Asked by: Elsie Blundell (Labour - Heywood and Middleton North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to help ensure the provision of appropriate accommodation for police officers whose careers were shortened by significant injury.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
Where a police officer is assessed as permanently medically unfit and leaves the service, there are a range of benefits that may be payable under the occupational pension and injury benefit schemes. The entitlement for an individual would depend on the particular circumstances.
This government has also committed to supporting policing through the Police Covenant and National Police Wellbeing Service (NPWS). The covenant is a pledge by government that those who work or have previously worked in policing are not disadvantaged as a result of their service.
NPWS have compiled a leavers package focusing on supporting officers and staff who are leaving the service to transition from a career in policing.
We are not taking any steps to ensure provision of accommodation for former police officers leaving due to illness or injury and as far as we know, there are no other formal provisions for doing so. However, as the answer explains, there are enhanced provisions through the injury benefits and pension arrangements designed to provide financial support to police officers who are no longer able to perform the role through illness or injury.
Asked by: Elsie Blundell (Labour - Heywood and Middleton North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to her Department's White Paper entitled Restoring control over the immigration system, published on 12 May 2025, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of changes to the standard qualifying period for settlement to people who are already on the five year pathway to settlement.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
A technical annex has been published alongside the White Paper. It can be found at the following link: Restoring control over the immigration system: white paper - GOV.UK
We will be consulting on the earned settlement scheme later this year and further details on the proposed scheme will be updated at that time. An impact assessment will be developed alongside any finalised policy.
Asked by: Elsie Blundell (Labour - Heywood and Middleton North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the white paper entitled Restoring control over the immigration system, published on 12 May 2025, whether people who (a) are already living in the UK and (b) hold active visas will still be able apply for indefinite leave to remain.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
We will be consulting on the earned settlement scheme later this year and further details on the proposed scheme will be updated at that time.
Asked by: Elsie Blundell (Labour - Heywood and Middleton North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to better equip local police forces to ensure the safe return of missing children.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government is committed to ensuring that police forces are equipped to respond appropriately urgently when children go missing, and that missing people and their families receive the best possible protection and support.
The Missing Persons Authorised Professional Practice, issued by the College of Policing, sets out best practice guidance for all missing person investigations for police forces in England and Wales in order to prevent missing incidents as well as ensure the safe return of missing children.
The National Police Chief’s Council has also developed a ‘Missing Children from Care Framework’ which aims to ensure that children in care receive appropriate and timely responses when their whereabouts are unknown. This should reduce the risk of harm; help return the child to their care setting; and, reduce the likelihood of repeat missing incidents.
The new National Centre for VAWG and Public Protection will also improve the response to missing children by developing best practices and delivering training to officers across a range of vulnerabilities.
Recognising that many children go missing as a result of county lines exploitation, we are also providing specialist support for children and young people to escape county lines and child criminal exploitation, and this includes funding Missing People’s SafeCall service, which provides a national, confidential helpline and support for young people, families and carers who are concerned about county lines exploitation.
Asked by: Elsie Blundell (Labour - Heywood and Middleton North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions she has had with Greater Manchester Police to reduce response times in north Greater Manchester.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
I refer the Hon Member to the response given to UIN 31037 on 28th February 2025.
Asked by: Elsie Blundell (Labour - Heywood and Middleton North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to help tackle (a) violence and (b) abuse against retail delivery drivers.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
Shop theft continues to increase at an unacceptable level with more and more offenders using violence and abuse against shopworkers to do this. We will not stand for this. Everybody has a right to feel safe at their place of work.
Through our Crime and Policing Bill, we have introduced a standalone offence of assaulting a retail worker to protect the hardworking and dedicated staff that work in stores, sending a strong message to offenders and would-be offenders that violence against retail workers will not be tolerated. The Bill is making its way through Parliament and had its Second Reading on 10 March.
As introduced, the definition of a 'retail worker' does not include delivery drivers. Keeping a tight definition provides legal clarity and ensures there is less ambiguity for courts in identifying whether an individual is a retail worker and impacted during their job. Workers whose roles are not included are already covered under other legislation such as the Offences against the Person Act 1861, which also covers more serious violence, such as actual bodily harm (ABH) and grievous bodily harm (GBH).
That said, the whole purpose of the parliamentary process is to scrutinise the provisions in the Bill and we will, of course, consider carefully any amendments and supporting evidence.
Asked by: Elsie Blundell (Labour - Heywood and Middleton North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has had discussions with (a) local authorities and (b) business across Greater Manchester on steps to tackle the sale of (a) knives and (b) other offensive weapons to (i) teenagers and (ii) young people.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government has set out an unprecedented mission to halve knife crime in a decade and we are already taking a range of steps to make our communities a safer place for our young people.
We know that more needs to be done to tackle the sale of knives and offensive weapons online which is why last October, the Home Secretary asked Commander Stephen Clayman, as the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for knife crime, to carry out a review into the online sale and delivery of knives. The review was published on 19 February 2025: www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-end-to-end-review-of-online-knife-sales
We have already decided to take forward the most pressing recommendations in the report and have announced “Ronan’s Law” a range of measures which will include stricter rules for online sellers of knives including strengthening age verification controls and checks through a two-stage age verification system at the point of purchase and on delivery. We are increasing the penalties for illegal sales of knives, funding a new online police coordination hub to take action against illegal knife and weapon content online; and we are intending to consult later this year on a registration scheme for online sellers of knives.
It is a Government manifesto commitment to hold senior executives of online platforms and marketplaces to account for illegal knife related content around the sale of prohibited offensive weapons or illegal marketing of knives in ways which encourages violence. We ran a public consultation on these proposals which closed on 11 December 2024 and we will be publishing our response shortly.
We have also implemented the ban on zombie-style knives and zombie-style machetes. The ban came in to force on 24 September 2024 and it is now illegal to sell, manufacture, supply or possess these weapons.
It is also a Government manifesto commitment to ban ninja swords and we ran a consultation between 13 November 2024 and 11 December 2024 to clarify the legal definition. We are now moving forward with our plans to ban ninja swords later this year.
Asked by: Elsie Blundell (Labour - Heywood and Middleton North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she has taken to tackle the flow of illicit drugs in Greater Manchester.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
Tackling the criminals running drug supply chains is a priority for this government as part of our mission to reduce serious violence and exploitation. Key to achieving our aim of halving knife crime is targeting the drug gangs which drive serious violence, where one quarter of knife homicides are connected to drugs markets.
In partnership with the NCA and policing we are targeting organised crime groups at every stage of the drug supply chain, combatting illicit finance, disrupting the hidden channels through which criminals communicate, and supporting law enforcement agencies with dedicated personnel to identify high-harm threats and opportunities for disruption.
In addition, to disrupt county lines, which is the most violent and exploitative model of drug distribution, we are also providing, through our County Lines Programme, dedicated funding to Greater Manchester Police to support activity to tackle this issue.
Asked by: Elsie Blundell (Labour - Heywood and Middleton North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of (a) funding for and (b) resourcing of Border Security Command.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Border Security Command (BSC) is enabling a step-change in how our full range of capabilities are coordinated, maximised and targeted on organised immigration crime and reducing irregular migration including through the investment of £150 million to provide new technology, capabilities and specialist officers tackling organised crime.
The funding and resourcing for the BSC are under constant review. This review process is crucial to ensure that value for money is achieved for taxpayers and the BSC is fulfilling its functions.
Asked by: Elsie Blundell (Labour - Heywood and Middleton North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the introduction of the Domestic Abuse Protection Order pilot scheme on the resources of Greater Manchester Police.
Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
Domestic Abuse Protection Orders (DAPOs) are the first order to cover all forms of domestic abuse including economic abuse, coercive and controlling behaviour and are the first cross-jurisdictional order available in the family, civil and criminal courts to protect victims. They can impose notification requirements, electronic monitoring and attendance to a behaviour change programme. Breach of a DAPO is a criminal offence punishable by up to 5 years’ imprisonment. Greater Manchester Police was the first force to secure a custodial sentence for a breach of a DAPO.
We have commissioned an evaluation of DAPOs to gather evidence to understand how DAPOs are working in practice. The evaluation will include an assessment of how police are resourcing DAPOs.