Asked by: Paula Barker (Labour - Liverpool Wavertree)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of failed asylum seekers scheduled for deportation are known to have mental health issues.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
There is no specific figure available of the type described in these questions.
Asked by: Paula Barker (Labour - Liverpool Wavertree)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the reporting rate is of failed asylum seekers to her Department.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
There is no specific figure available of the type described in these questions.
Asked by: Paula Barker (Labour - Liverpool Wavertree)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many deportations have taken place to Somalia since 8 July 2024.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
Statistics on returns from the UK by nationality and destination are published on a quarterly basis. These returns are published in the Returns Detailed Datasets, and are currently available to the end of March 2025, available at: Immigration system statistics data tables - GOV.UK.
Asked by: Paula Barker (Labour - Liverpool Wavertree)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many failed asylum seekers still in the UK hold criminal records.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
I refer the Honourable Member to the answer I gave on 19 June to Question 58400.
Asked by: Paula Barker (Labour - Liverpool Wavertree)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent estimate her Department has made of the cost of policing the supply of cannabis.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Dame Carol Black Independent Review of Drugs (2020) is the most recent estimate of the total cost of drug-related enforcement costs.
Asked by: Paula Barker (Labour - Liverpool Wavertree)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing legal safeguards for people wrongly flagged as criminals by private facial recognition systems.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office is not responsible for facial recognition systems procured and operated by independent retailers.
In terms of police use of facial recognition systems, the Home Office supports forces in developing systems, guidance and training to minimise the possibility of misidentification and the consequences of it. Additionally, there are measures in place to mitigate against facial recognition misidentifications by the police. Facial recognition algorithms provided by or procured with Home Office funding for police use are required to be independently tested for equitability frt-equitability-study_mar2023.pdf.
The government is taking the time to make sure that police use of facial recognition operates on a firm footing, including keeping the legal framework under review. To that end, I am listening carefully to stakeholders and partners and have been holding a series of roundtables with policing, civil society groups, regulators and others.
It is important to note that any matches made through facial recognition technologies will always be assessed by a police officer and investigated before an arrest is made; no arrest would ever be made based solely on a facial match made by a computer.
Asked by: Paula Barker (Labour - Liverpool Wavertree)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has had recent discussions with (a) retailers and (b) trade unions on the risk of misidentifications by private facial recognition systems.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office is not responsible for facial recognition systems procured and operated by independent retailers.
In terms of police use of facial recognition systems, the Home Office supports forces in developing systems, guidance and training to minimise the possibility of misidentification and the consequences of it. Additionally, there are measures in place to mitigate against facial recognition misidentifications by the police. Facial recognition algorithms provided by or procured with Home Office funding for police use are required to be independently tested for equitability frt-equitability-study_mar2023.pdf.
The government is taking the time to make sure that police use of facial recognition operates on a firm footing, including keeping the legal framework under review. To that end, I am listening carefully to stakeholders and partners and have been holding a series of roundtables with policing, civil society groups, regulators and others.
It is important to note that any matches made through facial recognition technologies will always be assessed by a police officer and investigated before an arrest is made; no arrest would ever be made based solely on a facial match made by a computer.
Asked by: Paula Barker (Labour - Liverpool Wavertree)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what safeguards her Department has put in place to help protect people misidentified by facial recognition technology in shops.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office is not responsible for facial recognition systems procured and operated by independent retailers.
In terms of police use of facial recognition systems, the Home Office supports forces in developing systems, guidance and training to minimise the possibility of misidentification and the consequences of it. Additionally, there are measures in place to mitigate against facial recognition misidentifications by the police. Facial recognition algorithms provided by or procured with Home Office funding for police use are required to be independently tested for equitability frt-equitability-study_mar2023.pdf.
The government is taking the time to make sure that police use of facial recognition operates on a firm footing, including keeping the legal framework under review. To that end, I am listening carefully to stakeholders and partners and have been holding a series of roundtables with policing, civil society groups, regulators and others.
It is important to note that any matches made through facial recognition technologies will always be assessed by a police officer and investigated before an arrest is made; no arrest would ever be made based solely on a facial match made by a computer.
Asked by: Paula Barker (Labour - Liverpool Wavertree)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of facial recognition misidentifications on the public.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office is not responsible for facial recognition systems procured and operated by independent retailers.
In terms of police use of facial recognition systems, the Home Office supports forces in developing systems, guidance and training to minimise the possibility of misidentification and the consequences of it. Additionally, there are measures in place to mitigate against facial recognition misidentifications by the police. Facial recognition algorithms provided by or procured with Home Office funding for police use are required to be independently tested for equitability frt-equitability-study_mar2023.pdf.
The government is taking the time to make sure that police use of facial recognition operates on a firm footing, including keeping the legal framework under review. To that end, I am listening carefully to stakeholders and partners and have been holding a series of roundtables with policing, civil society groups, regulators and others.
It is important to note that any matches made through facial recognition technologies will always be assessed by a police officer and investigated before an arrest is made; no arrest would ever be made based solely on a facial match made by a computer.
Asked by: Paula Barker (Labour - Liverpool Wavertree)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of trends in the level of (a) arrests and (b) cost of enforcement of the Public Order Act 2023 since its implementation.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office does not hold the requested data, but the department has published statistics on arrests for public order offences in the year ending March 2024, the first statistical series since the Public Order Act 2023 was implemented:
Stop and search, arrests and mental health detentions, March 2024 - GOV.UK
We have committed to holding expedited post-legislative scrutiny of the Public Order Act 2023, beginning in May 2025. This process will include an assessment of how the Act has worked in practice since it came into force, which will include the number of arrests made and the enforcement of the Act.