Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what plans he has to increase funding for West Midlands Police to tackle violent crime.
Answered by Nick Hurd
The Government is determined to do everything it can to tackle knife crime and break the deadly cycle of violence that devastates the lives of victims, families and communities.
We are taking action to address these increases on a number of fronts in support of our Serious Violence Strategy. This includes providing the police with the powers and resources they need to take effective action in all areas of the country. Through the Offensive Weapons Act we are tightening the law in relation to knives, including making it an offence to possess certain offensive weapons in private, and stopping knives being sent to residential addresses after they are bought online unless the seller has arrangements with a delivery company to verify age. We are also introducing new Knife Crime Prevention Orders, requested by the police to help them to tackle young people who are on the cusp of serious violence, to help them make more positive lifestyle choices. We also continue to support the police national weeks of action against knife crime under Operation Sceptre.
The police funding settlement provides the police with the biggest increase in funding since 2010, and in addition we are providing the additional £100 million to tackle serious violence announced in the Spring Statement on 13 March, which includes £80m of new funding from the Treasury. £63.4 million of this funding has already been allocated to 18 police forces most affected by serious violence to pay for surge operational activity, including increased patrols, and £1.6 million to help improve the quality of data on serious violence, particularly knife crime, to support planning and operations. West Midlands has been allocated £7.62m from this fund. A full list of the forces and the funding they have received from the serious violence fund is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/police-granted-funding-boost-for-action-on-serious-violence.
The remaining £35m from the Serious Violence Fund will be invested in Violence Reduction Units, which will support the local response in a number of areas worst affected by serious violence. VRUs will bring together a range of agencies including health, education, social services and others, to develop a multi-agency approach to preventing serious violence altogether. We are working closely with local partners to develop proposals for Violence Reduction Units, and will be seeking to make announcements on this funding in early June.
We are also raising awareness among young people of the dangers of carrying a knife through our national media campaign - #knifefree – and supporting early intervention through the £22 million Early Intervention Youth Fund, which is already supporting 29 local projects, including around £2m allocated to the Police and Crime Commissioner in the West Midlands to target young people identified as being most at risk, particularly those at risk of exclusion from school, and those already engaged in crime and violence.
We have also introduced the £200 million Youth Endowment Fund, which will be delivered over the next 10 years to support interventions with children and young people at risk of involvement in crime and violence, focusing on those most at risk. The charity Impetus, working in partnership with the Early Intervention Foundation and Social Investment Business, is now operating the Fund.
Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the letter from the Minister of State for Policing and the Fire Service to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood, MIN/0014431/18, for what reason his Department is unable to obtain statistics from the Police National Computer on the number of person records relating to non-charge or conviction action by (a) force and (b) race.
Answered by Nick Hurd
The Police National Computer is over 40 years old and was not designed to create management information of the type sought in this question. It is being replaced by the Law Enforcement Data Service (LEDS) which is being designed to provide significantly enhanced management information.
Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the letter from the Minister of State for Policing and the Fire Service to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood, MIN/0014431/18, what guidance is provided to Chief Officers to enable them to make decisions on what constitutes relevant information which ought to be disclosed as part of enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service checks.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The principles to be applied by chief officers in making decisions about what constitutes relevant information are set out in statutory guidance issued under section 113B(4A) of the Police Act 1997 by the Home Office. The guidance is available here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/452321/6_1155_HO_LW_Stat_Dis_Guide-v3.pdf
It is for the employer to decide whether an individual is suitable for any particular role. The Government does not record the employment decisions made by employers after they have undertaken a DBS check.
Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the letter from the Minister of State for Policing and the Fire Service to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood, MIN/0014431/18, what assessment he has made of the effect of instances of No Further Action being disclosed within enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service checks on people's ability to secure employment.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The principles to be applied by chief officers in making decisions about what constitutes relevant information are set out in statutory guidance issued under section 113B(4A) of the Police Act 1997 by the Home Office. The guidance is available here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/452321/6_1155_HO_LW_Stat_Dis_Guide-v3.pdf
It is for the employer to decide whether an individual is suitable for any particular role. The Government does not record the employment decisions made by employers after they have undertaken a DBS check.
Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what plans he has to review the length of time a person's event history is retained in Police National Computer records.
Answered by Nick Hurd
The Home Office and the police, in conjunction with regulators including the Information Commissioner’s Office, regularly keep under review rules around the retention of a person’s event history on the Police National Computer.
Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking to ensure that Somali passport holders with the right to live in the UK are not refused entry as a result of the change from passport endorsement to a bio-metric residence permit system.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
The UK does not currently recognise Somali passports for travel to the UK. However, we have put in place measures to ensure that holders of Somali passports who are in possession of a valid UK biometric residence permit are able to return to the UK.
We have informed international carriers these arrangements and shared this information with representatives of the Somali community.
Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department holds information on the number of applicants who apply for indefinite leave to remain who are unsuccessful on their first application but who are successful on a subsequent attempt.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
We are unable to provide the information requested as this would involve undertaking a manual trawl of individual cases which would incur disproportionate cost.
The number of applications for indefinite leave to remain is published as part of the Migration Transparency data, available at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/migration-transparency-data InC 02 for all routes with a 6 month service standard.
Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the effect of the removal of Robert Mugabe as President of Zimbabwe on the safe return of failed asylum seekers to Zimbabwe who are active members of the Movement for Democratic Party.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
All asylum and human rights applications from Zimbabwean nationals are carefully considered on their individual merits in accordance with our international obligations.
Each individual assessment is made against the background of the latest available country of origin information and any relevant caselaw. This is based on evidence taken from a range of reliable sources, including reputable media outlets; local, national and international organisations, including human rights organisations; and information from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Country policy and information notes are published on the gov.uk website and kept under constant review, updated periodically.
We have been assessing the situation in Zimbabwe since President Mnangagwa took office, including his Government’s priorities and any changes in the country. The Home Office plans to issue an update on its position imminently.
Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to reduce dangerous journeys for unaccompanied child refugees with family in the UK.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
The Government strongly supports the principle of family unity, and we have a comprehensive framework in place for refugees and their families to be safely reunited in the UK without the need for dangerous journeys.
Our family reunion policy allows children to join their refugee parents, and there are also specific provisions in the Immigration Rules that allow extended family members lawfully resident in the UK to sponsor unaccompanied children where there are serious and compelling circumstances. We have reunited over 24,000 partners and children with their families under our family reunion policy in the last five years. Further, those children recognised by UNHCR as
refugees can join close family members in the UK through our Mandate
resettlement scheme.
Asked by: Shabana Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Ladywood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether there is any regional variation in the frequency of police cells being used as places of safety for people detained under section 135 of the Mental Health Act 1983.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
Data on the use of police stations as places of safety for people detained under section 135 of the Mental Health Act 1983 are not currently available.
The Home Office began collecting mandatory data on detentions under section 135 of the 1983 Act in April 2016 as part of the Home Office Annual Data Requirement.
The Home Office intends to publish these data as part of the ‘Police powers and procedures’ statistical bulletin in Autumn 2017.
The Code of Practice for the 1983 Act recommends a planned decision on the individual’s destination, and therefore it should almost never be necessary to use a police station as a place of safety for people removed under section 135.