Asked by: Lord Dobbs (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, in each of the past five years, what was the average length of time in England and Wales for the police and Crown Prosecution Service to investigate allegations of (1) murder, and (2) rape, before a decision was made on whether to proceed with prosecution.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Home Office collects information on the time taken by the police in England and Wales to reach an investigative outcome for notifiable offences.
Below is a table showing the median number of days taken to assign a charge/summons outcome, from date recorded by the police, for rape and homicide offences, for each year from 2018/19 to year ending September 2023:
Financial Year | 2018/19 | 2019/20 | 2020/21 | 2021/22 | 2022/23 |
| YE Sept 2023 |
Homicide1,2,3 | 40 | 21 | 25 | 30 | 29 |
| 23 |
Rape offences1 | 381 | 395 | 465 | 467 | 421 |
| 426 |
Notes:
1. Only includes data for forces who send offence-level data to the Home Office Data Hub
2. The number of median days for Year ending September 2022 and Year ending September 2023 includes 37 territorial police forces. Excludes Devon and Cornwall, Humberside, West Midlands and Greater Manchester Police. The data for these forces was identified to have quality issues or the data was not provided at record level to the Home Office Data Hub in for the reporting period.
3. 2018/19 excludes the 97 homicides which were assigned a charge/summons outcome in relation to the Hillsborough disaster by South Yorkshire Police Force. When these are included, the median number of days taken to assign a charge for homicide was 115 days in 2018/19.
4. Data are shown to the nearest whole day.
Asked by: Lord Dobbs (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by on 7 March (HL5790), whether they will now publish the full analysis prepared by Prevent's Research Information and Communication Unit (RICU) that reportedly identified books, poetry, TV shows, and films, including ‘Yes, Minister’, ‘Great British Railway Journeys’, ‘House of Cards’, ‘1984’, and ‘Beowulf’, as being ‘far-right’ and ‘white supremacist’.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Research, Information and Communications Unit (RICU) was established in 2007 under the Prevent strand of HMG’s CONTEST strategy, to understand and counter terrorist and extremist ideologies to reduce the risk to the UK, its citizens, and its interests overseas.
RICU provides analysis on terrorist use of propaganda and exploitation of the internet to inform the UK’s counter-terrorism system. To support this crucial objective RICU undertakes open-source monitoring to better understand the media, online and communications environment as it relates to terrorism and extremism. This open-source monitoring identifies a range of material that is shared and discussed within these spaces, including topics or media that terrorist and extremist groups are seeking to exploit.
All RICU data collection and analysis complies with relevant legislation. Ministers have authorised RICU’s work since it was established in 2007, and through subsequent updates to the CONTEST strategy (in 2011 and 2018) and regularly receive RICU outputs.
RICU activity is underpinned and directed by sensitive information pertaining to terrorism threats and the identification of at-risk audiences. The books and television shows referenced in these products were not identified as ‘far-right’ and ‘white-supremacist’. The inclusion of these items of media was an illustration of the types of mainstream content shared in online spaces that are known to be frequented by terrorist and extremist influencers and susceptible audiences. Publishing RICU analysis risks revealing insights into HMG capabilities and undermining the effectiveness of RICU’s monitoring and analysis.
The work of RICU has been crucial to the delivery of Prevent and has helped to position the UK at the forefront of the battle against terrorist propaganda, particularly online terrorist content.
Prevent remains a vital tool to divert people from dangerous and poisonous ideologies. We are now implementing all recommendations from the recent Independent Review of Prevent, paving the way for a more transparent, efficient and sustainable programme. This will include resetting thresholds to ensure proportionality across ideologies and ensuring that analytical products more clearly state the purpose of the reporting and the nature of any links identified between mainstream media items and terrorism.
Asked by: Lord Dobbs (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to publish in full the analysis reportedly prepared by Prevent's Research Information and Communication Unit (RICU) that identified certain books, films and TV shows as far-right and white supremacist; and what assessment they have made of whether such an analysis is within RICU's official remit.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Research, Information and Communications Unit (RICU) was established in 2007 under the Prevent strand of HMG’s CONTEST strategy. RICU aims to understand and counter terrorist and extremist ideologies to reduce the risk to the UK, its citizens, and its interests overseas.
RICU currently has 22 allocated staff. This is subject to annual review depending on operational requirements. RICU’s spend by financial year for the last five years is provided below. Spend increased significantly from financial year 2012/2013 to support RICU’s response to the threat posed by Daesh. 2022/23 figures are based on spend to date.
Financial Year | Total spend (£) |
2018/2019 | 19,087,916.67 |
2019/2020 | 17,399,192.00 |
2020/2021 | 20,461,482.00 |
2021/2022 | 8,599,531.00 |
2022/2023 | 5,072,290.00 |
RICU provides internal analysis on terrorist use of propaganda and exploitation of the internet to inform the UK’s counter-terrorism system. To support this crucial objective RICU undertakes open-source monitoring to better understand the terrorist and extremist media, online and communications environment. This open-source monitoring identifies a range of material that is shared and discussed within these spaces, including topics or media that terrorist and extremist groups are seeking to exploit. All RICU data collection and analysis complies with relevant legislation.
The work of RICU is crucial to the delivery of Prevent and has helped to position the UK at the forefront of the battle against terrorist propaganda, particularly online terrorist content. The unauthorised disclosure of classified information damages the ability of the Government to keep the public safe from threats to national security.
Prevent remains a vital tool to divert people from dangerous and poisonous ideologies. We are now implementing all recommendations from the recent Independent Review of Prevent led by William Shawcross, paving the way for a more transparent, efficient and sustainable programme.
Asked by: Lord Dobbs (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is the remit of Prevent’s Research Information and Communications Unit; how many staff it has; and what was its annual budget for the past five years.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Research, Information and Communications Unit (RICU) was established in 2007 under the Prevent strand of HMG’s CONTEST strategy. RICU aims to understand and counter terrorist and extremist ideologies to reduce the risk to the UK, its citizens, and its interests overseas.
RICU currently has 22 allocated staff. This is subject to annual review depending on operational requirements. RICU’s spend by financial year for the last five years is provided below. Spend increased significantly from financial year 2012/2013 to support RICU’s response to the threat posed by Daesh. 2022/23 figures are based on spend to date.
Financial Year | Total spend (£) |
2018/2019 | 19,087,916.67 |
2019/2020 | 17,399,192.00 |
2020/2021 | 20,461,482.00 |
2021/2022 | 8,599,531.00 |
2022/2023 | 5,072,290.00 |
RICU provides internal analysis on terrorist use of propaganda and exploitation of the internet to inform the UK’s counter-terrorism system. To support this crucial objective RICU undertakes open-source monitoring to better understand the terrorist and extremist media, online and communications environment. This open-source monitoring identifies a range of material that is shared and discussed within these spaces, including topics or media that terrorist and extremist groups are seeking to exploit. All RICU data collection and analysis complies with relevant legislation.
The work of RICU is crucial to the delivery of Prevent and has helped to position the UK at the forefront of the battle against terrorist propaganda, particularly online terrorist content. The unauthorised disclosure of classified information damages the ability of the Government to keep the public safe from threats to national security.
Prevent remains a vital tool to divert people from dangerous and poisonous ideologies. We are now implementing all recommendations from the recent Independent Review of Prevent led by William Shawcross, paving the way for a more transparent, efficient and sustainable programme.
Asked by: Lord Dobbs (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Senior Deputy Speaker what the annual budget for the House of Lords was for each of the last five years; and what is the estimated budget for the House of Lords for each of the next two years.
Answered by Lord McFall of Alcluith
The table below shows the original budget figures for the last 5 years, current year and subsequent two financial years:
EXPENDITURE TYPE |
| |||||||
| 2015-2016 ORIGINAL BUDGET | 2016-2017 ORIGINAL BUDGET | 2017-2018 ORIGINAL BUDGET | 2018-2019 ORIGINAL BUDGET | 2019-2020 ORIGINAL BUDGET | 2020-2021 ORIGINAL BUDGET | 2021-2022 ORIGINAL BUDGET | 2022-2023 ORIGINAL BUDGET |
Capital | 27,602 | 45,409 | 55,396 | 65,855 | 81,710 | 67,132 | 59,089 | 50,206 |
Resource | 103,035 | 108,832 | 123,207 | 132,335 | 176,305 | 140,970 | 149,615 | 154,772 |
Total | 130,637 | 154,241 | 178,603 | 198,190 | 258,015 | 208,102 | 208,704 | 204,978 |
The following points should be noted:
• The budgets from 2020-21 onwards are based upon figures approved by the Commission in January 2020 and are agreed as part of a rolling 3-year planning cycle
• The budgets for Restoration and Renewal and the Shadow Sponsor Body are included within the relevant years up to 2019-20, but not in subsequent years.
Asked by: Lord Dobbs (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what discussions they have had with the Metropolitan Police Service about (1) the cost of policing, and (2) the number of Metropolitan police officers deployed at, the Brexit demonstrations outside Parliament.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
Home Office Ministers regularly meet with the Metropolitan Police to discuss a range of issues, including policing costs and pressures facing the force.
The number of officers deployed at demonstrations outside Parliament is an operational matter for the Metropolitan Police.