Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to tackle slow-moving protests.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
It is unacceptable that protests should disrupt the hard-working people going about their daily business.
The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 is already in force. This raised the maximum penalty for wilful obstruction of the highway to 6 months’ imprisonment, a level 3 fine on the standard scale, or both.
The Public Order Act 2023, which received Royal Assent on 2 May, has also introduced new measures to improve the police’s ability to respond to highly disruptive protests. This includes the offence of interference with the use or operation of key national infrastructure, which, carries a maximum penalty of 12 months’ imprisonment, an unlimited fine, or both on indictment or a maximum penalty of and, six months’ imprisonment, an unlimited fine, or both, respectively on summary.
In addition, Parliament has approved a Statutory Instrument providing greater clarity to law enforcement on when conditions can be imposed on public processions causing serious disruption to the life of the community.
We will continue to work closely with the police going forwards to make sure they are able to make full use of these powers.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to reduce burglary rates.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The latest Crime Survey for England and Wales, covering the year to March 2023, shows that domestic burglary has fallen by 55% since the year ending March 2010. We welcome this reduction, but we recognise the significant impact invasive crimes like burglary can have on individuals and the wider community, and we are keen that the number of these crimes is driven even lower.
As we made clear in the Beating Crime Plan, published in July 2021, our approach to tackling burglary focuses on evidenced-based and targeted interventions, such as the Safer Streets Fund. The Safer Streets Fund supports investment in street lighting, home security and other measures, to help prevent crimes such as domestic burglary occurring in the first place. Round 5 of the Fund was launched on 6 July.
This is underpinned by making sure police get the basics right, which is why we welcome the announcement made by the National Police Chiefs’ Council on 8 June that all 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales have been attending all home burglaries since March this year. We are working with police leaders to ensure forces are making their attendance data available to the public.
Furthermore, as part of this back-to-basics approach, police forces across England and Wales have committed to pursue all ‘reasonable lines of enquiry’ where there is a reasonable chance it could lead them to catching a perpetrator and solving a crime. This commitment, announced on 28 August, has been worked up and agreed by the Home Office, in tandem with the National Police Chiefs’ Council and College of Policing.
And to ensure the police have the resources they need to implement this and tackle crimes like burglary, we have delivered on our commitment to recruit 20,000 additional officers by March 2023.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to tackle changes in the level of bicycle thefts.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Crime Survey for England and Wales for year ending March 2023 shows that the level of bicycle theft offences has reduced by 51% since March 2010.
The Home Office works closely with the British Transport Police (BTP), the national lead for cycle theft, to tackle the theft of bicycles. BTP have launched the ‘double lock it’ campaign with police forces and organisations, providing advice to owners to help better protect their bicycles. Further information on the campaign and bicycle locks can be found here: https://www.btp.police.uk/police-forces/british-transport-police/areas/campaigns/double-lock-it/.
The Department for Transport’s (DfT) Cycling and Walking Plan for England, Gear Change, aims to boost cycling and walking and sets out a number of initiatives to combat cycle theft, including encouraging retailers to number the bicycles they sell and offer customers the opportunity to register their bicycle on a database at the point of sale. The Plan is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cycling-and-walking-plan-for-england.
The BTP-led National Cycle Crime Group, working with DfT, have set up Cycle Crime Reduction Partnerships across the country to coordinate regional enforcement activity to disrupt organised cycle theft.
The Home Office collects and publishes official statistics on the number of bicycle theft offences reported to and recorded by the police in England and Wales and their investigative outcomes, including charges, on a quarterly basis.
These can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-recorded-crime-open-data-tables
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will take steps to encourage the adoption of no cold caller zones.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
This is not a matter for the Home Office but is for Local Authorities.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent steps she has taken to reduce the rate of burglaries.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
We welcome the latest Crime Survey for England and Wales data, which shows a 51% per cent fall in the level of domestic burglary when comparing the Crime Survey to year ending December 2022 with the year ending March 2010. This represents a fall from 917,000 incidents to 449,000 incidents. While this is clearly good news, the Government recognises the significant impact invasive crimes such as domestic burglary can have on individuals and the wider community, and we are keen that the number of these crimes is driven even lower.
As we made clear in the Beating Crime Plan, evidence-based and targeted interventions, such as the Safer Streets Fund, underpinned by getting the basics in policing right, lies at the heart of our strategy to reduce these crimes.
The Safer Streets Fund supports police and local authorities investment in street lighting, home security and other measures, to help prevent crimes such as domestic burglary from happening in the first place.
In her open letter to police leaders in September 2022, the Home Secretary made it clear that the public will want to know the police will visit them when a burglary has been committed. We therefore welcome the announcement made by the National Police Chiefs’ Council on the 8 June that all 43 police forces in England and Wales have been implementing this policy since March this year. We are working with police leaders to ensure forces are making their attendance data available to the public. https://news.npcc.police.uk/releases/police-now-attending-scene-of-every-home-burglary
To help ensure the police have the resources they need to fight crime and tackle anti-social behaviour, we have delivered on our commitment to recruit 20,000 additional police officers by the end of March this year.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to reduce rates of spice (a) abuse and (b) addiction.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
Synthetic cannabinoids, including those sold by dealers under the street name ‘Spice’, are dangerous drugs. They are controlled as Class B drugs under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 to give the police the powers they need to take necessary action.
The largest dedicated funding stream under the Government’s Drug Strategy is for drug treatment, including treatment for dependence on synthetic cannabinoids, with £780m over the next three years. In addition, the DWP individual placement and support (IPS) scheme helps people with addiction to secure work, and the rough sleeping drug and alcohol treatment grant ensures there is intensive, tailored support for people to address their drug dependence and find stable housing.
Under the Government’s Drug Strategy, all areas in England have established dedicated Combating Drugs Partnerships bringing together local leaders across law enforcement, criminal justice, treatment and recovery, and the NHS, to deliver the strategy on the ground. These partnerships will be able to focus efforts on local needs relating to drug use, including where the consumption of potent synthetic cannabinoids is harming individuals and causing a blight on their communities.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she is taking steps to reduce the time taken for passport applications to be processed.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
People are receiving their passports in good time. Between January and May 2023, 99.4% of customers using the standard UK service received their passport within the published processing timeframe of ten weeks.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that police officers are able to tackle antisocial behaviour.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
On 27 March we published the ASB Action Plan. The ASB Action Plan commits to tackling ASB across five key themes: stronger punishment, making communities safer, building local pride, prevention and early intervention, improving data, reporting and accountability for action.
This plan is backed by £160m of funding. This includes up to £60m to fund an increased police and other uniformed presence to clamp down on anti-social behaviour, targeting hotspots. Initially we will work with 10 police force areas, including Cleveland, but from 2024 will support a hotspot approach across every police force area in England and Wales.
We are also providing up to £50m to support the provision of Immediate Justice, by issuing out of court disposals with conditions to swiftly repair any damage – the aim being for them to start within 48 hours of the offence. This will start in 10 initial trailblazer police force areas, including Cleveland and be rolled out across England and Wales from 2024.
As part of the Action Plan, we are also giving the police and local authorities more tools to tackle the problem – increasing on the spot fines for graffiti and fly tipping, filling empty shops, restoring local parks, and regenerating local green spaces.
Cleveland Police has recruited 267 additional uplift police officers against a total three-year allocation of 239 officers, as at 31 March 2023. Cleveland Police’s funding will be up to £162.1m in 2023/24, an increase of up to £5.1m when compared to 2022/23.
The Office for National Statistics annually publishes anti-social behaviour incidents reported to the police by Police Force Area and no further lower level breakdown is currently available. There are plans to publish new Community Safety Partnership (CSP) breakdowns later this year. The latest available data covering year to March 2022 can be found here: Crime in England and Wales: Police Force Area data tables - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to tackle online fraud.
Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)
Last month, the government published a new strategy to address the threat of fraud. One of the three pillars included in the strategy focuses on blocking frauds from happening in the first place, which includes actions to prevent online fraud. This includes ensuring the tech sector take fraud seriously and put in place extra protections for their customers, shining a light on which platforms are the safest and that companies are properly incentivised to combat fraud. We are working with tech companies to create an online fraud charter which will include a number of voluntary actions to help design out fraud.
The Online Safety Bill will also tackle online harms, including fraud and fraudulent advertising. This means that social media and search engine companies will have to take robust, proactive action to ensure that their users are not exposed to these crimes in the first place. We expect this to have a strong impact on some of the highest harm fraud types.
We are replacing the Action Fraud service to create a more efficient new system that will provide better intelligence to forces. Improvements include:
These improvements, which have been tested across the victim support landscape, law enforcement agencies, and other relevant bodies, will improve the support services and reporting tools for victims, provide greater intelligence and insight to policing for investigations, and allow for greater proactive work to prevent and disrupt fraudsters at scale.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to ensure that serving Metropolitan Police officers who are under investigation are not on operational duties.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
Decisions on whether to suspend a police officer are taken independently of government by Chief Constables.
Prior to suspending an officer, Chief Constables must, by law, have considered temporary redeployment to either alternative duties or an alternative location as to an alternative to suspension.