Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what (a) policies and (b) grant and funding programmes her Department has introduced to provide support to individuals and organisations in response to the covid-19 outbreak; and what funding has been allocated to each of those programmes in the 2020-21 financial year.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Details of the Home Office’s additional funding for domestic abuse support services during the Covid-19 pandemic is available on Gov.uk, where the Home Office has allocated £2m of funding to charities with a national or regional presence and for which the other domestic abuse-focused funding streams were not specifically designed. Please refer to the link below.
Funds launched in response to covid-19 outbreak include: the Covid-19 Vulnerable Children National Charities Strategic Relief Fund
and Support for Victims and Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse Fund.
The Home Office has also awarded other grants to provide support to individuals and organisations in response to the covid-19 outbreak. The details of these grants will be published by Cabinet Office in due course
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what representations he has received from the Mayor of the West Midlands on police funding.
Answered by Nick Hurd
The Home Secretary last met with the Mayor of the West Midlands on 7 August 2018 where they discussed a range of issues including police funding and devolution
Ministers meet regularly with Police and Crime Commissioners and Mayors to discuss a range of topics. This includes significant recent engagement on demand ahead of the publication of the Provisional Police Funding Settlement last month.
Under these proposals total funding for West Midlands Police could increase by up to £34.2 million to £568.6 million in 2019/20, including funding from council tax, if the Police and Crime Commissioner uses the full precept flexibility provided.
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many times he has met with the Mayor of the West Midlands since 1 November 2018.
Answered by Nick Hurd
The Home Secretary last met with the Mayor of the West Midlands on 7 August 2018 where they discussed a range of issues including police funding and devolution
Ministers meet regularly with Police and Crime Commissioners and Mayors to discuss a range of topics. This includes significant recent engagement on demand ahead of the publication of the Provisional Police Funding Settlement last month.
Under these proposals total funding for West Midlands Police could increase by up to £34.2 million to £568.6 million in 2019/20, including funding from council tax, if the Police and Crime Commissioner uses the full precept flexibility provided.
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he plans to bring forward legislative proposals to implement the provisions of the draft Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on preventing the dissemination of terrorist content online.
Answered by Ben Wallace
The UK continues to lead international efforts to prevent terrorist use of the internet. This includes working closely with the EU and other international partners to push industry to take a more proactive approach to detecting and removing terrorist content from their platforms, including by legislative means.
On 12 September, the European Commission announced a regulation to tackle terrorist content online. The UK has worked with the Commission and other Member States to ensure the proposed Regulation is ambitious and has meaningful impact on the problem.
If agreed, the Regulation would have direct effect in domestic law and as such, we do not consider that any changes to domestic law would be necessary. This would be dependent on the outcome of EU Exit negotiations.
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much the UK spent on policing as a proportion of GDP in the 2017-18 financial year; and how that figure compares to the (a) G7 and (b) EU average.
Answered by Nick Hurd
Total funding for Police and Crime Commissioners in England and Wales, counter-terrorism policing and national policing programmes was £12.5 bil-lion in 2017-18, including council tax, which represents 0.62% of GDP. This figure excludes policing in Scotland and Northern Ireland as these are matters for devolved administrations and not the responsibility of the Home Office.
Overall, public investment in policing is growing by over £1 billion from £11.9 billion in 2015/16 to £13 billion in 2018/19, including counter-terrorism policing, funding for national programmes and local policing in England and Wales.
The Home Office does not collect or hold direct international comparisons for these statistics.
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will publish the (a) roles and (b) responsibilities of his Department for (a) Prevent and (b) counter-extremism strategies.
Answered by Ben Wallace
Our updated and strengthened CONTEST strategy comprises Prevent, Pursue, Protect and Prepare work strands, each reducing an element of the risk from terrorism (intent, capability, vulnerability and impact), and collectively providing a balanced and comprehensive end to end response to the threat we face.
Prevent safeguards and supports people vulnerable to radicalisation, to stop them from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. Our 2015 Counter-Extremism Strategy tackles the non-terrorist harms that ideologically driven extremism causes in communities. The Home Office has lead responsibility for delivering both strategies and coordinating work across government.
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the budgets are for Prevent contractors in (a) 2018 and (b) 2019.
Answered by Ben Wallace
We do not provide detailed information about the funding allocation of local Prevent activity.
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will publish the list of contractors for the Prevent programme in receipt of contracted payments in each of the last five years for which information is available.
Answered by Ben Wallace
As per the Government’s transparency and accountability policy all expenditure (individual invoices, grant payments, expense payments or other such transactions) is reported and published on the GOV.UK website. The minimum requirement from 2010‐11 for central government entities is to publish transactions over £25,000.