Asked by: Max Wilkinson (Liberal Democrat - Cheltenham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many National Fraud Intelligence Bureau 1D dating scam offences were recorded in the (a) 2024-25, (b) 2023-24. (c) 2019-20 and (d) 2014-15 financial year.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
The Home Office does not collect information on romance fraud. The National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB), which sits within City of London Police, collects data on Dating Scam Fraud. This is collected from the reports made to Action Fraud that amounted to a crime under the Home Office crime recording rules.
The table below summarises the number of dating scams recorded by NFIB on 1D dating fraud offences.
| 2014/15 | 2019/20 | 2023/24 | 2024/25 |
Dating scam (NFIB1D) | 2,735 | 5,541 | 8,388 | 9,296 |
Asked by: Max Wilkinson (Liberal Democrat - Cheltenham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what information her Department collects on romance fraud.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
The Home Office does not collect information on romance fraud. The National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB), which sits within City of London Police, collects data on Dating Scam Fraud. This is collected from the reports made to Action Fraud that amounted to a crime under the Home Office crime recording rules.
The table below summarises the number of dating scams recorded by NFIB on 1D dating fraud offences.
| 2014/15 | 2019/20 | 2023/24 | 2024/25 |
Dating scam (NFIB1D) | 2,735 | 5,541 | 8,388 | 9,296 |
Asked by: Max Wilkinson (Liberal Democrat - Cheltenham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the oral contribution by the Minister for Security during the Urgent Question on 20 October 2025, Official Report, column 630, whether he has held such discussions with the hon. Member for (a) Rutland and Stamford and (b) Tonbridge on the use of back channels.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
Upholding national security and keeping the public safe is the first duty of Government.
This Government has been clear that we are extremely disappointed in the decision by the CPS not to proceed with prosecution of Christopher Cash and Christopher Berry. Given the concerns raised by Honourable Members about the safety and security of the House, we have sought to be as transparent as possible by publishing the witness statements relating to the case.
The references to ‘backchannel’ discussions that are alleged to have taken place occurred under the previous Government.
Asked by: Max Wilkinson (Liberal Democrat - Cheltenham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to paragraph 23(b) of Witness Statement 1 by the Deputy National Security Adviser of 22 December 2023, what those back channels were.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
Upholding national security and keeping the public safe is the first duty of Government.
This Government has been clear that we are extremely disappointed in the decision by the CPS not to proceed with prosecution of Christopher Cash and Christopher Berry. Given the concerns raised by Honourable Members about the safety and security of the House, we have sought to be as transparent as possible by publishing the witness statements relating to the case.
The references to ‘backchannel’ discussions that are alleged to have taken place occurred under the previous Government.
Asked by: Max Wilkinson (Liberal Democrat - Cheltenham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to her article in The Sun on 22 October 2025, on what evidential basis she said that the UK was the destination of choice for refugees.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
When this Government came to office, we inherited an immigration system in chaos. Organised criminal gangs wreaked havoc on our borders and we are still living with the consequences.
Migrants come to the UK as they believe this country is more generous compared to other safe European countries – they continue their journey looking for the best place to become a refugee.
Under the previous government, migrants were entitled to generous benefits including automatic family reunion rights, hotel accommodation and false promises that they will be able to work and earn a living, making the UK a more attractive place to seek refuge.
We have taken rapid action to address that chaos by introducing a fundamental change to the rights provided to those granted asylum in the UK, looking to end automatic family reunion rights and altering the requirements for long-term settlement in the UK. This approach balances protection against persecution with control of our borders. It makes the system fairer, in line with our European allies, and reduces incentives for asylum seekers to travel illegally to the UK.
We will also end the use of hotels for asylum accommodation and explore replacing them with more appropriate sites like military bases. In the summer of 2023 over 400 asylum hotels were open, costing almost £9 million a day; we have taken action to close hotels, with less than 210 now open, saving £1 billion in hotel costs last year.
We have invested £5 million into Immigration Enforcement, to target, arrest, detain and return illegal workers in takeaways, fast food drivers, beauty salons and car washes. The number of arrests for illegal working has risen by 63% since October 2024 and as part of this crackdown we have expanded right to work checks to the gig economy, removing the incentive for people attempting to enter the UK illegally.
We are taking on the hard graft to remove the pull factors and have introduced tougher language requirements to support migrant integration. We recently introduced a new law in Parliament where migrants will be required to pass tough English language requirements and must meet an A level equivalent standard in speaking, listening, reading and writing.
We have removed more than 35,000 people who were here illegally and struck a historic deal with the French meaning those who arrive by small boat are now being sent back.
Our Border Security Asylum and Immigration Bill will tackle pull factors that bring people to the UK illegally, equipping officers with the necessary powers to tackle organised immigration crime and those who attempt to enter the UK illegally.
Asked by: Max Wilkinson (Liberal Democrat - Cheltenham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many times a court has cited Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights as a reason for non-deportation in the last 12 months; and if she will provide a breakdown of those instances by level of court.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
The information requested is not currently available from published statistics, and the relevant data could only be collated and verified for the purpose of answering this question at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Max Wilkinson (Liberal Democrat - Cheltenham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what is her Department's policy on targets for net migration.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
This Government recognises and values the contribution that legal migration makes to the UK.
But under the previous Government, between 2019 and 2024, net migration almost quadrupled, heavily driven by a big increase in overseas recruitment.
The Restoring control over the immigration system: white paper, published on 12 May, sets out reforms to legal migration, so that we can restore order, control and fairness to the system, bring down net migration and promote economic growth.
Previous governments have set targets and then not met them, which has undermined the credibility of the system. Instead, we want to restore public confidence with a series of steps to replace our failing system with one that reduces net migration substantially.
Asked by: Max Wilkinson (Liberal Democrat - Cheltenham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of the Online Safety Act 2023 in preventing fraud.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
The Online Safety Act (OSA) was passed in November 2023 and requires all in-scope platforms to tackle fraud on their platforms. The OSA’s first codes, dealing with illegal content, came into effect and were enforceable from March 2025. This means that all in-scope companies will need to put in place systems and processes to stop fraud from appearing on their platforms and services.
In addition, the Act’s fraudulent advertising duty will require the largest companies to appropriately tackle fraudulent advertising. According to Ofcom’s Online Safety Act Roadmap the draft codes for this duty will be published in draft in early 2026.
The Government is working closely with Ofcom on the implementation of the Online Safety Act and will continue to monitor its efficacy as the Act is enforced.
Asked by: Max Wilkinson (Liberal Democrat - Cheltenham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of foreign (a) company and (b) government ownership of British media on national security.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
As a matter of long-standing policy, we do not comment on the detail of security and intelligence issues.
More generally, the Government is committed to a pluralistic media landscape, where citizens are able to access information from a range of sources in order to form opinions. The Department for Culture, Media, and Sport have provided an assessment on the potential impact of foreign states investing in UK Newspapers, which can be found in the Written Statement Ministerial of 15 May 2025 - Official Report Vol 767 Col 17WS.
Asked by: Max Wilkinson (Liberal Democrat - Cheltenham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of foreign governments investing in UK media on national security.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
As a matter of long-standing policy, we do not comment on the detail of security and intelligence issues.
More generally, the Government is committed to a pluralistic media landscape, where citizens are able to access information from a range of sources in order to form opinions. The Department for Culture, Media, and Sport have provided an assessment on the potential impact of foreign states investing in UK Newspapers, which can be found in the Written Statement Ministerial of 15 May 2025 - Official Report Vol 767 Col 17WS.