Asked by: Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat - Orkney and Shetland)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what level of resources her Department plans to allocate to tackling cybercrime in each of the next five years.
Answered by Stephen McPartland
Tackling cyber crime is at the heart of the Government’s new National Cyber Strategy which is supported by £2.6bn of new investment over the three year Spending Review period. We are continuing to build law enforcement capabilities at the national, regional and local levels to ensure they have the capacity to deal with the increasing volume and sophistication of cyber crime, which includes ensuring officers are being trained and upskilled.
Asked by: Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat - Orkney and Shetland)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much the Home Office has spent on communications and public relations agencies in (a) 2019, (b) 2020, (c) 2021 and (d) 2022.
Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The Home Office does not publish the information sought to the level of granularity required and identifying spending on communications and public relations specifically from our management systems can only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat - Orkney and Shetland)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many meetings the Home Secretary has had on tackling domestic burglaries in each of the past 12 months.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Home Secretary considers domestic burglary, alongside other neighbourhood crimes, on a regular basis.
This Government recognises the devastating impact domestic burglary has on communities. That is why we are recruiting 20,000 extra police officers and why we established the Safer Streets Fund to prevent these crimes from happening in the first place, supporting the deployment of solutions such as home security, increased streetlighting and CCTV in high crime areas.
We are also taking a range of measures to tackle reoffending, including the tagging scheme for neighbourhood crime offenders released on licence, and work driven by the Residential Burglary Taskforce, driving forward the sharing of best practice about police effective investigations.
The importance of tackling neighbourhood crime was discussed at the most recent meeting of the Home Secretary’s National Policing Board. This was attended by key senior police leaders, representing all forces and Police and Crime Commissioners across England and Wales.
Asked by: Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat - Orkney and Shetland)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much her Department has spent on away days for Ministers and staff in each of the last four calendar years.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Home Office does not publish the information sought to the level of granularity required and identifying spending on away days specifically from our management systems can only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat - Orkney and Shetland)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many members of Home Office staff have roles dedicated to tackling (a) fraud and (b) cybercrime.
Answered by Stephen McPartland
The Home Office has a total of (a) 31 FTE to tackle fraud against businesses and individuals and (b) 31 FTE to tackle cyber-crime.
Tackling crime, including fraud, is a top government priority and the Home Secretary meets victims of all crimes regularly.
Asked by: Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat - Orkney and Shetland)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many meetings she has had with (a) victims of fraud or (b) their representatives in each of the last 12 months.
Answered by Stephen McPartland
The Home Office has a total of (a) 31 FTE to tackle fraud against businesses and individuals and (b) 31 FTE to tackle cyber-crime.
Tackling crime, including fraud, is a top government priority and the Home Secretary meets victims of all crimes regularly.
Asked by: Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat - Orkney and Shetland)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many (a) police stations and (b) police counters have been closed in each of the last five years, by Parliamentary constituency.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Home Office does not collect data on the number of closures of police stations or police counters.
Asked by: Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat - Orkney and Shetland)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will take steps to ensure that Government funding is not used to support the partnership between the London Policing College and Chinese universities with links to policing in Xinjiang, in the context of reports of torture of ethnic minorities in that region.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
In 2019 the British Council awarded funding to LPC as part of a regional programme to improve international teaching standards in police education in the target countries.
This included efforts to reduce human rights violations. The British Council have confirmed that they have never funded any activities involving Xinjiang security bodies.
LPC have also confirmed that no Xinjiang security bodies were involved in the programme and that they have now ceased all programme partnerships with China.
Asked by: Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat - Orkney and Shetland)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the appropriateness of links between the London Policing College (LPC) and British police forces, in the context of reports that the LPC and four British police forces hosted Chinese delegates, including delegates from regions linked to alleged cases of torture of ethnic minorities.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The London College of Policing is an independent company engaging retired officers.
Any previous engagement by the London College of Policing with Chinese delegates (a conference in 2019) included the completion of the OSJA process.