Asked by: Sarah Owen (Labour - Luton North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, on how many occasions she has discussed the 14-day quarantine rule for people entering the UK during the covid-19 outbreak with the Secretary of State for Transport in an official capacity.
Answered by Kevin Foster
In developing the Public Health regulations which introduced the 14-day self-isolation requirement, and the exemptions to be applied, there were discussions between the Home Secretary and Secretary of State for Transport, as well as other Cabinet colleagues. These discussions took place through Cabinet meetings, including the General Public Sector Ministerial Implementation Group (GPSMIG), and further exchanges in developing the policy, exemptions to apply, and its announcement.
Asked by: Sarah Owen (Labour - Luton North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions her Department has had with (a) easyJet, (b) British Airways and (c) other major UK airlines on the 14-day quarantine period for people entering the UK during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Kevin Foster
As the health measures being put in place at the border are cross-HMG measures, the Home Office has worked closely with the Department for Transport (DfT) on engagement with airlines.
The aviation sector is important to the UK economy and the government recognises the challenging times it is facing as a result of COVID-19. Through the Department for Transport, Government has kept an open dialogue with the aviation sector and put in place regular structured engagement at both Ministerial and official levels. Recent discussions have included the impact of the proposed 14 day quarantine period.
Home Office and DfT officials jointly held an Implementation Task and Finish Group with the aviation industry on 2 June to discuss implementation of the health measures at the borders and listen to operational impacts and concerns from Industry partners. Easyjet, BA and other major UK airlines dialled in to this meeting. The Home Secretary and DfT Aviation, Maritime and Security Minister held an extensive virtual roundtable discussion on 4 June with various aspects of the aviation and maritime industry on the border health measures due to come into effect. Easyjet, Virgin and Jet2 attended this meeting.
In addition, the International Aviation Taskforce has been established to develop plans for how to restart the aviation sector safely, as well as looking at some of the unique challenges that sector is facing. Both BA and Easyjet are members of the Taskforce’s industry Expert Steering Group. BA were invited to the round table but they turned down the invite for unspecified reasons.
Asked by: Sarah Owen (Labour - Luton North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many recorded incidents of knife crime have taken place (a) involving under 18 year olds and (b) in schools in each year since 2010.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
Information on the number of selected offences involving knives or sharp instruments recorded by the police in England and Wales can be found in the Home Office Knife Crime Open Data Tables published here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-recorded-crime-open-data-tables While the Home Office collects data on the number of selected offences involving a knife or sharp instrument, it does not contain details on the age of those involved or whether the offence took place in a school.
Asked by: Sarah Owen (Labour - Luton North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many recorded incidents of knife crime there have been in each year from 2010.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
Information on the number of selected offences involving knives or sharp instruments recorded by the police in England and Wales can be found in the Home Office Knife Crime Open Data Tables published here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-recorded-crime-open-data-tables While the Home Office collects data on the number of selected offences involving a knife or sharp instrument, it does not contain details on the age of those involved or whether the offence took place in a school.
Asked by: Sarah Owen (Labour - Luton North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many citizenship applications for children have been processed in the most recent reporting period.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office publishes data on citizenship in the . https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/immigration-statistics-quarterly-release
Data on applications for British citizenship are published in tables Cit_D01 and Cit_D02 of the https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/managed-migration-datasets
Information on how to use the dataset can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbook. The latest data relates to the year ending December 2019. Additionally, the Home Office publishes a high-level overview of the data in the summary tables. The ‘contents’ sheet contains an overview of all available data on citizenship.
Information on future Home Office statistical release dates can be found in the ‘Research and statistics calendar’.
Asked by: Sarah Owen (Labour - Luton North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the (a) efficiency and (b) effectiveness of using Amazon Web Services as a public cloud hosting service.
Answered by James Brokenshire
The Home Office recently completed a procurement for “Continuity Cloud Services”. We assessed a wide number of Cloud Service Providers available on G-Cloud 11.
This was awarded to Amazon Web Services via G-Cloud 11 on the basis of best technical fit for existing Home Office requirements and met all of our ‘must have’ requirements.The procurement has enabled the Home Office to take advantage of discounts and savings opportunities available on G-Cloud 11.
Under this new contract we are already on track to save 28% or over £6m over the next 12 months on our cloud spend with Amazon Web Services compared to what we would have spent if we had extended our previous contract based on old terms. The Home Office follows best practice for Cost Efficiency, we continually review our cloud spend to ensure that we are getting best value for money.
We take regular action to ensure that our usage is optimised, and we receive regular support from AWS via their Enterprise Support Programme. The Home Office is looking to achieve further efficiencies on cloud services by contracting with a wider number of cloud service providers in the future.
Asked by: Sarah Owen (Labour - Luton North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what data Amazon Web Services has access to as the public cloud host for her Department.
Answered by James Brokenshire
Amazon Web Services have publicly available policies and statements on access to customer data, which broadly state that they do not access data available within AWS accounts without receiving consent from the account holder. In line with wider government policy we follow the NCSC’s ‘Cloud Security Principles’ & ‘Standard Architecture for UK-Official on AWS’.
The Home Office has policies in place to ensure that our data is protected when it is hosted with Public Cloud Service Providers and we have full control of access to our accounts and data within them. Specifically, our policy is to mandate that all data is encrypted during transit and at rest, this means that if data is accessed by a third party from outside of the Home Office it is protected.
Asked by: Sarah Owen (Labour - Luton North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to increase conviction rates for coercive control.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Government’s domestic abuse consultation in 2018 asked whether further action should be taken to strengthen the coercive control offence introduced in 2015. In the response to that consultation the Government agreed to update the statutory guidance and Crown Prosecution Service legal guidance on the offence.
The Home Office will also work with other departments to improve understanding of the offence throughout the justice system, and seek to dispel stereotypes by promoting the updated statutory guidance for the offence through the courts and justice system. This will help to increase the number of cases that are brought, charged and convicted under this offence.
We have been reviewing the effectiveness of the existing coercive control legislation, both in terms of understanding and awareness, but also how adequately the legislation protects victims of this type of abuse. The findings of the review will be announced later this year.
In 2018/19, the conviction rate across all domestic abuse-related offences was 76.5% - the highest rate ever recorded.
Asked by: Sarah Owen (Labour - Luton North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many incidents of hate crime at places of worship were recorded in each year since 2010.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Home Office collects and publishes statistics annually on the number of religious hate crime offences recorded by the police in England and Wales. However, information on the location of these offences is not collected.
The latest ‘Hate Crime, England and Wales’ statistical bulletin is available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hate-crime-england-and-wales-2018-to-2019
Asked by: Sarah Owen (Labour - Luton North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what plans she has to review the effectiveness of the Prevent Strategy.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
In January 2019, the Government accepted the proposed amendment to include an independent review of Prevent within the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill. Royal Assent was given to the Counter Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019 on 12 February 2019.
We are currently considering next steps. We will make further announcements about its progress on the prevent review, as soon as possible.