Asked by: Lisa Nandy (Labour - Wigan)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether it is her Department's policy to allow unaccompanied asylum-seeking children to be screened as close to their home in the UK as possible.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
Asylum seeking children can arrive or be encountered in the UK in a variety of ways. The full policy and guidance for processing such claims is set out in the Processing Children’s Asylum Claims instruction which is published:
When an asylum seeking child is encountered they will undergo a welfare interview in order to record their basic information and identify any immediate welfare concerns. Those unaccompanied children who are unable to travel to the Asylum Intake Unit in Croydon are able to register their claim and undergo a welfare interview at the nearest available Home Office location. It is not possible to determine how many unaccompanied asylum seeking children have had welfare interviews in different locations without an examination of individual records which could only be achieved at disproportionate cost.
In July 2016 the Government significantly increased the funding it provides to local authorities who look after UASC. Local authorities now receive £41,610 per annum year for each unaccompanied asylum-seeking child aged under 16 and £33,215 per annum for unaccompanied asylum-seeking child aged 16 and 17. This represents a 20% and 28% increase in funding respectively.
Asked by: Lisa Nandy (Labour - Wigan)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many unaccompanied asylum seeking children were screened in (a) Croydon and (b) Salford in each year between 2010 and 2016.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
Asylum seeking children can arrive or be encountered in the UK in a variety of ways. The full policy and guidance for processing such claims is set out in the Processing Children’s Asylum Claims instruction which is published:
When an asylum seeking child is encountered they will undergo a welfare interview in order to record their basic information and identify any immediate welfare concerns. Those unaccompanied children who are unable to travel to the Asylum Intake Unit in Croydon are able to register their claim and undergo a welfare interview at the nearest available Home Office location. It is not possible to determine how many unaccompanied asylum seeking children have had welfare interviews in different locations without an examination of individual records which could only be achieved at disproportionate cost.
In July 2016 the Government significantly increased the funding it provides to local authorities who look after UASC. Local authorities now receive £41,610 per annum year for each unaccompanied asylum-seeking child aged under 16 and £33,215 per annum for unaccompanied asylum-seeking child aged 16 and 17. This represents a 20% and 28% increase in funding respectively.
Asked by: Lisa Nandy (Labour - Wigan)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of police community support officers have received child sexual exploitation training in each police force area in England and Wales.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
All new officers and new detectives receive public protection training which includes training on child sexual exploitation. The child sexual exploitation element of this training has been made available as an e-learning course for all existing staff and officers.
As police training is delivered locally we do not hold data centrally on the proportion of frontline officers or Police Community Support Officers in each police force area that have received training on child sexual exploitation. Local police forces may hold this data.
The Home Office is strengthening the law enforcement response to crimes against vulnerable people through around £8m investment from the Police Transformation Fund. This includes £1.9million to the College of Policing to develop a comprehensive package of training for new police leaders in vulnerability. These officers will coach, brief and debrief frontline officers so they are better able to identify signs of vulnerability, including child sexual exploitation, and provide support to victims.
Asked by: Lisa Nandy (Labour - Wigan)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of frontline police officers have received child sexual exploitation training in each police force area in England and Wales.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
All new officers and new detectives receive public protection training which includes training on child sexual exploitation. The child sexual exploitation element of this training has been made available as an e-learning course for all existing staff and officers.
As police training is delivered locally we do not hold data centrally on the proportion of frontline officers or Police Community Support Officers in each police force area that have received training on child sexual exploitation. Local police forces may hold this data.
The Home Office is strengthening the law enforcement response to crimes against vulnerable people through around £8m investment from the Police Transformation Fund. This includes £1.9million to the College of Policing to develop a comprehensive package of training for new police leaders in vulnerability. These officers will coach, brief and debrief frontline officers so they are better able to identify signs of vulnerability, including child sexual exploitation, and provide support to victims.
Asked by: Lisa Nandy (Labour - Wigan)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many child abduction warning notices were granted in each year since 2010.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
Child Abduction Warning Notices are currently used by the police as a deterrent against those thought to be grooming children, where the child is under the age of 16 if living at home, or under the age of 18 if living in the care of a local authority. The notices are a useful tool for the police and complement the powers to protect the vulnerable from sexual predators that we introduced in the Serious Crime Act 2015, for example Sexual Risk Orders.
There is no statutory or other legislative provision dealing specifically with the issue of Child Abduction Warning Notices; the Notices are part of an administrative process. Breach of a Notice is not a criminal offence and as such the police do not regularly record the number of Child Abduction Warning Notices, therefore this information is not held centrally. Individual forces may though hold data on how many Abduction Notices have been issued in each year since 2010.
Asked by: Lisa Nandy (Labour - Wigan)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many sexual offences were committed against children in (a) the UK, (b) Greater Manchester and (c) Wigan in 2016.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
Data for these offences by year and by police force area/community safety partnership (Greater Manchester is a police force area, Wigan is a community safety partnership area) are available in the police recorded crime and outcomes open data available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-recorded-crime-open-data-tables
Asked by: Lisa Nandy (Labour - Wigan)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many child sexual offences were reported to the police in (a) 2013, (b) 2014, (c) 2015 and (d) 2016 in each police force area in England and Wales.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
Data for these offences by police force area and by year are available in the police recorded crime and outcomes open data available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-recorded-crime-open-data-tables
Asked by: Lisa Nandy (Labour - Wigan)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many meetings took place between Liz Sanderson and the Secretary of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, John O'Brien; on what dates those meetings took place; and who was present at each such meeting.
Answered by Sarah Newton
Liz Sanderson was the then Home Secretary’s special adviser. The Department holds no records of separate meetings or conversations between Ms Sanderson and Dame Lowell Goddard, panel members or the statutory officers. However, she routinely attended the Home Secretary’s meetings, including with Dame Lowell Goddard and panel members during the appointment processes. She also had occasional conversations with the Secretary to the Inquiry.
Asked by: Lisa Nandy (Labour - Wigan)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many meetings took place between Liz Sanderson and members of the panel of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse; on what dates those meetings took place; and who was present at each such meeting.
Answered by Sarah Newton
Liz Sanderson was the then Home Secretary’s special adviser. The Department holds no records of separate meetings or conversations between Ms Sanderson and Dame Lowell Goddard, panel members or the statutory officers. However, she routinely attended the Home Secretary’s meetings, including with Dame Lowell Goddard and panel members during the appointment processes. She also had occasional conversations with the Secretary to the Inquiry.
Asked by: Lisa Nandy (Labour - Wigan)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many meetings were held between Dame Lowell Goddard and Liz Sanderson in connection with the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse; who was present at each such meeting; and if she publish the minutes of those meetings.
Answered by Sarah Newton
Liz Sanderson was the then Home Secretary’s special adviser. The Department holds no records of separate meetings or conversations between Ms Sanderson and Dame Lowell Goddard, panel members or the statutory officers. However, she routinely attended the Home Secretary’s meetings, including with Dame Lowell Goddard and panel members during the appointment processes. She also had occasional conversations with the Secretary to the Inquiry.