To match an exact phrase, use quotation marks around the search term. eg. "Parliamentary Estate". Use "OR" or "AND" as link words to form more complex queries.


Keep yourself up-to-date with the latest developments by exploring our subscription options to receive notifications direct to your inbox

Written Question
Radicalism: Pupils
Tuesday 10th January 2023

Asked by: Bridget Phillipson (Labour - Houghton and Sunderland South)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many referrals to Prevent for concerns in the mixed, unstable category relating to incel behaviour came from schools in the last 12 months.

Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)

A breakdown of individuals referred to Prevent and their associated sector of referral between 2015/2016 and 2020/2021, can be found in Table 14 of the latest published statistics, available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/individuals-referred-to-and-supported-through-the-prevent-programme-april-2020-to-march-2021

We have also included a summary of this data below for convenience.

Year

Referrals for concerns related to Mixed, Unstable, Unclear ideologies by Education Sector

Total referrals concerns related to Mixed, Unstable, Unclear ideologies from all sectors

2018/19

831

2,169

2019/20

1,071

3,203

2020/21

737

2,522

Regarding the referrals to Prevent in the last 12 months, referrals between the period April 2021 – March 2022 will be released in the upcoming “Individuals referred to and supported through the Prevent Programme, England and Wales, April 2021 to March 2022” statistics, set for publication on 26 January 2023. As per official statistics guidelines, we are unable to release these statistics ahead of the formal publication date. Subsequent data will be published the year after.


Written Question
Radicalism: Pupils
Tuesday 10th January 2023

Asked by: Bridget Phillipson (Labour - Houghton and Sunderland South)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many referrals to prevent for concerns in the mixed unstable category came from schools in each of the last three years.

Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)

A breakdown of individuals referred to Prevent and their associated sector of referral between 2015/2016 and 2020/2021, can be found in Table 14 of the latest published statistics, available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/individuals-referred-to-and-supported-through-the-prevent-programme-april-2020-to-march-2021

We have also included a summary of this data below for convenience.

Year

Referrals for concerns related to Mixed, Unstable, Unclear ideologies by Education Sector

Total referrals concerns related to Mixed, Unstable, Unclear ideologies from all sectors

2018/19

831

2,169

2019/20

1,071

3,203

2020/21

737

2,522

Regarding the referrals to Prevent in the last 12 months, referrals between the period April 2021 – March 2022 will be released in the upcoming “Individuals referred to and supported through the Prevent Programme, England and Wales, April 2021 to March 2022” statistics, set for publication on 26 January 2023. As per official statistics guidelines, we are unable to release these statistics ahead of the formal publication date. Subsequent data will be published the year after.


Written Question
Overseas Students: Children
Wednesday 2nd November 2022

Asked by: Bridget Phillipson (Labour - Houghton and Sunderland South)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what overall assessment he has made of the potential impact of introducing a cap on the number of children international students can bring to the UK.

Answered by Robert Jenrick

Our offer to international students is extremely competitive and ensures that we continue to attract the best and brightest students from around the world.

The Government’s International Education Strategy set out a target of attracting 600,000 international Higher Education students to the UK by 2030, which we have achieved almost a decade early.

The public also rightly expects us to control immigration and ensure we have a system that works in the UK’s best interests.

As the Growth Plan set out, the Government is looking at how immigration contributes to growth and will set out further details in due course.


Written Question
Overseas Students: Children
Wednesday 2nd November 2022

Asked by: Bridget Phillipson (Labour - Houghton and Sunderland South)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of introducing a cap on the number of children international students can bring to the UK on (a) the total number of, (b) the number of female and (c) the number of male international students studying in the UK.

Answered by Robert Jenrick

Our offer to international students is extremely competitive and ensures that we continue to attract the best and brightest students from around the world.

The Government’s International Education Strategy set out a target of attracting 600,000 international Higher Education students to the UK by 2030, which we have achieved almost a decade early.

The public also rightly expects us to control immigration and ensure we have a system that works in the UK’s best interests.

As the Growth Plan set out, the Government is looking at how immigration contributes to growth and will set out further details in due course.


Written Question
Teachers: English Language
Friday 11th March 2022

Asked by: Bridget Phillipson (Labour - Houghton and Sunderland South)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she plans to take steps to ensure there is sufficient availability of English for Speakers of Other Languages teaching provision to support people who arrive in the UK as refugees and asylum seekers from Ukraine.

Answered by Kevin Foster

The Home Office works closely with other Government departments to ensure mainstream English language provision meets the needs of refugees.

Individuals aged 19 or over with refugee status are immediately eligible for funding through the Department for Education’s Adult Education budget and exempt from the three-year residency requirement rule. This includes funding for English For Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) classes.

Asylum seekers are also eligible to receive funding if they have lived in the UK for 6 months or longer while their claim is being considered and no decision has been made, or are receiving local authority support under section 23C or section 23CA of the Children Act 1989 or the Care Act 2014.


Written Question
Imports: Customs
Monday 22nd November 2021

Asked by: Bridget Phillipson (Labour - Houghton and Sunderland South)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of HMRC staffing at UK ports to ensure efficient throughput of goods in the weeks leading up to Christmas.

Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)

Border Force has implemented a sustained recruitment campaign to uplift the number of permanent Border Force staff, including 2,000 staff specifically for EU Exit, alongside recruitment for other ‘business as usual’ operational requirements. It maintains a flexible and dynamic approach to recruitment, that takes account of expected staff attrition and churn within the organisation.

Furthermore, Border Force regularly reviews its capacity plans and resources, redeploying and recruiting staff where necessary to help meet and maintain service standards for individual services. There is an established and dedicated internal operation to ensure additional contingency resources are available to deploy in support of short-term operational pressures at the border.

Border Force is confident that resources to meet anticipated overall operational requirements are in place; recruiting sufficient additional frontline staff and continuing to build staffing levels during 2021/2022.


Written Question
Customs: Northern Ireland
Tuesday 13th April 2021

Asked by: Bridget Phillipson (Labour - Houghton and Sunderland South)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what value of excise goods have been seized by HMRC in Northern Ireland in each week of 2021 so far, having been imported to Northern Ireland from the rest of the EU at a price not including UK excise duty; and if she will make a statement.

Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)

Border Force does not routinely publish this level of data on the value of excise goods seized at the border at specific ports.

Seizures relating to products related to the Tax revenue that is protected through detecting goods where excise duty has not been declared, including are published quarterly on the.gov.uk website. The latest information can be found at:

Transparency Data Feb 2021


Written Question
Domestic Abuse: Victims
Wednesday 22nd July 2020

Asked by: Bridget Phillipson (Labour - Houghton and Sunderland South)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the effect of social distancing on (a) victims of domestic abuse and (b) the children of those people.

Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care

Domestic abuse is a devastating crime. We fully recognise the severe impact it has on both victims and their children, and that many of them may feel even more vulnerable during social distancing and self-isolation.

The Government is liaising with specialist domestic abuse service providers and local authorities to monitor and assess the impact of social distancing on victims of domestic abuse and their children, and to ensure that sources of advice and support continue to be available to them.

Ensuring that vulnerable children remain protected is our top priority. Local authorities have the key day-to-day responsibility for delivery of children’s social care but we are considering all options to ensure that they are able to continue to deliver services effectively. Local authorities know their children, families and communities well and are best placed to make decisions about how to best manage children’s social care services during the current national emergency.

Attending education settings is known as a protective factor for children receiving the support of a social worker. We have therefore asked schools to remain open for children who are vulnerable, as well as for those children of workers critical to the COVID-19 response who absolutely need to attend. Vulnerable children include those who have a social worker, and those children and young people up to the age of 25 with education, health and care (EHC) plans.

There is an expectation that vulnerable children who have a social worker will attend provision, so long as they do not have underlying health conditions that put them at risk. In circumstances where a parent does not want to bring their child to an education setting, and their child is considered vulnerable, the social worker and education provider should explore the reasons for this directly with the parent.

The Home Office has provided £3.1 million this year for specialist support for children affected by domestic abuse, as a continuation of the Children Affected by Domestic Abuse fund.

The Government has also supported local authorities with a total of £3.2bn in additional funding, which will support local authorities in meeting additional demands, including on their children’s services, at this time.


Written Question
EEA Nationals: Registration
Friday 13th March 2020

Asked by: Bridget Phillipson (Labour - Houghton and Sunderland South)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make it her policy to process all EEA registration applicants within one month.

Answered by Kevin Foster

Under the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2016, any application received from EEA citizens for residence documentation under those Regulations must be decided immediately upon application provided that application meets the relevant validity requirements.


Written Question
Refugees: Children
Thursday 30th January 2020

Asked by: Bridget Phillipson (Labour - Houghton and Sunderland South)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make it her policy to permit unaccompanied refugees the right to family reunion in the UK.

Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care

The Government already provides a safe and legal route to bring refugee families together through its family reunion policy. This allows a partner and children under 18 of those granted protection in the UK to join them here, if they formed part of the family unit before the sponsor fled their country.

Refugees can also sponsor adult dependent relatives living overseas to join them where, due to age, illness or disability, that person requires long-term personal care that can only be provided by relatives in the UK. Further, there is discretion to grant visas outside the Immigration Rules, which caters for extended family members in exceptional circumstances – including young adult sons or daughters who are dependent on family here and living in dangerous situations.

These routes will not be affected by the UK’s departure from the EU.