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, whether her Department has paid for followers on social media platforms it uses.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office does not, and has not paid for followers on its social media platforms.
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 her Department has spent on special severance payments in each of the last three years.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office does not publish details of spending on special severance payments separately.
The Home Office does publish overall special payments spending and details of this for the previous three financial years can be found through the links below.
Pages 190-191 (pages 198-199 on the reader)
Home Office Annual Report and Accounts 2024 to 2025
Pages 190-191 (pages 194-195 on the reader)
Home Office Annual Report and Accounts 2023 to 2024
Pages195-196
Home Office Annual Report and Accounts 2022-2023
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, whether any civil servants hired by her Department were recruited over another person on the basis of a protected characteristic in each of the last three years.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Civil Service recruitment is governed by the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act (CRaGA) 2010, which requires that all appointments to the Civil Service are made on merit on the basis of fair and open competition.
The Home Office does not recruit candidates on the basis of protected characteristics. All appointments are made on merit, in line with the Civil Service Commission's Recruitment Principles. Compliance with these principles is overseen by the independent Civil Service Commission.
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 assessment she has made of the risks of remote testing in her Department's English Language Test.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Home Office has carefully considered the risks of a remote delivery model as part of the procurement to replace current Secure English Language Testing arrangements.
The key risks centre on maintaining the integrity and security of the immigration system, including identity assurance, protection against impersonation, and confidence in the reliability of test results. The Home Office has engaged the market to understand what capability is available to maintain high standards of security and integrity and has developed a robust security schedule and solution requirements to ensure this remains at the heart of the digital by default solution.
Following rounds of pre-market engagement, the ongoing procurement is explicitly designed to test bidders' ability to meet these standards, and the Department will adopt only those solutions that demonstrably maintain the high level of assurance required.
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 aged 17 have applied to join the police in each of the last ten years.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office does not collect information on the number of individuals aged 17 years old who have applied to join the police service.
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 publish a list of serving police officers by nationality for each of the last ten years.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office does not collect information on the nationality of police officers.
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 take steps to ensure that forced marriages do not take place in Sharia councils in the UK.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The joint Home Office and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office Forced Marriage Unit (FMU), provides support and advice to victims, those at risk, and professionals.
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, with reference to her Department’s report entitled The independent review into the application of sharia law in England and Wales of February 2018, if she will take steps to conduct an assessment into the number of sharia councils operating in the UK.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
The independent review into the application of sharia law in England and Wales was published under the 2016 to 2018 May Conservative government.
The Government is clear: Sharia law has no jurisdiction in England and Wales. Regardless of religious belief, we are all equal before the law. The Government has no intention of changing this position.
Religious communities, including Muslim communities, can operate arbitration councils and boards which seek to resolve disputes. The overriding principle is that they must operate within the rule of law.
The Government doesn’t prevent individuals from seeking to regulate their lives through religious beliefs and nothing in law prevents people abiding by Sharia principles, provided their actions don’t conflict with the law. If they do, rule of law prevails.
The decisions of Sharia councils are not binding in law – they are not part of the court system in this country.
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 staff within her Department are reliant on a visa for employment.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
As of 01 March 2026, the Home Office had 186 employees with a visa type which allows them time limited right to work in the UK.
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 make it her policy to revoke pensions from police officers convicted of violent crimes.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
A police officer’s pension may be forfeited where an individual has been convicted of a criminal offence committed in connection with their service as a police officer, which the Secretary of State has certified as either gravely injurious to the interests of the State, or liable to lead to a serious loss of confidence.
Decisions on whether to forfeit a police officer’s pension and, if so, to what extent, are a matter for the Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) of the relevant force. Whilst a PCC cannot forfeit a pension in these circumstances without a certificate from the Secretary of State, the issuance of such a certificate does not oblige them to proceed with forfeiture. Such decisions are made independently of government, and on a case-by-case basis.
It is not possible for the Secretary of State to proactively seek an application for a pension forfeiture certificate, or to issue such a certificate, without an application first being made by the relevant PCC. There are no current plans to amend these regulatory arrangements.