Asked by: Andrew Murrison (Conservative - South West Wiltshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she plans to add dentists to the shortage occupation list.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The independent Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) last reviewed whether Dental Practitioners should be included on the SOL in 2019, and did not recommend doing so.
Dentists are an eligible occupation to be sponsored under the Skilled Worker route, subject to the rules and requirements of the route being met.
The main benefits of an occupation being on the Shortage Occupation List (SOL) is a lower salary threshold and reduced visa fees. Dentists already receive these benefits through tradeable points and the Health and Care visa (which also exempts them from paying the Immigration Health Surcharge), so there would be little visible benefit in adding them to the SOL.
Following recommendations in their 2020 review the Government have agreed to review the SOL more regularly, the next review is expected to be in 2022. As with all SOL reviews, the MAC will launch a call for evidence and dental stakeholders will be able to provide their input to this process.
Asked by: Andrew Murrison (Conservative - South West Wiltshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what progress the Government has made on reforming pre-charge bail.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
The Government plans to reform pre-charge bail through the provisions of chapter 1 of Part 4 of the Policing and Crime Bill, which is currently at Report Stage in the House of Lords.
In the expectation that the Bill will receive Royal Assent early in the new year, we are working closely with the College of Policing to develop guidance which will form part of the College’s Authorised Professional Practice on Detention, Custody and Bail Management. In parallel, we are working with colleagues at the Ministry of Justice and Her Majesty’s Courts & Tribunals Service to develop Criminal Procedure Rules for use by the courts for pre-charge bail extension hearings.
The Government is also working with the Police, NHS England, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, NHS Wales and the Local Government Association on a series of Memoranda of Understanding to streamline the provision and processing of evidence to enable the police to conclude their investigations within the 28-day initial bail period.
Asked by: Andrew Murrison (Conservative - South West Wiltshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential implication for her Department's policies on the cyber security of nuclear facilities of the Stuxnet cyber attacks.
Answered by Ben Wallace
The cyber security of existing and proposed nuclear facilities is a priority for the Government, for which BEIS is the lead department. The Home Office works closely with BEIS to ensure effective security of the UK civil nuclear sector.
Asked by: Andrew Murrison (Conservative - South West Wiltshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what information police forces hold on the (a) nationality and (b) ethnicity of those (i) arrested for (ii) convicted of sexual assaults against women.
Answered by Mike Penning
Under the annual data requirement (ADR), police forces are required to submit data to the Home Office on the ethnicity and sex of persons arrested for sexual offences. These data cannot be broken down to identify the number of arrests for sexual offences against women. Data on the nationality of persons arrested are not collected centrally.
Police forces hold a range of personal information on the Police National Computer (PNC) and local police databases on those arrested and convicted of any offence, including sexual assaults against women.
Additionally, the personal information of anyone cautioned or convicted for a sexual offence listed in Schedule 3 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, including sexual assault, is held on the police dangerous persons’ database, Violent and Sex Offender Register (ViSOR).