Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool Riverside)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when she plans to publish the terms of reference for the post-legislative scrutiny of the Public Order Act 2023.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government will commence post legislative scrutiny from May 2025, and submit a memorandum to the Home Affairs Select Committee. The memorandum will include aspects such as explanatory notes, impact assessments and legal issues as necessary.
Once the Committee has received the Government’s memorandum on the Public Order Act 2024, the committee can decide to take further steps regarding further post legislative scrutiny if it so wishes.
Details about post-legislative scrutiny, including the contents to be covered in the Government’s memorandum, can be found here: Guide to making legislation - GOV.UK
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool Riverside)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether expedited post-legislative scrutiny of the Public Order Act 2023 will be independent of Government; and whether she plans to publish the outcomes of that scrutiny.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
Post-legislative scrutiny of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023 will be carried out by the department responsible for each act and a memorandum will be submitted to the relevant departmental select committees in accordance with normal parliamentary practice.
Post legislative scrutiny of the Public Order Act 2023 will occur this year, beginning in May. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 will be subject to post-legislative parliamentary scrutiny between 3 and 5 years after Royal Assent, i.e. between April 2025 and April 2027.
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool Riverside)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she plans to take to enable post-legislative scrutiny by civil society of the Public Order Act 2023.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
Post-legislative scrutiny of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023 will be carried out by the department responsible for each act and a memorandum will be submitted to the relevant departmental select committees in accordance with normal parliamentary practice.
Post legislative scrutiny of the Public Order Act 2023 will occur this year, beginning in May. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 will be subject to post-legislative parliamentary scrutiny between 3 and 5 years after Royal Assent, i.e. between April 2025 and April 2027.
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool Riverside)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department's planned post-legislative scrutiny of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 will be carried out independently; and if she will make it her policy to publish the outcomes of that review.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
Post-legislative scrutiny of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023 will be carried out by the department responsible for each act and a memorandum will be submitted to the relevant departmental select committees in accordance with normal parliamentary practice.
Post legislative scrutiny of the Public Order Act 2023 will occur this year, beginning in May. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 will be subject to post-legislative parliamentary scrutiny between 3 and 5 years after Royal Assent, i.e. between April 2025 and April 2027.
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool Riverside)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what her Department's timetable is for the post-legislative scrutiny of the Public Order Act 2023.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
Post-legislative scrutiny of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023 will be carried out by the department responsible for each act and a memorandum will be submitted to the relevant departmental select committees in accordance with normal parliamentary practice.
Post legislative scrutiny of the Public Order Act 2023 will occur this year, beginning in May. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 will be subject to post-legislative parliamentary scrutiny between 3 and 5 years after Royal Assent, i.e. between April 2025 and April 2027.
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool Riverside)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether there is any flexibility in the thresholds for (a) minimum working hours and (b) actual hours worked in the context of Skilled Worker visa applications.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The general salary threshold applies regardless of the number of working hours. The occupation specific going rates are assessed according to a worker’s contracted hours, which is consistent with the approach taken in national minimum wage guidance. Some salary requirement discounts are available: www.gov.uk/skilled-worker-visa/when-you-can-be-paid-less.
The salary requirements are in place to protect resident workers from being undercut and ensure international recruits receive fair pay for skilled work. Currently, the requirements are set at the median rate of pay for UK workers in skilled occupations according to the Office of National Statistics’ (ONS) Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE).
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool Riverside)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to her Department’s guidance entitled Good character: caseworker guidance, updated on 13 February 2025, whether adults granted refugee status who arrived irregularly in the UK as children can naturalise as British citizens.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
When assessing good character, it is normally appropriate to disregard immigration breaches if it is accepted this was outside of the applicant’s control, which will normally be the case where children are involved.
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool Riverside)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to her Department’s guidance entitled Good character: caseworker guidance, updated on 13 February 2025, whether children granted refugee status who arrived in the UK unaccompanied can naturalise as British citizens.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
When assessing good character, it is normally appropriate to disregard immigration breaches if it is accepted this was outside of the applicant’s control, which will normally be the case where children are involved.
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool Riverside)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent estimate she has made of the number of people in the Metropolitan Police’s Gangs Violence Matrix who have been convicted under joint enterprise laws.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Gangs Violence Matrix (GVM) was an intelligence tool used by the Metropolitan Police to identify and risk-assess individuals involved with gangs across London.
The police are operationally independent of the government, and the GVM was devised and operated by the Metropolitan Police, independently of the Home Office. The deletion of the data held on the GVM is a matter for the Metropolitan Police as the data controller, and it is their sole responsibility to exercise their retention policies in line with the Data Protection Act 2018 and authorised professional practice from the College of Policing.
Following an enforcement notice from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the Metropolitan Police made the decision to discontinue use of the GVM after 13 February 2024. The Metropolitan Police had already previously decided that GVM data would be retained for a period of 12 months, from the date of decommission (13 February 2024), as there was no policing purpose to justify the continued retention of the data. This decision was taken in order to satisfy both Right of Access requests from persons seeking clarity on their inclusion on the GVM and to ensure that any claims under Article 8 Human Rights Act could be answered. Any individual that considers they may have been included on the GVM is therefore entitled to submit a Subject Access Request to the Metropolitan Police by 13 February 2025, and the Metropolitan Police advise the public of this on their website.
Any form of discrimination in policing is unacceptable. The Government is supportive of the NPCC and College of Policing’s Police Race Action Plan which aims to improve policing’s engagement with Black communities. A number of forces have developed their own local plans to address specific needs from their communities, including the MPS.
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool Riverside)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of identifying an independent body to safeguard data relating to the Metropolitan Police’s Gangs Violence Matrix.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Gangs Violence Matrix (GVM) was an intelligence tool used by the Metropolitan Police to identify and risk-assess individuals involved with gangs across London.
The police are operationally independent of the government, and the GVM was devised and operated by the Metropolitan Police, independently of the Home Office. The deletion of the data held on the GVM is a matter for the Metropolitan Police as the data controller, and it is their sole responsibility to exercise their retention policies in line with the Data Protection Act 2018 and authorised professional practice from the College of Policing.
Following an enforcement notice from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the Metropolitan Police made the decision to discontinue use of the GVM after 13 February 2024. The Metropolitan Police had already previously decided that GVM data would be retained for a period of 12 months, from the date of decommission (13 February 2024), as there was no policing purpose to justify the continued retention of the data. This decision was taken in order to satisfy both Right of Access requests from persons seeking clarity on their inclusion on the GVM and to ensure that any claims under Article 8 Human Rights Act could be answered. Any individual that considers they may have been included on the GVM is therefore entitled to submit a Subject Access Request to the Metropolitan Police by 13 February 2025, and the Metropolitan Police advise the public of this on their website.
Any form of discrimination in policing is unacceptable. The Government is supportive of the NPCC and College of Policing’s Police Race Action Plan which aims to improve policing’s engagement with Black communities. A number of forces have developed their own local plans to address specific needs from their communities, including the MPS.