Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to tackle the theft of practical tools for employment in (a) West Yorkshire and (b) England.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Government is tackling vehicle crime as a priority. We continue to work closely with police and motor manufacturers through the National Vehicle Crime Working Group, established by the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for vehicle crime and overseen by the Government’s Crime and Justice Taskforce. This includes consideration of how we can reduce the number of vehicles being stolen.
Through this Working Group, a network of vehicle crime specialists has been established across all police forces in England and Wales to share expertise.
The Government is aware of the issue of tool theft and understands the negative impact this has on victims who rely on the tools of their trade to earn a living. We have established an expert Stolen Goods Working Group with the police and academia to tackle the markets for stolen goods. The group is examining ways to make property more identifiable and traceable and are working with partners to increase enforcement and encourage due diligence checks by second-hand goods traders.
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to tackle van theft in (a) West Yorkshire and (b) England.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Government is tackling vehicle crime as a priority. We continue to work closely with police and motor manufacturers through the National Vehicle Crime Working Group, established by the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for vehicle crime and overseen by the Government’s Crime and Justice Taskforce. This includes consideration of how we can reduce the number of vehicles being stolen.
Through this Working Group, a network of vehicle crime specialists has been established across all police forces in England and Wales to share expertise.
The Government is aware of the issue of tool theft and understands the negative impact this has on victims who rely on the tools of their trade to earn a living. We have established an expert Stolen Goods Working Group with the police and academia to tackle the markets for stolen goods. The group is examining ways to make property more identifiable and traceable and are working with partners to increase enforcement and encourage due diligence checks by second-hand goods traders.
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to promote the Places of Worship protective security funding scheme to eligible institutions.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Places of Worship Protective Security Funding Scheme is a key commitment in the Government Hate Crime Action Plan. The sixth year of the scheme opened on 4th June 2021 with a record level amount of funding- £3.5 million.
Officials are engaging heavily with faith networks, representative groups including the Independent Advisory Panel consisting of Christian, Hindu, Muslim and Sikh representatives, as well as the police to ensure there is positive uptake of the scheme.
The scheme has been promoted through the media, online engagement events, leaflets and a short video circulated to faith stakeholders.
The application window has been extended by 2 weeks to the 16th July to enable additional Places of Worship to apply, and further online engagement events will be organised in this period to promote the scheme.
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to encourage male victims of domestic abuse to seek support and report that abuse to the police.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
This Government is committed to protecting and supporting all victims of domestic abuse, regardless of gender. That is why we recently passed the landmark Domestic Abuse Act, which includes a new definition of domestic abuse in recognition that around one third of domestic abuse victims are male. Additionally, the Statutory Guidance that will accompany the Act will address the impact on male victims and their unique needs and barriers to accessing support. We will be publishing this guidance for consultation shortly.
Since 2016/18 the Home Office has provided funding of over £160,000 per year to the Men’s Advice Line run by Respect which supports and advises male victims of domestic abuse. Additional funding of £151,000 was provided to further bolster the helpline during the pandemic.
In March 2019 the Home Office published the Male Victims Position Statement which sets out 12 specific commitments to better enable male victims and survivors to come forward and receive necessary support, and to tackle offenders. A copy of the statement can be found here https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-unveils-commitments-to-tackle-abuse-against-men
Specific advice has been published on gov.uk for domestic abuse victims during COVID-19 directing them to a range of specialist organisations, including those supporting male victims.
We launched the Ask for ANI Codeword Scheme in January, in which 5,000 pharmacies are now participating. This scheme has already helped victims flee abuse, including male victims.
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to support perpetrator behaviour change programmes to support services to work together to tackle high-harm perpetrators of domestic violence.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Government is committed to ensuring that abusive behaviour is tackled directly with perpetrators of abuse and the root causes of domestic abuse are addressed.
This is why in the financial year 2020/21 we committed £10 million to tackle perpetrators of domestic abuse. From this we awarded over £7 million to Police and Crime Commissioners to support the introduction of innovative approaches to preventing domestic abuse, including the expansion of interventions such as the Drive Project that work with high harm perpetrators of domestic abuse.
For the year 2021/22 we have £25 million - more than doubling the funding for tackling domestic abuse perpetrators. Building on the success of last year’s fund, I am pleased to confirm that on Friday 21st May we launched a new Perpetrator Programme Fund for Police and Crime Commissioners to bid into totalling £11.1m. The purpose of this fund is to support the introduction of more perpetrator programmes. The competition will be live for six weeks, closing on 2nd July.
With the remainder of the £25 million funding, we will be considering how we can best support the projects we funded in 20/21, as well as continuing to build up our evidence base by investing in research, technology and innovation to tackle perpetrators and keep victims safe.
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to reduce alcohol-related crimes.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Government is committed to reducing alcohol-related crime and ensuring that swift action to tackle alcohol-related offending. In the past year, we have expanded electronic tagging for criminals serving time outside of jail and the Alcohol Abstinence Monitoring Requirement is now available across courts in England and Wales.
We are focused on establishing effective partnerships between the police, local authorities, local partnership schemes and businesses to take effective actions against alcohol-related crime and harms in the night time economy, which includes plans to improve the safety of women.
We are planning to hold a Summit this summer with police, industry representatives and stakeholders from the violence against women sector to develop plans further. This complements the excellent work that police and other local agencies continue to do to reduce and prevent alcohol related crime.
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to encourage more people to join the police force in West Yorkshire.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Government is committed to increasing the number of police officers by 20,000 by March 2023. Today we announced that as at 31 December 2020, 6,620 additional officers had been recruited in England and Wales showing that we are on track to deliver this commitment.
We have made £700m additional funding available for PCCs in 2020-21, and in the next financial year, 2021-22, we are giving PCCs an additional £415m to support the recruitment of a further 6,000 additional police officers by March 2022.
West Yorkshire Police has been allocated 256 additional officers in the first year of the Police Uplift Programme, supported by £484.5M for the force. At 31 December 2020 the force has recruited an additional 390 uplift officers against its baseline and has therefore already exceeded its year one allocation. For year two of the uplift, the force has been allocated 239 additional officers and additional funding of £511.9M – an increase of £27.3M on last year.
The national uplift programme is also supporting all forces with a variety of attraction and recruitment strategies, whilst delivering a campaign that’s been designed to reach diverse audiences.
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the effect of recent increases in police recruitment on the number of police officers engaged in on-the-ground work.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Government is delivering on the people’s priorities by recruiting an additional 20,000 police officers and putting violent criminals behind bars for longer.
I am delighted that almost 6,000 police officers have already been recruited as part of the uplift, working to support the national response to coronavirus as well as tackling crime and keeping communities safe.
We are committed to recruiting at pace, but also ensuring officers are fully trained and supported to meet modern crime demands. During their probation, new officers will be on the beat.
The deployment of these officers is an operational decision for Chief Constables.
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the ONS statistical release of 13 February 2020, Homicide in England and Wales: year ending March 2019, what steps her Department is taking to reduce trends in the number of (a) baby girls and (b) toddlers being killed.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Every child’s death is a tragedy. That is why the Government has called on everyone who comes into contact with babies, children and families to recognise the role we all play in keeping them safe, and the need to work together to identify concerns, share information and take prompt action.
As part of this, the Government has already taken the following steps:
We reintroduced the Domestic Abuse Bill in March 2020 to better protect and support the victims of abuse and their children and bring perpetrators to justice. The Bill transferred to the Lords on 7 July having completed its Commons stages.
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will increase support available to victims of child abuse when they are attending court.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Government is committed to meeting the needs of vulnerable victims and witnesses. It provides the Witness Intermediary Scheme to assist those with communication difficulties, including victims of child abuse.
The majority of requests for Registered Intermediaries (RIs) - a communications specialist who helps witnesses with communication difficulties - concern the assistance of children.
In 2019, RIs assisted more than 4,500 children, 560 of whom were less than 5 years old.