Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much of the funding for the National Rural Crime Unit will be allocated to West Mercia Police.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government is committed to driving down rural crime. Whether someone lives in the countryside or a town or city, they should get the same service from the police if they fall victim to a crime.
The Home Office has provided £200,000 funding this financial year to help set up the National Rural Crime Unit, with an additional £100,000 from DEFRA. The National Rural Crime Unit has secured over £1m of funding from industry for the next three financial years, including from NFU Mutual, Network Rail and Construction and Equipment Association.
The National Rural Crime Unit aims to help police forces tackle rural crime priorities through the provision of specialist operational support, as well as through sharing best practice and encouraging regional and national approaches to tackling rural crime. Funding provided by the Government for the National Rural Crime Unit is not allocated to individual forces.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much funding will be allocated to local authorities to support them with the resettlement of Afghan families in their areas in 2024.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Local authorities already receive the integration tariff (£20,520 per person over three years) where they are supporting arrivals under the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme and Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy into settled accommodation, to support them to rebuild their lives in the UK and fully integrate into communities.
For arrivals up to the end of March 2024, the Government will be offering a package of financial support to local authorities for the resettlement of Afghan arrivals. This includes £28 per person per day for councils supporting households in transitional accommodation; a flexible housing fund to councils supporting a household into settled accommodation (£7,100 per person, capped at £35k per household). It also includes contingency new burdens funding to mitigate any additional pressures of homelessness presentations from transitional accommodation (this includes the £9,150 homelessness funding and up to six months wraparound funding for those in temporary accommodation).
This is an exceptional arrangement to acknowledge the urgent and unplanned use of transitional accommodation at this scale.
Amendments are being made to existing funding instructions to reflect this package of support, which will be published in due course.
The financial package for 2024/25 is still to be agreed and details will be published in due course with new funding instructions issued in the new financial year.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will make an assessment of the adequacy of the number of (a) batons, (b) tasers, (c) personal radios, (d) bodycams, (d) helmets and (e) stab vests supplied to (i) West Mercia Police and (ii) each other police force in the last five years.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The number and type of equipment forces require remains an operational matter and is determined by chief officers in line with their respective force’s Strategic Threat and Risk Assessment.
Only less lethal weaponry and equipment that has passed strict testing processes may be used by police forces in England and Wales.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the availability of police vehicles in rural police forces.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government recognises there can be particular challenges in responding to rural crime. The Government welcomed the rural and wildlife crime strategy published by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) in September 2022.
In June 2023 the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs launched the Unleashing Rural Opportunity, setting out four broad priorities that are key to rural communities being able to thrive. As part of this, the Home Office has provided £200,000 to help establish the National Rural Crime Unit. The NRCU supports forces nationally in their responses to rural crime, such as the theft of farming or construction machinery, livestock theft, rural fly tipping, rural fuel theft and equine crime. In collaboration with the NRCU, the Combined Industry Thefts Solution has provided training to nearly 600 police officers, covering skills in how to identify and examine stolen agricultural and construction machinery, and knowledge about the methods of theft.
The Government supported the Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act 2023, which gained Royal Assent on 20 July. The Act will require immobilisers and forensic marking to be fitted as standard to new agricultural equipment such as All-Terrain Vehicles and quad bikes, to help prevent theft of this equipment and identify the owners of stolen equipment when it is recovered.
Operational decisions such as allocation of vehicles are matter for individual police chiefs and their force.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether police officers in rural areas have access to training on tackling rural crime.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government recognises there can be particular challenges in responding to rural crime. The Government welcomed the rural and wildlife crime strategy published by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) in September 2022.
In June 2023 the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs launched the Unleashing Rural Opportunity, setting out four broad priorities that are key to rural communities being able to thrive. As part of this, the Home Office has provided £200,000 to help establish the National Rural Crime Unit. The NRCU supports forces nationally in their responses to rural crime, such as the theft of farming or construction machinery, livestock theft, rural fly tipping, rural fuel theft and equine crime. In collaboration with the NRCU, the Combined Industry Thefts Solution has provided training to nearly 600 police officers, covering skills in how to identify and examine stolen agricultural and construction machinery, and knowledge about the methods of theft.
The Government supported the Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act 2023, which gained Royal Assent on 20 July. The Act will require immobilisers and forensic marking to be fitted as standard to new agricultural equipment such as All-Terrain Vehicles and quad bikes, to help prevent theft of this equipment and identify the owners of stolen equipment when it is recovered.
Operational decisions such as allocation of vehicles are matter for individual police chiefs and their force.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many police vehicles were allocated to (a) West Mercia Police and (b) each other police force in the last five years.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office does not hold this information.
Decisions on the number of police vehicles allocated to each force would be an operational matter for local Chief Officers to decide based upon local priorities in conjunction with their Police and Crime Commissioner.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to ensure continuity of passport services in the event of a strike by Passport Office staff.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
We are disappointed with the union’s decision to strike.
We are working to manage the impact of strike action, whilst ensuring we can continue to deliver vital services to the public, with comprehensive contingency plans in place.
There are currently no plans to change our guidance which states that it takes up to ten weeks to get a passport.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many (a) incidents of heating oil theft, (b) incidents resulting in a charge or summons for heating oil theft and (c) prosecutions for heating oil theft there have been in (a) 2020, (b) 2021 and (c) 2022.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office collects and publishes information on the number of theft offences recorded by the police in England and Wales, and their investigative outcomes, including charges.
However, information on what is stolen is not routinely collected by the Home Office and prosecution data held by the Ministry of Justice cannot provide such breakdowns.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she is taking steps to introduce a national strategy to reduce the exploitation of children in county lines drug trafficking.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Government is committed to tackling county lines drug trafficking and supporting those exploited by this harmful activity.
On 6 December the Government published a ten-year Drug Strategy which sets out a whole-system approach of how the Government is doing more than ever to cut off the supply of drugs by criminal gangs.
Through the Strategy, we are bolstering our flagship County Lines Programme, investing up to £145m to tackle the most violent and exploitative distribution model yet seen. Since November 2019 police activity funded by the County Lines Programme has closed over 2,400 lines, made over 8,000 arrests, and engaged over 9,500 individuals through safeguarding interventions.
As part of the County Lines Programme, we are investing up to £5m over three financial years 2022-25 to provide support to victims of county lines exploitation and their families. This includes specialist support for under 25s from London, the West Midlands, Merseyside and Greater Manchester who are criminally exploited through county lines, to help them safely reduce and exit their involvement and a confidential national helpline service to young people and their families/carers who are affected by county lines exploitation.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to help increase the number of police officers in rural parts of England.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
We are recruiting an additional 20,000 officers by March 2023. This is unprecedented and reflects the biggest recruitment drive in decades, and will help ensure the public is better protected, including in rural communities.
The latest data publication published on 27 April shows that as at 31 March 2022 over 13,500 additional officers have been recruited as part of the police uplift Programme in England and Wales, 68% of the 20,000 officer target.
The deployment of these officers is an operational decision for Chief Constables.