Knife Crime: Violence Reduction Units

Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford Excerpts

Tuesday 20th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Again, the noble Baroness raises a good point. I think it is important to collect the statistics as accurately and in as granular a way as possible. So I would perhaps mildly dispute the second part of the question. However, we need to look at the way violence occurs in the round—so the noble Baroness raises a very good point.

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford (Con)]

My Lords, it is critical to rebuild trust from these communities and public services who are so affected by violence if violence reduction units are to be successful. This is obviously possible but it is very challenging. What steps are being taken to evaluate successful measures to rebuild trust and share those between violence reduction units, so that this can be done effectively?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for that question. Part of the funding for VRUs has to be allocated towards evaluation, but an independent evaluation programme shows that, alongside the Grip, which we have talked about before from this Dispatch Box, there are serious violent hotspot programmes. These are putting additional highly visible police patrols into key locations. The VRU programme is having a statistically significant positive effect, as I referenced earlier. An estimated 3,220 hospital admissions for violent injury have been avoided since funding began in 2019.

Eurostar St Pancras: Border Control

Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

As the noble Baroness will be aware, the European scheme requires people in advance to obtain these authorisations and to deposit the biometrics. It is not anticipated that this will cause delays at the border at St Pancras, as far as I am aware. As I say, for the reasons I gave to the noble Viscount, the anticipation is that increased digitisation will lead to faster use of e-gates.

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford (Con)]

My Lords, I was very interested in the Minister’s answer to the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, and the recent answer regarding digitisation at ports. Does the Home Office intend to update the biometrics strategy, which was last updated in 2018, given some of the challenges with future-proofing these technologies and keeping up to date with AI and other technologies?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I can confirm to my noble friend that the Home Office takes seriously its duties to review the ethics of the biometrics that are retained. That is definitely on our radar as we progress the future border improvement scheme and the increasing use of digitisation to accelerate the rate at which people pass through ports and airports.

Western Jet Foil and Manston Asylum Processing Centres

Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for that question. I do not have the answer, so I will find out what it is and write to her.

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford (Con)]

My Lords, those of us who have had the misfortune to be an MP representing a detention centre will know that the detention estate has had failings for many years. One of those is that the appeals rate has rested at about 42% against the Government for many years; it was that last year as well. Does the Minister not think that, if the Government were able to make the right decisions on asylum requests in the first place, we would have fewer people in the detention estate and would be making quicker decisions?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for her question. Clearly, the process for considering asylum decisions needs improvement—that is something we are committed to—and the appeal rate clearly reflects some mistaken decision-making. However, it is right to say that certain cases on appeal will consider matters that were not before the original decision-maker, so those cases do not reflect a particular error. The statistic itself does not suggest entirely a situation which is indicative of flawed decision-making by Home Office officials. However, as I say, this is an area on which we shall work.

Covid-19: UK Border Health Measures

Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, these measures will be in place from 8 June and will of course regularly be reviewed. I totally concur with the points made by the noble Lord. The last thing that we want to do is damage any of the things that he talks about, but we also have a duty to keep the public safe and healthy.

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford (Con)]

I am not sure whether SAGE was consulted on this matter, but the Minister will understand that on measures so consequential, transparency is in all our interests. In this spirit, will she undertake to ensure that SAGE and the CMOs of all four nations are consulted as part of the rolling review process?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My Lords, it is fair to say that SAGE advises the Government and the Government make decisions on the back of that advice; SAGE also published the minutes up to 1 May. There would be no point in having SAGE if the Government did not at least value the quality of its advice. At the beginning of this, the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, thanked Border Force. I neglected to join him in doing so, but I also put on record my thanks to SAGE, which has been phenomenal throughout this process.

Immigration: Points-based System

Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

Of course, the Government, in whatever legislation they bring forward, publish an equality impact assessment, as the noble Baroness knows. But I have to agree with her point about how women are adversely affected by policy. Immigration alone will not be the solution to some of the problems that women in the care sector face. The point I made about employers upskilling workers and not relying on cheap labour—I think that would be to the benefit of women in the care sector. I want women to be more valued in the work they do.

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend the Minister made reference to the uncapped and fast-tracked global talent visa. It has been widely welcomed by the science and innovation sector, which will be critical for our post-Brexit success. Will she also undertake to look into the problems faced by world-leading experts who are seeking to come to speak at academic conferences and universities in the UK? Such short-term collaborations are critical to scientific knowledge exchange and the UK’s reputation as an innovation nation, and any immigration form that seeks to attract the brightest and the best will have to get this right.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I totally concur with my noble friend. On 20 February—only a few days ago—we launched the new fast-track arrangements, managed by UK Research and Innovation, which enable UK-based research projects that have received recognised prestigious grants and awards to recruit that top global talent. However, as she also says, we want those experts to be able to come and furnish us with the benefit of their knowledge: I will most certainly take that back.