Asked by: Mims Davies (Conservative - East Grinstead and Uckfield)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she plans to amend police funding to help tackle extreme misogyny.
Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Home Office announced the 2025-2026 police funding settlement before Christmas. It provides funding of up to £19.5 billion for the policing system in England and Wales, an overall increase of up to £1 billion when compared to the 2024-25 settlement, and equating to a 5.5% cash increase, and 3% real terms increase in funding. Total funding to police forces will be up to £17.4 billion, an increase of up to £987 million compared to the 2024-25 settlement. Decisions on how funding is used is an operational matter for Chief Constables and locally elected Police and Crime Commissioners.
We are also working closely with the policing sector to deliver improvements in the police response to violence against women and girls (VAWG), including by embedding domestic abuse specialists in 999 control rooms.
Asked by: Mims Davies (Conservative - East Grinstead and Uckfield)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what timetable she has set for establishing specialist rape and sexual offences teams in every police force.
Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
This Government recognises the devastating impact of sexual violence and that’s why tackling rape and sexual offences is a key part of our mission to halve Violence Against Women and Girls.
It is essential for police forces to have the right specialist capability to support victims and bring perpetrators to justice. This is why we are working closely with policing to ensure every force has a specialist rape and sexual offences team.
Further details will be announced in due course.
Asked by: Mims Davies (Conservative - East Grinstead and Uckfield)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what timetable she has set to introduce domestic abuse experts in 999 control rooms.
Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
From early this year, under a new approach named ‘Raneem’s Law’, domestic abuse specialists will begin to be embedded in 999 control rooms to advise on risk assessments, work with officers on the ground and ensure that victims are referred to appropriate support services swiftly. Exact timings will be confirmed in due course.
Asked by: Mims Davies (Conservative - East Grinstead and Uckfield)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many hotels are (a) providing and (b) in negotiations to provide accommodation to asylum seekers in East Grinstead and Uckfield constituency.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
This government inherited an asylum system under exceptional strain, with tens of thousands of people stuck in limbo without any prospect of having their claims processed. At their peak use under the previous government, in the autumn of 2023, more than 400 asylum hotels were being leased by the Home Office, at a cost of almost £9 million a day.
We took immediate action to resolve that chaos by restarting asylum processing, establishing the new Border Security Command to tackle the people-smuggling gangs, cracking down on illegal working across the country, and increasing the return and removal of people with no right to be here.
Inevitably, due to the size of the backlog we inherited, the Home Office has been forced to continue with the use of hotels for the time being. But this is not a permanent solution, and the small increase in the number in use at the end of last year was just a temporary but necessary step to manage pressures in the system, which is now in the process of being reversed.
It remains our absolute commitment to end the use of hotels over time, as part of our reduction in overall asylum accommodation costs. In the interim, we are also continuing to increase our operational activity against smuggling gangs and illegal working, and we have increased returns to their highest level since 2018, with 16,400 people removed in the first six months this government was in charge.
Data on the number of supported asylum seekers in accommodation, including hotels, and by local authority can be found within the Asy_D11 tab for our most recent statistics release: Immigration system statistics data tables - GOV.UK.
Asked by: Mims Davies (Conservative - East Grinstead and Uckfield)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department has secured reciprocity in the criteria for entitlement to Irish nationality for spouses of Irish citizens resident in the UK.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
The criteria for determining who is entitled to Irish nationality is a matter for the Government of Ireland.
The close historic, social and cultural ties between the UK and Ireland have led to the creation of reciprocal rights for respective nationals when in the other state. Leaders in the UK and Ireland have confirmed their commitment to protecting these rights for British and Irish nationals which include the right to enter and remain, the right to work and to study and access to social welfare entitlements and benefits.
Asked by: Mims Davies (Conservative - East Grinstead and Uckfield)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many children have lost a parent to domestic violence in each of the last five years; and what steps have been taken to mitigate the effect of domestic violence on children.
Answered by Sarah Newton
The Home Office holds information on the number of domestic abuse-related incidents and offences recorded by the police in England and Wales. From this information it is not possible to tell how many children have lost a parent to domestic violence in the last five years however we recognise the devastating and lifelong impact that domestic abuse has on children who can carry the effect into adulthood. Since the last inspection, HMIC found that the police have improved their understanding of the impact of domestic abuse on children, and have increased their focus on the risk to children following a domestic abuse incident, resulting in a significant increase in referrals to social services.
In addition, this Government will bring forward a Domestic Violence and Abuse Bill which will protect and support victims including children. This will include the Conservative manifesto commitment to allow courts to hand down tougher sentences on abusers where their behaviour involves a child, reflecting the grievous and life-long impact that abuse can have on children.
Asked by: Mims Davies (Conservative - East Grinstead and Uckfield)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 8 December 2015 to Question 18753, whether the assessment of the FRANK website was based solely on preventing drug use.
Answered by Karen Bradley
The purpose of the Frank website survey 2013 was to assess: website users' experiences, the information they accessed, their general satisfaction with the website and their intended behaviour after visiting the website.
Asked by: Mims Davies (Conservative - East Grinstead and Uckfield)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the drugs advice provided by FRANK in tackling use of illegal drugs.
Answered by Mike Penning
FRANK, the Government’s drugs information and advice service, is run by Public Health England. It provides impartial, reliable and confidential information and advice about drugs. It can be used in both specific drug prevention activities and in general health and wellbeing activities which are designed to help individuals to build and develop the skills they need to be able to actively choose not to use drugs.
The last assessment of the website was run by the Home Office through the website user survey between 20 February – 11 March 2013. Key findings included:
• 85% said they are very/fairly likely to visit the FRANK website in the future if needed
• in total, 69% claimed that their visit to the FRANK website had a positive effect on their attitudes and/or behaviours in at least one way
FRANK continues to be updated to reflect new and emerging patterns of drug use, remain in line with young people’s media habits and strengthen situational advice and support. FRANK is just one part of our approach to reducing the demand for drugs. For example, Public Health England has launched a new online resilience building resource, ‘Rise Above’, aimed at 11- to 16-year-olds, which provides tools to help develop skills to make positive choices for their health, including avoiding drug use.