Asked by: Josh Babarinde (Liberal Democrat - Eastbourne)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what funding her Department provided to the (a) Refuge National Domestic Abuse Helpline, (b) National Perpetrator Helpline, (c) Men’s Advice Line, (d) Galop national LGBT+ victims' Helpline, (e) National Stalking Helpline and (f) Revenge Porn Helpline in financial year (i) 2023-24 and (ii) 2024-25.
Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Home Office allocated funding to the following organisations in FY2023-24 and FY2024-25:
Name of organisation | FY2023-24 Allocation | FY2024-25 Allocation |
Refuge - National Domestic Abuse Helpline | £2,079,718 | £1,000,000 |
Respect – Perpetrator Helpline | £150,000 | £150,000 |
Respect – Men's Advice Line | £290,000 | £200,000 |
Galop – LGBT+ Victims Helpline | £200,000 | £200,000 |
Suzy Lamplugh Trust – Stalking Helpline | £160,430 | £160,430 |
South West Grid for London – Revenge Porn Helpline | £150,000 | £150,000 |
Karma Nirvanan – Honour Based Abuse Helpline | £165,000 | £165,000 |
Total | £3,195,148 | £2,025,430 |
The Home Office has allocated funding to Karma Nirvana – Honour Based Abuse Helpline as outlined in the table above.
Asked by: Josh Babarinde (Liberal Democrat - Eastbourne)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of proposals to increase the maximum sentence for coercive control beyond five years.
Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
Controlling and coercive behaviour (CCB) is a particularly insidious form of domestic abuse and I recognise the devastating impact that it has on victims.
The Ministry of Justice has launched an Independent Review of Sentencing chaired by former Lord Chancellor, David Gauke, which is currently ongoing. The Review will specifically look at offences primarily committed against women and girls, and the Government is dedicated to ensuring that the harm caused by these devastating crimes is appropriately and proportionally reflected in the sentencing framework.
Separate to changes in sentencing, through the Victims and Prisoner Act 2024, offenders convicted of coercive or controlling behaviour, who are sentenced to 12 months or more, will soon be automatically managed under Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA). This change will place serious coercive or controlling behaviour offending on an equal footing with serious and/or violent offenders and create greater consistency in how these domestic abuse offenders are managed in the community. The extra monitoring of offenders, and restrictions which can be placed upon them, via MAPPA management will serve to reduce their risk of reoffending and give greater assurance of safety to previous victims in the coming months
Tackling VAWG in all its forms, including CCB, is a top priority for this Government.
Asked by: Josh Babarinde (Liberal Democrat - Eastbourne)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to reduce the processing time for Disclosure and Barring Service checks for people working in the health and social care sector.
Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) is operationally independent from the Home Office and operates to service standards of completing 85% of Basic check applications within 2 days, 85% of Standard check applications within 3 days, and 80% of Enhanced check applications within 14 days.
The DBS year to date performance against these targets up to November 2024 is 87.9% for Basic checks, 90.2% for Standard checks, and 75.7% for Enhanced checks. These attainments apply to applications across all employment sectors, including the health and social care sectors.
Specific support to the health and social care sectors is provided by the DBS Partnerships Team who have held recent meetings with NHS England, NHS Employers, Skills for Care, Care Quality Commission and Home Care Association, as well as on a regional level with local NHS, local authorities and care providers, about how checks are processed and how to improve the quality of applications submitted to the DBS in order to reduce processing times.
The DBS also provides the ‘adult first’ service to employing organisations in the care sector. Under this service, organisations can request a check of the DBS adults’ barred list and, depending on the result, a person can be permitted to start work, under supervision, with vulnerable adults before the result of an Enhanced DBS check.
Asked by: Josh Babarinde (Liberal Democrat - Eastbourne)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what plans she has for the Homes for Ukraine Scheme beyond April 2025.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
To provide future certainty, Ukrainians who have been provided with sanctuary in the UK under the Ukraine schemes will be able to apply for 18 months further permission to remain in the UK through a bespoke Ukraine Permission Extension (UPE) scheme due to open in early 2025.
The Homes for Ukraine scheme will also remain open, uncapped and free of charge for Ukrainians to apply to come to the UK.