG is providing an uplift of £32.6million (or 31 per cent) for 2025/26 taking our total funding to £137million. This is a large funding uplift in a tough fiscal situation.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what progress they have made on a register of convicted stalkers.

Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)

The Government has set out an unprecedented mission to halve violence against women. Stalking is an insidious crime that leaves victims living in fear every day, which is why it is essential to ensure the police and wider criminal justice system have the tools they need to protect victims and pursue perpetrators.

Those convicted of the offence of stalking involving fear, harassment, alarm or distress and sentenced to more than 12 months' imprisonment are automatically managed under Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA), a process which involves the police, probation and prison services working together to assess and manage the risk of specified offenders. Those convicted of that offence and sentenced to fewer than 12 months' imprisonment or convicted of section 2A stalking offence can be MAPPA managed on a discretionary basis. In the MAPPA guidance, it is stressed that every stalking perpetrator should be considered for MAPPA management. We continue to consider how these systems can be strengthened.

Those managed under MAPPA have their details stored on the ViSOR database. In addition, anyone subject to a Stalking Protection Order (SPO) is subject to notification requirements. This means if the name used by or the address of the person changes during the duration of the order, they must notify the police within a 3-day period of that change. Failure to do so is a criminal offence punishable by a maximum of 12 months' imprisonment.

To ensure the effective management of stalking perpetrators we also announced six new measures on 3 December. This includes legislating in the Crime and Policing Bill to provide for the courts to issue SPOs on conviction or acquittal and introducing national standards for stalking perpetrator interventions to help improve the efficacy and consistency of such programmes.

We are also working with a new policing centre to create models such as V100 in the MET to look at the specific offender management of the most violent perpetrators in an area.