Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to page 7 of her Department's 2020 UK Annual Report on Modern Slavery, what progress has been made on establishing a robust estimate of the prevalence of modern slavery in the UK.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The hidden nature of modern slavery makes producing an accurate measure of its scale difficult. In March 2020 the Office for National Statistics noted that there is no definitive source of data or suitable method available to accurately quantify the number of potential victims of modern slavery in the UK:
The Government is, however, committed to improving its understanding of the nature and scale of this complex crime. In July 2019, the Government announced a £10 million investment to create a new Policy and Evidence Centre for Modern Slavery and Human Rights to transform our understanding of modern slavery. The Home Office will continue working with the Centre and other partners to strengthen the evidence base underpinning our policy and operational response to modern slavery.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the total value is of confiscation orders and forfeitures issued for modern slavery offences from March to December 2020.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The most recently published Asset Recovery Statistical Bulletin, which sets out data on the recovery of criminal assets extracted from the Joint Asset Recovery Database, is available here:
Annex A of this bulletin shows the value of confiscation and forfeitures connected to modern slavery offences for financial years 2014/15 to 2019/20.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average number of days taken was to make conclusive grounds decisions in National Referral Mechanism cases relating to children, in each of the last five years.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Home Office publishes statistics on referrals into the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) on a quarterly basis, as well as a yearly summary.
Published statistics include the average time taken by the Single Competent Authority (SCA) to make Conclusive Grounds decisions. There is no target to make a Conclusive Grounds decision within a specific timeframe but the decision should be made as soon as possible after the 45-day Recovery and Reflection period has ended, and only when sufficient information has been made available on the case. The average time for a Conclusive Grounds decision to be made was 344 days for the third quarter of 2020.
Between now and March 2021, over 350 new staff will join the Home Office to work in the SCA. The vast majority of these staff will be decision-makers, with the remainder of the new staff working in case preparation, workflow management, technical specialist and management roles.
Recruiting in these numbers will give us the capacity to make significantly more Conclusive Grounds decisions than we are currently able to do with existing resource, and therefore we expect to bring down decision-making timescales for victims.
The latest published NRM statistics can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/modern-slavery-national-referral-mechanism-and-duty-to-notify-statistics-uk-quarter-3-2020-july-to-september/modern-slavery-national-referral-mechanism-and-duty-to-notify-statistics-uk-quarter-3-2020-july-to-september.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much funding her Department has spent on (a) identifying and (b) supporting missing children since the beginning of the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Priti Patel
People that go missing include some of the most vulnerable in our society. The Government is determined that missing people and their families receive the best possible protection and support; from Government, statutory agencies and the voluntary sector.
While the majority of incidents of children going missing result in no harm, missing incidents can be associated with a number of criminal harms. The Home Office does not hold missing persons data centrally, but the NCA compiles missing persons statistics from police forces in the Missing Persons Unit Data report, published annually at
https://missingpersons.police.uk/cy-gb/resources/downloads/missing-persons-statistical-bulletins
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate his Department has made of how many and what proportion of missing children have previously been victims of (a) crime and (b) modern slavery.
Answered by Priti Patel
People that go missing include some of the most vulnerable in our society. The Government is determined that missing people and their families receive the best possible protection and support; from Government, statutory agencies and the voluntary sector.
While the majority of incidents of children going missing result in no harm, missing incidents can be associated with a number of criminal harms. The Home Office does not hold missing persons data centrally, but the NCA compiles missing persons statistics from police forces in the Missing Persons Unit Data report, published annually at
https://missingpersons.police.uk/cy-gb/resources/downloads/missing-persons-statistical-bulletins
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of missing children have a record of being (a) in care and (b) subject to a Child Protection Plan.
Answered by Priti Patel
People that go missing include some of the most vulnerable in our society. The Government is determined that missing people and their families receive the best possible protection and support; from Government, statutory agencies and the voluntary sector.
While the majority of incidents of children going missing result in no harm, missing incidents can be associated with a number of criminal harms. The Home Office does not hold missing persons data centrally, but the NCA compiles missing persons statistics from police forces in the Missing Persons Unit Data report, published annually at
https://missingpersons.police.uk/cy-gb/resources/downloads/missing-persons-statistical-bulletins
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the Answer of 12 September 2017 to Question 7781, if she will provide an updated timeline for the publication of her Department's Missing Children and Adults Strategy.
Answered by Priti Patel
People that go missing include some of the most vulnerable in our society. The Government is determined that missing people and their families receive the best possible protection and support; from Government, statutory agencies and the voluntary sector.
While the majority of incidents of children going missing result in no harm, missing incidents can be associated with a number of criminal harms. The Home Office does not hold missing persons data centrally, but the NCA compiles missing persons statistics from police forces in the Missing Persons Unit Data report, published annually at
https://missingpersons.police.uk/cy-gb/resources/downloads/missing-persons-statistical-bulletins
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to reduce the backlog of 46,000 asylum cases where people have been waiting more than six months for an initial decision on their asylum application.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
We are fixing a broken asylum system and creating a new one which will be fairer and firmer and compassionate towards those who need our help.
There are a number of factors that contribute to the length of time to process and asylum claim but we are determined to clear the backlog to help speed up decisions and prevent people becoming stuck in the system for long periods of time.
We are working to streamline cases and have already made significant progress in prioritising cases with acute vulnerability, those in receipt of the greatest level of support including, UASCs, and those that require a reconsideration.
Asylum Operations has developed a recovery plan focused on returning interviews and decisions back to pre-COVID-19 levels as soon as possible. We are also seeking to secure temporary resources to assist from within the Home Office and other government departments, along with other potential options.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the potential effect of the recent decision to reduce the Official Development Assistance budget on trends in the number of (a) economic migrants and (b) asylum seekers.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Spending Review settlement provides £459.5 million in Official Development Assistance (ODA) resource funding to support and protect vulnerable people in the asylum system, to deliver refugee resettlement, and to support victims of modern slavery.
However, the final allocations by departments has yet to be settled owing to the ongoing review into how ODA is allocated against the government’s priorities. The full impact assessment will not be known until this has concluded.
Asked by: Peter Kyle (Labour - Hove)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to reduce the number of queries from MPs which her Department does not answer within the 20 working-day target timeframe.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Department works to a target of responding to 95% of MPs written correspondence within 20 working days. Performance has been impacted by a very significant increase in the volume of correspondence received, alongside the need for Ministers and officials to instigate a remote process for drafting and signing correspondence during the period of COVID-19 restrictions.
The Department recognises we have not been able to meet service standard in some cases but have implemented an action plan to clear backlogs and drive up performance.
Staff unable to perform front facing roles in the Department have been redeployed to assist in clearing MPs correspondence backlogs. This has started to impact productivity after initial investment in their training and development. The Department are also contacting MPs offices by telephone to offer to close urgent cases by telephone while we continue to work through the backlog and to offer regular engagement surgeries to discuss and resolve enquiries.