Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to support police forces in tackling shoplifting in South Holland and the Deepings constituency.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Shop theft continues to increase at an unacceptable level. We will not stand for this.
We are ensuring the right powers are in place. Through the Crime and Policing Bill, we are bringing in a new offence of assaulting a retail worker to protect the hardworking and dedicated staff that work in stores. We are also removing the legislation which makes shop theft of and below £200 a summary-only offence, sending a clear message that any level of shop theft is illegal and will be taken seriously.
Additionally, we are providing over £7 million over the next three years to support the police and retailers tackle retail crime, including continuing to fund a specialist policing team – in partnership with the retail sector - to better understand the tactics used by organised retail crime gangs and identify more offenders.
Tackling retail crime requires a partnership approach between policing representatives and business. The previous Minister for Crime and Policing launched the ‘Tackling Retail Crime Together Strategy’, which was jointly developed by the police and industry and aims to provide a collaborative and evidence-based approach to preventing retail crime.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people have been (a) arrested and (b) convicted in relation to the sale of illegal vape products in each of the last five years.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The data requested is not held by the Home Office.
The Home Office collect and publishes data on arrests as part of the Police Powers and Procedures statistical series, available here: Stop and search, arrests, and mental health detentions, March 2025 - GOV.UK
However, data is collected by broader offence group and for notifiable offences only, therefore data on arrests for the sale of illegal vapes is not available.
Convictions is a matter for the Ministry of Justice.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of stop and searches resulted in the seizure of (a) Class A drugs and (b) Class B drugs in each of the last three years.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The data requested is not held centrally.
The Home Office collects and publishes data on the number of stop and searches for drugs. The latest data is available here: Stop and search, arrests, and mental health detentions, March 2025 - GOV.UK
However, data on the class of drug searched for is not collected, nor is information on the type of drugs seized following a stop and search.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to support local enforcement action against antisocial vehicle use in Lincolnshire.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Tackling anti-social behaviour is a top priority for this Government, and a key part of our Safer Streets Mission.
Our Crime and Policing Bill will give the police greater powers to clamp down on all vehicles in anti-social behaviour with officers no longer required to issue a warning before seizing these vehicles.
The Government has consulted on proposals to allow the police to dispose of seized vehicles which have been used anti-socially quicker. The consultation closed on 8 July and we will publish the outcome in due course.
Combined, our measures will help tackle the scourge of vehicles ridden anti-socially in Lincolnshire by sending a clear message to would be offenders and local communities that this behaviour will not be tolerated
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, which countries she is discussing hosting return hubs for failed asylum seekers with.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
To support the UK Government’s commitment to controlled immigration, the Home Office is exploring the use of return hubs for failed asylum seekers with a number of countries.
We are not in a position to share further details that could prejudice discussions at this stage. However, the Government has been clear we will continue to work with international partners to tackle the global migration crisis.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much the National Crime Agency has spent on translation and interpretation services in each of the last five years.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The National Crime Agency has spent around the following amounts on translation and interpretation services in each of the last five financial years:
These figures include both translation and interpretation costs.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will list the titles of all the events organised by Civil Service networks in her Department since 2017.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The information requested is not held centrally and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
Staff networks are collaborative volunteer networks, organised by individual staff themselves, rather than the department. The majority of staff time spent on network activities is voluntary and unpaid.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many extradition requests the UK has made to EU states in which the requested individual is a third-party migrant and not a citizen of the UK in each of the past five years.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
The Home Office does not hold this information requested.
The National Crime Agency is the competent authority for all extradition requests between the UK and EU Member States and, as such, is the holder of all verified data concerning UK-EU extradition cooperation.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many (a) single sex and (b) gender neutral bathroom facilities her Department provides in its premises on Whitehall.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office’s main Whitehall building, 2 Marsham Street, has 81 single sex cubicles (39 Male & 42 Female cubicles) and 0 urinals.
There are 17 wheelchair accessible/non-gendered universal toilets (individual self-contained lockable toilet rooms which contain a toilet, washbasin and hand-drying facilities).
Note, figures above are for the toilets in HO demise only.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many full time equivalent civil servants in her Department are working on recouping profits from private providers with contracts to house asylum seekers.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
Excess profits of £45.9m have been returned to the Department in relation to the contract’s profit share provisions.
The Home Office is supported by a Commercial Department within which is a dedicated Asylum Support Commercial Contract Management Team. This team prioritise and work on all aspects of commercial contract management, including recouping profits share amounts owed to the Home Office. On financial matters, this team work with other Home Office specialists.