Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many places of worship have received funding from her Department for additional safety and security measures by religious denomination in Wales in the last 12 months; and how much each such place of worship has received.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Places of Worship Protective Security Fund (POW) is a key commitment in the Hate Crime Action Plan published in 2016. The Scheme provides funding to places of worship that have been victims of or are vulnerable to hate crime attacks and provides for physical protective measures such as alarms, fencing and access control. The fifth year of the scheme recently closed, and successful applicants will be announced in due course.
Funding in the region of £38,500 was allocated to one place of worship in Wales in year four (2019/2020). The scheme is open to places of worship across England and Wales, and we will continue to promote the scheme across Wales for future rounds of funding.
The Jewish Community Protective Security Grant was introduced in 2015 following a series of terrorist attacks against Jews and Jewish locations across Europe. For 2019-20 a grant of £14m was provided to fund additional protective security measures, primarily guarding, at Jewish state, free and independent schools, colleges, nurseries and some other Jewish community sites, including synagogues. A grant of £14m is to be provided in 2020-21. We do not keep a breakdown of funding by region.
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the extent of the use of the messaging platform Telegram by far-right and extreme-right wing organisations to organise; and when she last made representations to representatives of that company on that matter.
Answered by James Brokenshire
The Government has been clear that tech companies need to work together and act more quickly to remove all forms of terrorist content from their platforms.
We know that terrorists and extremists exploit a wide range of platforms to spread their views and to incite terrorist attacks, from mainstream platforms to secure messaging applications and anonymous forums.
To tackle terrorism online, the Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU), based in the Metropolitan Police, refers illegal terrorist content to companies for removal. Within the Home Office, we work closely with our international partners and engage with industry colleagues to discuss how platforms can best safeguard their users from terrorism, while also encouraging tech companies work together as one coordinated body through the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT), to reduce the availability of terrorist content online.
Details of meetings between Ministers and external bodies and organisations are provided through the usual quarterly returns published by the Cabinet Office.
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when she last met with representatives of (a) Facebook, (b) YouTube, (c) Twitter, (d) Telegram, (e) FourChan, (f) WhatsApp, (g) Instagram, (h) TikTok, and (i) Gab to discuss the steps those organisations are taking to (i) combat extremist material, (ii) remove material from proscribed organisations and (iii) remove other material linked to criminal activity in the UK from their platforms.
Answered by James Brokenshire
The Government has been clear that tech companies need to work together and act more quickly to remove all forms of terrorist content from their platforms.
We know that terrorists and extremists exploit a wide range of platforms to spread their views and to incite terrorist attacks, from mainstream platforms to secure messaging applications and anonymous forums.
To tackle terrorism online, the Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU), based in the Metropolitan Police, refers illegal terrorist content to companies for removal. Within the Home Office, we work closely with our international partners and engage with industry colleagues to discuss how platforms can best safeguard their users from terrorism, while also encouraging tech companies work together as one coordinated body through the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT), to reduce the availability of terrorist content online.
Details of meetings between Ministers and external bodies and organisations are provided through the usual quarterly returns published by the Cabinet Office.
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the (a) security of and (b) use of by extremist, far-right and extreme-right organisations the platform Telegram.
Answered by James Brokenshire
The Government has been clear that tech companies need to work together and act more quickly to remove all forms of terrorist content from their platforms.
We know that terrorists and extremists exploit a wide range of platforms to spread their views and to incite terrorist attacks, from mainstream platforms to secure messaging applications and anonymous forums.
To tackle terrorism online, the Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU), based in the Metropolitan Police, refers illegal terrorist content to companies for removal. Within the Home Office, we work closely with our international partners and engage with industry colleagues to discuss how platforms can best safeguard their users from terrorism, while also encouraging tech companies work together as one coordinated body through the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT), to reduce the availability of terrorist content online.
Details of meetings between Ministers and external bodies and organisations are provided through the usual quarterly returns published by the Cabinet Office.
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many (a) staff members and (b) residents living in Home Office supported (i) asylum accommodation and (ii) detention facilities have (A) been tested and (B) tested positive for covid-19 since 1 January 2020.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The health of those in asylum accommodation and immigration removal centres (IRC) is of the utmost importance.
The Accommodation providers recognise the challenge of managing COVID 19 within our accommodation estate and are working closely with Public Health England (PHE) on how their guidance on social distancing and self-isolation is properly applied, while ensuring that people can continue to access essential services.
Any individual who has symptoms is able to be tested for covid 19. We do not currently publish figures in relation to the testing of asylum accommodation staff and our service users for Covid-19.
All immigration removal centres have dedicated health facilities run by doctors and nurses which are managed by the NHS or appropriate providers. The Home Office is working closely with NHS England health and justice teams and regional commissioning teams to support their planning and delivery of healthcare services, including testing, in immigration removal centres during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Provisional management information indicates that as of 21 June, there have been 12 confirmed cases of COVID-19 across our detention supplier, healthcare and escorting staff. All of whom have now recovered. In addition, there have been two confirmed cases of COVID-19 in detained individuals. A third individual was identified but after his release from detention had been agreed. Whilst in the IRC the individual was in isolation. He was released as there was no immediate prospect of removal.
As of 26 June, no other detained individuals have tested positive for COVID-19.
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will publish the scientific assessment that informed the decision to (a) introduce formal quarantine measures for the flights from (i) Wuhan, China on (A) 31 January, (B) 2 February and (C) 9 February 2020 and (b) Tokyo, Japan on 22 February, and (b) not to introduce formal quarantine measures for other UK arrivals from 1 January 2020.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Scientific evidence from SAGE will continue to be published by Government Office for Science in due course.
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many conviction alerts on foreign nationals have not been sent to police in their home countries in each of the last three years, by country.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
In order to resolve this issue, an ongoing technical response has been put in place. It is not possible to provide a specific figure of the number of notifications per EU Member States until the technical response is complete. Each Member State will be notified with the number of notifications they will receive as they are sent, to enable them to process the data as they see appropriate.
The Home Office is working closely with the national Criminal Records Office (ACRO) to finalise the resolution of this issue as soon as possible.