Asked by: Peter Lamb (Labour - Crawley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to tackle violence against women and girls.
Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
Tackling violence against women and girls is a top priority for this Government with a manifesto mission to halve violence against women and girls in a decade.
We will deliver a cross-government transformative approach, underpinned by a new strategy which we will publish as soon as possible.
In advance of the strategy, we have already introduced measures designed to strengthen the police response to VAWG, protect victims and hold perpetrators to account.
These include: funding to rollout Drive Project, a proven intervention for high-risk and high-harm domestic abuse perpetrators across England and Wales; embedding the first domestic abuse specialists in 999 control rooms in five police forces; measures to tackle spiking to strengthen the law and improve the response victims receive, including committing to introducing a new criminal offence for spiking and piloting new spiking training for bar staff; measures focusing on preventing and tackling ‘honour’-based abuse (HBA), developing a statutory definition for HBA, community engagement campaigns, enhanced training and funding for support services; six measures to tackle stalking including statutory guidance to empower the police to release the identities of online stalkers to protect victims, and a review of the stalking legislation to ensure it is fit for purpose; and launching the new Domestic Abuse Protection Orders in selected police forces and courts which go further than any existing orders.
Asked by: Peter Lamb (Labour - Crawley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to (a) combat spiking offences and (b) support victims.
Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
Spiking is an abhorrent crime and illegal in any form, whether through food or drink, vape, or needle. It can affect anyone, at any time and in any setting, regardless of gender, sexuality or age.
We are taking a range of action to tackle spiking and provide better support for victims:
Asked by: Peter Lamb (Labour - Crawley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to reduce the time taken for the payment of refunds from her Department.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
UK Visas and Immigration have a range of customer service teams and processes in place to support customers where they may require a refund.
These teams ensure that refunds are made in a timely fashion and in line with the policies and procedures linked to the individual visa service that has been paid for.
Asked by: Peter Lamb (Labour - Crawley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate she has made of the Chagossian population residing in (a) the UK, (b) Mauritius, (c) the Seychelles and (d) all other countries; and how many Chagossians not residing in the UK have applied for British citizenship through the (i) British Indian Oceans Territory citizenship registration route and (ii) other routes, broken down by the country in which each applicant lived at the time of application.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The information requested is not held by the Home Office.
However, the overall number of applications for British citizenship including those made through the British Indian Ocean Territory route is available on:
Immigration system statistics data tables - GOV.UK.