Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to help reduce business crime.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
We encourage retailers to join their local Business Crime Reduction Partnership (BCRP) or Business Improvement District (BID) to support local community efforts to reduce crimes, including business crime.
We are providing over £7 million over the next three years to support the police and retailers tackle retail crime, £2 million of which has been specifically allocated to the police-led National Business Crime Centre (NBCC). NBCC provide a valuable resource for both police and businesses to learn, share and support each other to prevent and combat crime. This funding will help tackle the crimes most affecting businesses today.
We also supported the recent Safer Business Action week (SaBA) organised by the NBCC. SaBA weeks are a joint initiative by police, business, private security, Business Crime Reduction Partnerships and Business Improvement Districts, who work in together and focus resources into a designated location, creating a significant impact to reduce crime.
The Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee will also ensure that every community in England and Wales will have named and contactable officers dealing with local issues, and that neighbourhood teams spend the majority of their time in their communities providing visible patrols and engaging with local communities and businesses. This will be supported by the delivery of up to an additional 3000 officers into neighbourhood teams by Spring next year, as part of our ambition to deliver 13,000 neighbourhood officers into police forces across England and Wales by the end of this parliament.
Additionally, the Home Secretary recently announced a “Winter of Action”, building on the success of our Safer Streets Summer campaign to tackle town centre crime including shop theft and anti-social behaviour.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of trends in the level of waiting times for firearms licensing.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The issuing of firearms certificates, resourcing of firearms licensing teams and the efficiency of police forces is a matter for individual Chief Officers of Police and Police and Crime Commissioners. In the interests of consistency and transparency, the National Policing Chiefs Council Lead for Firearms Licensing has published performance data for firearms licensing teams in all forces. This includes performance against a target for forces to complete applications for the grant or renewal of firearm and shotgun certificates within four months, unless there are concerns about the suitability of the applicant.
Working with the National Policing Chiefs Council Lead for Firearms Licensing, we continue to review the licensing performance of all forces and we will continue to engage with individual Chief Officers and Police and Crime Commissioners where there are specific concerns about any forces’ performance.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to help tackle underage drug use.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
This Government is committed to protecting young people from the harms of drug use through a range of universal and targeted prevention activity and are using the recent report from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) ‘A Whole-System Response to Drug Prevention in the UK’ to inform our approach.
The Home Office is also working with The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to deliver an Innovation Fund to Reduce Demand for Illicit Substances to help us build our longer term understanding of how to prevent and reduce drug use, prevent associated harms and facilitate behaviour change.
Ketamine use in young people is increasing, so we have commissioned the ACMD to update their harms assessment on the drug, and DHSC have launched a media campaign to raise awareness of the risks posed by new drug trends and products. The campaign focusses on the adulteration of counterfeit medicines with other drugs like synthetic opioids, ketamine harms and adulteration of ‘THC vapes’.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what information her Department holds on the number of people who have been arrested for knife crime-related incidents in the last 12 months.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office collects data on arrests in England and Wales, by offence group, as part of the ‘Police Powers and Procedures’ statistical series. The latest available data, to the year ending March 2025 can be accessed here: Police powers and procedures England and Wales statistics - GOV.UK
However, data is collected by broader offence group, for example ‘Violence against the person’, therefore data on more specific offences such as knife crime-related incidents is not available.
The Government does hold data on police recorded knife crime which sets out that in the year ending June 25, there were 51,527 selected violent and sexual offences involving a knife or sharp instrument recorded by the police, a 5% reduction on the previous year, this includes an 18% reduction in homicide and a 6% reduction in knife-enabled assault.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to help tackle recruitment to Palestine Action.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
This Government is clear that encouragement of terrorism, including glorifying the commission or preparation of acts of terrorism, fundraising for the purposes of terrorism, and inviting support for a proscribed terrorism organisation, such as Palestine Action are all criminal offences. Those under the Prevent duty should not provide a platform for an offence to be committed, or facilitate this activity through provision of endorsement, funding or other forms of support. The Prevent Duty Guidance sets out how local partners should reduce permissive environments to disrupt those who radicalise others to terrorism.
Through the Prevent programme, the Home Office works closely with local partners, policing, and other government departments to raise awareness of the signs of radicalisation and disrupt those groups that radicalise others, online and in communities. This includes ensuring that individuals, particularly those subject to the Prevent duty, are aware that a Prevent referral should be made if there are concerns that a person may be on a pathway that could lead to terrorism.
More broadly, our efforts to counter extremism span a broad range of Government and law enforcement activity and we must persist in our efforts to challenge extremist narratives, disrupt the activity of radicalising groups, and directly tackle the causes of radicalisation.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to ensure police officers are able to perform day to day duties during protests outside hotels housing migrants.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government recognises the operational challenges posed by protests including those taking place outside hotels housing asylum seekers and remains committed to supporting policing so that forces can maintain core duties while managing public order.
Routine abstraction of officers from core roles impacts policing teams’ ability to work with communities to tackle crime and local issues, as well as delivering a consistent and visible presence. However, the deployment of officers and force priorities are matters for the operationally independent Chief Constables.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to tackle car theft.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
We are working with the police and the automotive industry, to ensure the strongest response possible to vehicle crime.
The National Vehicle Crime Reduction Partnership and the police-led National Vehicle Crime Working Group are focusing on prevention and deterrence of theft of, and from, vehicles. This includes training police officers on the methods used to steal vehicles, encouraging vehicle owners to secure their vehicles, and working with industry to address vulnerabilities in vehicles.
In the Crime and Policing Bill we are banning the electronic devices used to steal vehicles, empowering the police and courts to target the criminals using, manufacturing, importing and supplying them.
We are providing £485,000 this financial year to the National Vehicle Crime Reduction Partnership to tackle the export of stolen vehicles.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people have been prosecuted for espionage in the last 12 months.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
From 1 October 2024 to 30 September 2025, eight people have been convicted of espionage offences.
These convictions were contrary to section 3 of the National Security Act 2023, section 1 of the Official Secrets Act 1911 and conspiracy to spy offences contrary to section 1 of the Criminal Law Act 1977.