Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many legal migrants have settled in Upper Bann constituency in the past five years.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The requested information is not held in a reportable format. To provide this information would require a manual review of case records, which could only be done for the purpose of answering this question at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to (a) detect and (b) prevent illegal immigration in Northern Ireland.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The UK and Ireland have a close and collaborative working relationship on a range of issues, including migration and border security. That collaboration includes a joint commitment to protect the Common Travel Area (CTA) from abuse while preserving the rights of British and Irish citizens.
Everyone entering the UK, regardless of where they enter from, is required to meet the UK’s immigration requirements. Anyone identified attempting to circumvent UK border controls is liable to be detained and, if they are not lawfully present within the UK, removed.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has had discussions with (a) O2, (b) Vodafone, (c) EE and (d) other mobile network providers on tackling (i) SMS and (ii) calls-based scams; and whether she has plans to introduce stronger safeguards to protect consumers from mobile fraud.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
We work extremely closely with mobile network providers, regulators, law enforcement and consumer groups to close the vulnerabilities that criminals exploit, and stop scam messages and calls reaching the UK public.
We are currently developing a second Telecommunications Fraud Charter to build on previous success, and go further in identifying, preventing and disrupting this type of fraud.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to help tackle online radicalisation in Northern Ireland; and whether she plans to introduce region-specific counter-extremism initiatives.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
This Government is committed to tackling those who spread views that divide communities and inflame tensions across the entirety of the UK.
Alongside the Online Safety Act, the Home Office encourages industry partners to increase action to tackle online content used to radicalise, recruit and incite terrorism by providing threat assessment, insight and support.
We also work closely with like-minded international partners both bilaterally and through multilateral fora such as the Global internet Forum to Counter Terrorism to collaborate on tackling online radicalisation, and influence and align policies where possible.
In addition, Youth Diversion Orders (YDOs) are being introduced in the Crime and Policing Bill to provide a new counter-terrorism tool for police to manage the risks posed by young people involved in terrorism-related activity, including online. The new legislation will apply across the whole of the UK.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to (a) monitor and (b) prevent illegal migration into Northern Ireland via the Common Travel Area.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The UK and Ireland have a close and collaborative working relationship on a range of issues, including migration and border security. That collaboration includes a joint commitment to protect the Common Travel Area (CTA) from abuse while preserving the rights of British and Irish citizens.
Everyone entering the UK, regardless of where they enter from, is required to meet UK’s immigration requirements. Anyone identified attempting to circumvent UK border controls is liable to be detained and, if they are not lawfully present within the UK, removed.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the impact of end-to-end encryption on the ability of law enforcement agencies to (a) investigate and (b) prevent online child sexual exploitation.
Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
We have been consistent that the increasing moves to end-to-end-encryption (E2EE) on private messaging spaces, without sufficient safeguards to maintain proactive detection of child sexual abuse (CSA) will have a significant impact on our ability to keep children safe.
In May this year, the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) published their Cyber Tipline report for the year of 2024. This report indicated that globally there were 7 million fewer incidents of suspected child sexual abuse material reported in 2024 compared with 2023, which was partly attributed to the increased rollout of E2EE.
The Government is implementing the Online Safety Act (OSA) regulatory framework, to ensure that online platforms do more to protect their users from illegal content on their services. The Government is clear that platform design, including E2EE does not exempt platforms from their obligations to protect children from CSA.
The Government is committed to using all available levers, such as the Online Safety Act, to ensure children are protected online, and we will not hesitate to go further if necessary.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people breached their visa conditions in Upper Bann constituency in the last five years; and how many people were subsequently deported.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The requested information is not held on a constituency level and could only be collated and verified for the purposes of answering this question at disproportionate cost. Our published national data on enforcement is available at the following link and includes data on returns from the UK: Immigration system statistics, year ending March 2025 - GOV.UK.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment her Department has made of trends in the level of cross-border drug trafficking between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland; and what steps she is taking to disrupt such activity.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The National Crime Agency’s latest National Strategic Assessment notes the Common Travel Area, and particularly the routes between Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Great Britain, continue to be exploited by criminals for the purposes of serious and organised crime including the smuggling of illicit commodities. It is highly likely that organised crime groups are taking advantage of additional ferry routes between mainland Europe and Ireland in order to avoid detection at the UK border.
Since the beginning of 2023, there has been a notable increase in seizures of cocaine in excess of 100kg at Irish ports from ferry routes originating from within the European Union.
UK law enforcement organisations, including the Police Service Northern Ireland, NCA and Border Force work with An Garda Síochána, to target those who might attempt to smuggle illicit drugs between the Republic of Ireland and the UK, including via the sea.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate she has made of the number of illegal migrants that entered the UK using the Northern Ireland border in each of the last five years.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Home Office does not make estimates of the number of illegal immigrants in the UK.
Information about the number of illegal migrants in Northern Ireland or using the Northern Ireland border is not available in our published data.
Our published national data on enforcement is available at the following link and includes data on detected irregular arrivals to the UK: Immigration system statistics, year ending March 2025 - GOV.UK.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many cases of (a) suspected and (b) confirmed illegal immigration have been recorded in Northern Ireland in the past five years.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Home Office does not make estimates of the number of illegal immigrants in the UK.
Information about the number of illegal migrants in Northern Ireland or using the Northern Ireland border is not available in our published data.
Our published national data on enforcement is available at the following link and includes data on detected irregular arrivals to the UK: Immigration system statistics, year ending March 2025 - GOV.UK.