Bob Seely

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) holds management information on its Case Management System showing the number of defendants allocated the Principal Offence Category of Homicide at completion of prosecution. Please note that homicide consists of a range of offences, including, among others:

• Murder
• Attempted murder
• Conspiring or soliciting to commit murder
• Manslaughter (corporate, gross negligence, unlawful act)
• Infanticide
• Child destruction
• Aiding or assisting suicide
• Causing or allowing the death of a child or vulnerable adult
• Causing death by careless or dangerous driving
• Manslaughter due to diminished responsibility
• Causing death by aggravated vehicle taking

The Principal Offence Category indicates the most serious offence with which a defendant is charged.

The table below shows the number of completed prosecutions and convictions for homicide from the start of January 2005 to the end of September 2015. The data provided in the table is in financial quarters.

‘Total completed prosecutions’ refer to the conclusion of a prosecution case against a defendant such as conviction after trial, guilty plea, acquittal, or the prosecution against the defendant being dropped. ‘Convictions’ refer to convictions after trial and guilty pleas.

The Immigration Act 1971 (the Act) sets out offences for illegal entry, illegal working, and assisting unlawful immigration into the United Kingdom.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) holds management information showing the number of offences charged by way of section 24 (illegal entry/arrival), section 25 (assisting unlawful immigration to member State or the UK), section 25A (helping an asylum-seeker to enter the UK), and section 25B (assisting entry to the UK in breach of deportation or exclusion order) of the Act in which a prosecution commenced and reached a first hearing at a magistrates’ court.

The table attached shows the number of these offences from the start of January 2005 to the end of September 2015.

The CPS does not hold data which shows the number of defendants charged with, prosecuted, and convicted for offences created by the Act. The figures in the table relate to the number of offences and not the number of individual defendants. An individual defendant may be charged with more than one offence against the same complainant. No data is held showing the final outcome or if the charged offence was the substantive charge at completion of prosecution.

Her Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate (HMCPSI) published a report on CPS South East on 12 October 2021. The report found that the Area made strong charging decisions, and handled disclosure issues and victim and witness issues well. In addition, the report found that the quality of the Area’s RASSO casework was particularly good. HMCPSI will conduct a follow-up inspection of CPS South East next year to assess whether improvements have been made.

HMCPSI are currently conducting an inspection of CPS Wessex, which includes the Isle of Wight, and will publish the report on the Area later this year. Recent CPS performance data shows that the Area’s magistrates’ court conviction rate and domestic abuse conviction rate are both above the national average.

The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.

A response to the Hon. Member’s parliamentary question of 30/04/24 is attached.

The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.

A response to the Hon. Member’s parliamentary question of 30/04/24 is attached.

With the increasing volatility and interconnectedness of risks, strong national resilience is more important than ever. The UK Government’s Resilience Framework, published in December 2022, sets out a strategic approach to strengthening the systems and capabilities that underpin our collective resilience to all risks.

Work is already underway across Government to deliver on the principles and approach in the Framework and to act on lessons from recent crises. We have already refreshed the National Security Risk Assessment and will be updating the public National Risk Register later in the year. The Prime Minister has approved a new sub-committee of the National Security Council dedicated to resilience, led by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. We have also strengthened Cabinet Office crisis and resilience structures. The new Resilience Directorate leads on longer-term resilience planning, alongside the COBR Unit which leads on national crisis response and contingency planning.

The Government understands the huge significance of weddings. We recognise that because weddings have not been able to take place in recent months this has caused difficulty and distress for many people. As set out in the Government’s COVID-19 recovery strategy, published in May, the Government has been examining how to enable people to gather in slightly larger groups better to facilitate small weddings. We have worked closely with faith leaders and local government on how best to achieve this. The Prime Minister announced on 23 June that wedding and civil partnership ceremonies will be able to take place in England from 4 July. People should avoid having a large ceremony, and should invite no more than thirty family and friends. Venues should ensure they are COVID-19 secure.

Cabinet Office has a number of Business Units which have involvement with overseas programmes. However, the data is not held centrally and it would therefore be a disproportionate cost to collect the data.

Available data relating to ballots for industrial action held by registered trade unions can be found on gov.uk under the Certification Officer’s official list of trade unions and their annual returns. However, data for the 2023 calendar year will not be available until later this year. Data for 2024 will not be available until the following year.

Available data relating to ballots for industrial action held by registered trade unions can be found on gov.uk under the Certification Officer’s official list of trade unions and their annual returns. However, data for the 2023 calendar year will not be available until later this year. Data for 2024 will not be available until the following year.

Available data relating to ballots for industrial action held by registered trade unions can be found on gov.uk under the Certification Officer’s official list of trade unions and their annual returns. However, data for the 2023 calendar year will not be available until later this year. Data for 2024 will not be available until the following year.

Available data relating to ballots for industrial action held by registered trade unions can be found on gov.uk under the Certification Officer’s official list of trade unions and their annual returns. However, data for the 2023 calendar year will not be available until later this year. Data for 2024 will not be available until the following year.

Available data relating to ballots for industrial action held by registered trade unions can be found on gov.uk under the Certification Officer’s official list of trade unions and their annual returns. However, data for the 2023 calendar year will not be available until later this year. Data for 2024 will not be available until the following year.

As set out in the British Energy Security Strategy, the UK has an ambition to deploy up to 50GW of offshore wind by 2030, and the Government estimates that around 90,000 direct and indirect jobs could be supported by the offshore wind sector by 2030.

These jobs offer opportunities throughout the UK, including to the Isle of Wight, where Vestas Wind Systems A/S is already a key employer.

The Government is supporting research and development in offshore wind technology via the Net Zero Innovation Programme (NZIP), which will provide £60 million of funding for technologies including floating offshore wind and radar mitigation. Each of these programmes includes an element of matched funding from the private sector. The effectiveness of these programmes will be considered as part of the wider benefits evaluation work of the NZIP.

The Government also awarded £3.12 million to the innovative ERM-Dolphin project in 2020, which will develop a floating wind farm to produce green hydrogen at scale with a target capacity of 4GW by 2032.

The Government set out in the British Energy Security Strategy its ambition to deliver up to 50GW of offshore wind by 2030. The South-East stands to benefit from the growth of this sector with, for example, RWE developing the 1.2GW Rampion 2 project off the Sussex coast.

There is no single formal definition of an SME used by the UK government in designing government schemes. Schemes have different eligibility criteria depending on their aims. All businesses, including micro-businesses can apply to government schemes if they believe they meet the eligibility criteria.

The Government provides a range of support that all businesses, including micro businesses can access. These include information on starting up and running a business on GOV.UK, one to one advice via our free Business Support Helpline and through 38 Growth Hubs across England, government backed Start-Up Loans, and businesses with 5 or more employees can access our Help to Grow schemes.

The Government is providing a range of support to help small and medium-sized businesses across the UK with rising costs, including those in rural communities. The Government has cut fuel duty for 12 months, raised the Employment Allowance to £5,000, and is zero-rating VAT on energy-saving materials. This builds on existing support, including business rates relief worth £7 billion over five years.

Additionally, Help to Grow programmes will enable eligible SMEs to mitigate the effects of rising costs by providing financial discounts on approved digital technologies up to a value of £5000 and improving SME leadership and management skills though subsidised courses.

The setting of tariff rates, including the price variation between peak and off-peak periods for time-of-use tariffs such as Economy 7 is a commercial matter for individual supply companies. Electricity-only households who are on their supplier’s default or standard variable tariffs are protected by the energy price cap. The price cap methodology used by Ofgem enables a separate rate to be set for households who heat their homes using electric storage heaters. These households will also receive £200 discount on their electricity bill this autumn, as part of the Government’s package of support worth £9.1 billion to help domestic energy customers with the cost of rising energy bills.

The Government will introduce legislation to support the orderly resolution of rental payments accrued by commercial tenants affected by the pandemic. The legislation will ringfence rent debt accrued during the pandemic by businesses affected by enforced closures. The legislation will also set out a process of binding arbitration to be undertaken between landlords and tenants. This is to be used as a last resort after bilateral negotiations have been undertaken and only where landlords and tenants cannot otherwise come to a resolution.

As set out in the government’s Tourism Recovery Plan, we are committed to supporting the tourism industry’s return to pre-pandemic levels across England including the Isle of Wight and other coastal communities.

So far, the government has provided over £35 billion in support to the tourism, leisure and hospitality sectors over the course of the pandemic in the form of grants, loans and tax breaks.

The latest budget announcement also included a new temporary business rates relief for over 90% of eligible retail, hospitality and leisure businesses in England which will cut at least 50% off their business rates bills during the 2022-23 period which is worth almost £1.7 billion.

On 21 December 2021, HMT announced additional support for businesses who have been impacted by the Omicron variant across the UK, including one-off grants of up to £6,000 for hospitality and leisure premises, plus more than £100 million discretionary funding will be made available for local authorities to support other businesses.

VisitBritain (VB) promotes Isle of Wight and other coastal destinations on their websites, social media and through PR activity to ensure that when international travel resumes, visitors are inspired and informed on visiting our coastal towns and cities.

Coastal destinations were also supported via the Discover England Fund as part of the England’s Coast project. This was up to 2021 however VisitBritain continues to support their initiatives, through marketing, PR and business support.

The Government is committed to promoting the arts and culture outside of London, and invests in culture across the country through Arts Council England.

Arts Council England’s ambition to ensure the arts are accessible to all is articulated in its ‘Let’s Create’ Strategy 2020-2030, which can be found on its website. The Arts Council encourages London-based organisations to have national reach and impact. It facilitates relationships across the country where there are synergies and/or particular opportunities, and supports organisations from major cities, including London, to share their work in rural areas. In addition, the Arts Council has identified the Isle of Wight as a priority area for increased engagement and investment.

A number of London-based National Portfolio Organisations (NPOs) work in the Isle of Wight as well as rural and coastal areas. One example includes The Reading Agency, which produces programmes delivered by libraries across the country.

In reaching the final decision on high risk vendors, the Government took into consideration the full range of threats and risks informed by the technical and security expertise of the UK’s intelligence community, led by the National Cyber Security Centre, together with all relevant information, both public and classified, including that from international partners.

The government’s decision to categorise Huawei as a high risk vendor takes into consideration the potential links between Chinese companies and the Chinese State. And the limits we have imposed on the presence of all High Risk Vendors constitute some of the toughest security measures in the telecoms sector in the world.

We have unique insight through the Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre (HCSEC), which was established in 2010. As a result of our work, we know more about Huawei, and the risks it poses, than any other country in the world. Huawei’s operations in the UK are subject to the strongest oversight possible. The company’s presence in the UK has been subject to detailed, formal oversight through the HCSEC, and the HCSEC Oversight Board which has reported annually since 2014.

As set out in the oral statement of 28 January by the Secretary of State for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, a high risk vendor is a vendor that poses greater security and resilience risks to UK telecoms. That statement also provided details of the non-exhaustive set of objective factors that were taken account of to assess a vendor as high risk. This set of factors has been further elaborated on in the National Cyber Security Centre’s advice on the use of equipment from high risk vendors in UK telecoms networks that was also published on 28 January and can be found on their website.

The NCSC also published a summary of the security analysis for the UK telecoms sector that informed the conclusions of the Government’s Telecoms Supply Chain Review. The summary notes that sensitive networks either route or have access to sensitive information, and include those directly relating to the operation of government or any safety-related systems and in wider critical national infrastructure. The summary of NCSC’s analysis can be found at: https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/report/summary-of-ncsc-security-analysis-for-the-uk-telecoms-sector.

The department is making significant investments to support the recruitment and retention of high-quality teachers. The Spending Review 2021 made an extra £1.6 billion available for 16-19 education in the 2024/25 financial year, compared with 2021/22. We are investing £125 million of available funds in the 2023/24 financial year for 16-19 education to increase the national funding rate by 2.2% from £4,542 to £4,642, and boost specific programme cost weightings by 10%, to support the additional costs of recruiting and retaining teachers in construction, manufacturing, engineering, and digital subject areas.

The department is supporting teacher recruitment in the sector through a national campaign to encourage industry professionals to become further education (FE) teachers. We have supported the creation of new, high-quality routes into FE teaching, including a revised Level 5 Learning and Skills Teacher apprenticeship for those planning to work in the FE sector. We are providing bursaries worth up to £29,000 each, tax free, to support FE teacher training in priority subject areas for the 2023/24 academic year.

Our Taking Teaching Further (TTF) programme has supported around 1,000 people to retrain as FE teachers since it launched in 2018. In addition, the department is piloting a new £6,000 financial incentive for TTF recruits teaching in some of the most hard-to-fill subject areas, including digital, construction and the built environment, engineering and manufacturing, and maths.

The information is not readily available and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

The information is not readily available and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

The information is not readily available and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

In 2018, the Department launched the £26.3 million English Hubs Programme, which is dedicated to improving the teaching of reading, with a focus on supporting children making the slowest progress in reading, many of whom come from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The 34 English Hubs in the programme are primary schools which are outstanding at teaching early reading. A further £17 million has been allocated for this school to school improvement programme, which focusses on systematic synthetic phonics, early language, and reading for pleasure.

Schools on the Isle of Wight may contact their nearest English Hub, Springhill Catholic Primary, if they wish to receive funding support for phonics. The hub has, so far, recruited one partner school on the Isle of Wight and is actively reaching out to other eligible schools, including planning an Isle of Wight specific engagement event in the coming term.