Asked by: Norman Lamb (Liberal Democrat - North Norfolk)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, who is responsible for digitisation in her Department; and what mechanisms the person with responsibility for digitisation uses to champion digitisation.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Home Office has established a Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) directorate Chief Digital, Data and Technology Officer, to enable the Home Office to keep citizens safe and the country secure through leading-edge digital, data and technology solutions.
HO DDaT works in partnership with the Department to build and run digital services and systems. It does this by ensuring reliable, responsive, secure technology and data; an improved technology experience for employees; fully accessible customer-centric digital services; and building for the future. It makes digital information, systems and services available to the public through gov.uk.
HO DDaT works closely with the Government Digital Service (GDS), which leads the digital function across government. Focus is on ‘digital maturity’ as opposed to “digitisation”.
Asked by: Norman Lamb (Liberal Democrat - North Norfolk)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department plans to work with (a) Kent Police, (b) West Midlands Police and (c) the British Transport Police on running live facial recognition trials to identify and track missing and vulnerable people.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Home Office has been in discussions with all three forces about facial recognition trials.
The forces have not made any decisions on whether to proceed with any of these trials.
Asked by: Norman Lamb (Liberal Democrat - North Norfolk)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many meetings she had with her Department’s Chief Scientific Adviser from 1 June to 31 August 2019.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Home Office Ministers have regular meetings with Ministerial colleagues and others as part of the process of policy development and delivery. As was the case with previous administrations, it is not the Government's practice to provide details of all such meetings.
Asked by: Norman Lamb (Liberal Democrat - North Norfolk)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many meetings he held with his Department’s Chief Scientific Adviser between 1 March 2019 and 31 May 2019.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Home Office Ministers have regular meetings with Ministerial colleagues and others as part of the process of policy development and delivery. As was the case with previous administrations, it is not the Government's practice to pro-vide details of all such meetings.
Asked by: Norman Lamb (Liberal Democrat - North Norfolk)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when he plans lay before the House the Biometrics Commissioner’s Annual Report for 2018.
Answered by Nick Hurd
We will publish the report in full as soon as possible.
Asked by: Norman Lamb (Liberal Democrat - North Norfolk)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many (a) domestic violence protection notices and (b) domestic violence protection orders have been issued in each of the last five years.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Domestic Violence Protection Orders (DVPOs) were rolled out across all 43 police forces in England Wales from 8 March 2014.
Table A shows ONS published data for the number of Domestic Violence Protection Notices both applied for and granted by the police in the last two financial years. Data prior to 2017 is not available.
| DVPNs applied for | DVPNs granted |
ONS stats for Year Ending March 2018 | 4,408 | 4,219 |
ONS stats for Year Ending March 2017 | 3,245 | 4,017 |
Source: Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) Not all police forces could provide data to HMICFRS, therefore the total of applications granted may be greater than the total made.
Table B below shows the available information on the number of Domestic Violence Protection Orders that were issued by the courts during the period in question.
(Data only available from December 2014 as the Magistrates’ Courts case management and management information systems only began separately recording Domestic Violence Protection Orders from that date.)
| DVPOs granted |
April 2017 - March 2018 | 4,878 (HMICFRS data) |
April 2016 – June 2017 | 3,698 (HMICFRS data) |
April 2015 - March 2016 | 3,951 |
Dec 2014 - March 2015 | 1,150 |
The draft Domestic Abuse Bill published on January 21 includes measures to introduce a new Domestic Abuse Protection Notice and Domestic Abuse Protection Order. This new order would bring together the strongest elements of existing orders to provide better protection to victims of domestic abuse.
Asked by: Norman Lamb (Liberal Democrat - North Norfolk)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many meetings he held with his Department’s Chief Scientific Adviser between 1 December 2018 and 28 February 2019.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Home Office Ministers have regular meetings with Ministerial colleagues and others as part of the process of policy development and delivery. The Home Secretary met Professor John Aston in September and November 2018.
Asked by: Norman Lamb (Liberal Democrat - North Norfolk)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many specialist doctors are licenced to prescribe medicinal cannabis.
Answered by Nick Hurd
None. From 1 November 2018, specialist doctors on the Specialist Register of the General Medical Council have been able to prescribe cannabis-based products for medicinal use without the need for a Home Office li-cence.
Asked by: Norman Lamb (Liberal Democrat - North Norfolk)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many meetings he had with his Department’s Chief Scientific Adviser between 1 September and 30 November 2018.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Home Secretary has met, Professor John Aston, the Home Office Chief Scientific Adviser, as part of the process of policy development and delivery. During the period in question, The Home Secretary with him on two occasions.
Asked by: Norman Lamb (Liberal Democrat - North Norfolk)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will publish the advice used to inform his Department on the requirements that (a) the decision to prescribe medicinal cannabis products must be made by a specialist doctor and (b) medicinal cannabis products may only be prescribed when the patient has an unmet special clinical need that cannot be met by other treatments.
Answered by Nick Hurd
The prescription of these products by doctors on the Specialist Register of the General Medical Council (GMC) and only where there is an unmet clinical need follows the principles used by the Interim Expert Panel on cannabis-based products for medicinal use. This approach was agreed by senior clinicians on the Expert Panel, Chaired by Dr Michael McBride, Chief Medical Officer for Northern Ireland. This approach was subsequently supported by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) in their advice to the Home Secretary on rescheduling cannabis. The ACMD advice has been published and is available at the following link:
Any unlicensed medicines, including cannabis-based products for medicinal use, will be supplied under long-standing arrangements for the supply of what are known, in healthcare settings, as ‘specials’. This process is underpinned by the Human Medicines Act and, outside of clinical trials, only allows these unlicensed medicines to be prescribed where there is an unmet clinical need. This restriction is in place because unlicensed medicines have not been through the same quality, safety and efficacy tests as licenced medicines.