Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Reform UK - Romford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether the National Police Service's remit will include dealing with illegal tobacco and organized crime.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The National Police Service will lead the operational response to serious and organised crime.
We would expect that to include operational activity against illegal tobacco currently carried out by the National Crime Agency and the Regional Organised Crime Units.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Reform UK - Romford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many illegally possessed firearms have been seized in (a) Romford constituency and (b) greater London in each year since 1997.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office does not routinely collect data on the number of firearms seized by police forces as part of their operations to tackle illegally held weapons.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Reform UK - Romford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department has received legal advice on the compliance of new facial recognition technology deployed by police forces with human rights obligations.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office published its consultation on proposals for a new legal framework for law enforcement use of biometrics, facial recognition and similar technologies on 4 December 2025. This considers how the police could use new facial recognition technology in a way that continues to be compatible with the Human Rights Act 1998.
The Department was an interested party in an important court case on this issue, R (Bridges) v Chief Constable of South Wales Police [2020] EWCA Civ 1058. In preparing the consultation, the Department took into account the court’s judgement and received advice on all aspects of the current legal framework for the use of such technology.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Reform UK - Romford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent steps she has taken with relevant authorities to help tackle crime in town centres across greater London.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The central aim of our police reforms is to protect and revitalise neighbourhood policing. We are lifting national responsibilities off local forces, so they focus on tackling local issues, like fighting town centre crime.
Our Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee is already making a difference. For too long, people have not seen police patrolling their streets. We will have 3,000 more neighbourhood officers by March this year. The Metropolitan Police Service’s projected growth over 2025 to 2026 will be 420 police officers (FTE) and 50 Police Community Support Officers (FTE). We are giving them the powers they need, including making it a specific offence to assault retail workers and ending the treatment of theft under the value of £200 as a summary-only offence.
We are equipping the police to fight the organised crime gangs that are often responsible for driving shop theft across the country. Our £5m investment into OPAL (a specialist policing unit) will supercharge intelligence-led policing to identify offenders, disrupt the tactics used to target shops, and bring more criminals to justice.
We have also delivered on our manifesto pledge: every police force in England and Wales now has a dedicated lead officer for anti-social behaviour, who will work with communities to develop an action plan to tackle ASB. We are also strengthening the powers to tackle ASB. Our new Respect Orders will give local agencies stronger enforcement capability to tackle the most relentless ASB offenders.
Through our Summer Initiative police forces and local authorities increased patrols in town centres, tackling retail crime and anti-social behaviour as part of the Government’s Plan for Change to make our streets safer. Our Winter of Action, which ran from 1 December 2025 to 31 January 2026, built on this, with an additional focus on repeat offenders and protecting women and girls at night. The full list of locations the Metropolitan Police Service focused on as part of the Winter of Action can be found here: Winter of Action: location list - GOV.UK
Building from the Winter of Action, we are working with forces and local partners to identify and tackle the most prolific retail offenders - where a few individuals can drive a large proportion of the local crime problem.
Together with the police, we are sending a message: crime and anti-social behaviour will be punished.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Reform UK - Romford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many exempt vignettes issued to diplomats posted in the UK were granted between 2020 and 2025; and for what reasons those vignettes were issued.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The information requested is not centrally held and could only be collected and verified for the purpose of answering this question at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Reform UK - Romford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many exempt vignettes have been granted in the past five years to family members of consular officers who do not fall within the categories of spouses or civil partners or dependent children under the age of 18, as set out in paragraph 2.14 of the Exemption from Immigration Control (non armed forces) Guidance, but who were nonetheless treated as exempt from immigration control.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The information requested is not centrally held and could only be collected and verified for the purpose of answering this question at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Reform UK - Romford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she has taken with police forces to tackle a) physical and b) verbal abuse against retail workers.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Charges for shop theft rose by 25% (up to 107,090 charges) in the year ending June 2025. As this was a higher rate of increase than the rise in shop thefts recorded (13%), this led to an increase in the charge rate from 17.7% to 19.1%.
This Government is committed to restoring visible, responsive neighbourhood policing with 3,000 additional officers in neighbourhood policing roles by spring this year.
In the Crime and Policing Bill, we are bringing a new offence of assaulting a retail worker to protect the hardworking and dedicated staff that work in stores and we are removing the legislation which makes shop theft of and below £200 a summary-only offence, sending a clear message that any level of shop theft is illegal and will be taken seriously.
The Home Office has regular discussions with the police and other partners on protecting retail workers and tackling shop theft.
We are also providing over £7 million over the next three years to support the police and retailers tackle retail crime, including continuing to fund a specialist policing team – in partnership with the retail sector - to better understand the tactics used by organised retail crime gangs and identify more offenders.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Reform UK - Romford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she has taken with police forces to tackle shoplifting in a) England and b) Romford constituency.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Charges for shop theft rose by 25% (up to 107,090 charges) in the year ending June 2025. As this was a higher rate of increase than the rise in shop thefts recorded (13%), this led to an increase in the charge rate from 17.7% to 19.1%.
This Government is committed to restoring visible, responsive neighbourhood policing with 3,000 additional officers in neighbourhood policing roles by spring this year.
In the Crime and Policing Bill, we are bringing a new offence of assaulting a retail worker to protect the hardworking and dedicated staff that work in stores and we are removing the legislation which makes shop theft of and below £200 a summary-only offence, sending a clear message that any level of shop theft is illegal and will be taken seriously.
The Home Office has regular discussions with the police and other partners on protecting retail workers and tackling shop theft.
We are also providing over £7 million over the next three years to support the police and retailers tackle retail crime, including continuing to fund a specialist policing team – in partnership with the retail sector - to better understand the tactics used by organised retail crime gangs and identify more offenders.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Reform UK - Romford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she plans to phase out the use of crustaceans in scientific experimentation.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
The Government is committed to non-animal alternatives in science and has published a strategy which sets out our long-term vision for a world where the use of animals in science is eliminated in all but exceptional circumstances. The strategy is available at:
The strategy does not preclude the development of alternatives to the use of animal species not currently covered by the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 (ASPA) protections, including decapod crustaceans.
The Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022 recognised decapod crustaceans as sentient beings. The Government remains committed to an evidence-based and proportionate approach to setting welfare standards for decapod crustaceans, both for those caught for human consumption and those used in scientific research.
The Home Office is carefully considering next steps, in collaboration with other relevant departments, on whether decapod crustaceans should be brought within the scope of ASPA.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Reform UK - Romford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people have been deported from the USA to the UK in each year since 2016.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The UK and US have a bilateral arrangement to proactively share information about criminals being deported from the UK to US and the US to UK. This came into effect on 29 July 2020. International partners are not obliged to notify each other about the deportation or removal of individuals to another country. Notifications from the US to UK are received and processed by the ACRO Criminal Records Office (ACRO).
ACRO has recorded receipt of the following number of notifications from the US since 29 July 2020:
2020 (after 29 July) | 30 |
2021 | 51 |
2022 | 64 |
2023 | 99 |
2024 | 116 |
2025 | 211 |
The Home Office does not produce official statistics on this topic.