Asked by: Tom Hunt (Conservative - Ipswich)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential impact on residents of using town centre buildings to house asylum seekers.
Answered by Kevin Foster
When procuring accommodation, our accommodation providers will consult on each new property to be procured, this provides Local Authorities with an opportunity to set out concerns about the impact on local services, regeneration schemes and anti-social behaviour.
Asked by: Tom Hunt (Conservative - Ipswich)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she has taken to (a) capture data on and (b) provide support for older victims of domestic abuse.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
Domestic abuse has no place in our society and this Government is committed to improving our support to those who suffer at the hands of abusers. Our landmark Domestic Abuse Act will strengthen our protection of victims and ensure perpetrators feel the full force of the law. The Government recognises that older people can also be victims of domestic abuse and the new statutory definition of domestic abuse encompasses such victims.
Data on domestic abuse-related offences recorded by the police by age of victim can be found in the Office for National Statistics (ONS) publication ‘Domestic abuse in England and Wales overview: November 2021 in Tables 4 and 10 here: Domestic abuse prevalence and victim characteristics - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)
The age range for respondents eligible for the domestic abuse, sexual assault and stalking self-completion module of the Crime Survey England and Wales (CSEW) was expanded in April 2017, changing from adults aged 16 to 59 years to adults aged 16 to 74 years. For future data collections as part of CSEW, the ONS will be removing the upper age limit when estimating the number of adults affected by domestic abuse. This will allow us to better monitor the prevalence of domestic abuse amongst older people and further integrate older people’s experiences into conversations and policy decisions around domestic abuse.
Last week, we published the Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan which will seek to transform the whole of society’s response in order to prevent offending, support victims and pursue perpetrators, as well as to strengthen the systems processes in place needed to deliver these goals. The Plan is informed by the unprecedented 180,000 responses we received to our Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Call for Evidence, and relevant data,
literature, and input from experts.
The Plan, investing over £230 million into tackling these crimes, sets out a holistic package of support to ensure that every victim or survivor can get the support they need. We will also monitor their needs and reflect changes in our policy. This individualised approach will help to take the onus off victims and survivors by ensuring support is tailored to them, no matter how complex their needs.
The Plan sets out several key indicators we will use to determine its effectiveness, and we will monitor changes in the prevalence of domestic abuse through the Crime Survey for England and Wales. This year (2021-22) the Home Office is providing the organisation Hourglass with just over £200,000 to support elderly victims of domestic abuse. This funding will also provide casework support, train specialist independent domestic violence advocates and enhance their helpline. This means that Hourglass now operates the UK’s only 24/7 helpline to support older victims of domestic abuse.
The Home Office and the Department of Health and Social Care are jointly leading the Safe Care at Home Review. The Terms of Reference for the review were published on 24th February 2022. The review is looking at the protections and the support available to adults at risk of or experiencing abuse in their own homes from people providing their care, including older victims who are more likely to have care and support needs. As part of the review, we are coordinating inputs from disabled people, carers organisation and other interested parties. The Review is expected to complete before the end of 2022.
Asked by: Tom Hunt (Conservative - Ipswich)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to Police funding for England and Wales 2015 to 2022; Police Force Area Population Statistics for England & Wales, what assessment she has made of the potential effect of disparities in funding per resident for police forces on levels of policing in urban Ipswich.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
It has been clear for some time that the current police funding formula is out of date and no longer accurately reflects demand on policing. A new review of the funding formula is now underway and will rightly consider all aspects of the formula, including an evidence-based assessment of drivers of the risk of crime and demand on policing, and issues that affect costs at a local level.
Reviewing the funding formula will ensure a fairer distribution of the circa £8 billion of annual core grant funding to the 43 police forces in England and Wales. I have previously confirmed the Government’s intention to complete this work before the next General Election.
Asked by: Tom Hunt (Conservative - Ipswich)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what plans she has to bring forward legislative proposals to amend human rights legislation in order to prevent the unsafe crossings across the English channel by illegal immigrants.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
The Nationality and Borders Bill, which is part of our New Plan for Immigration, seeks to build a fair, but firm asylum and illegal migration system.
The Bill will tackle unsafe crossings of the Channel by giving enhanced powers to Border Force, introducing longer sentences for illegal entry and increasing the maximum penalty for people smuggling to life imprisonment.
Asked by: Tom Hunt (Conservative - Ipswich)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions officials in her Department are having with representatives of the College of Policing on removing the obligation on police forces to record non-crime hate incidents.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Officials regularly meet College of Policing representatives to understand how practices and policies can improve.
The Home Secretary also recently wrote to the College of Policing on this important issue.
Asked by: Tom Hunt (Conservative - Ipswich)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps the Government is taking to intercept boats crossing the English channel before the arrival of those boats onshore.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
These are dangerous and unnecessary crossings, which are often illegally-facilitated and which we are determined to end. We are working closely with the French to prevent these crossings and to go after the criminality that profits from them.
Those efforts have seen numbers of gendarmes reservists doubled, enabling wider ranging deployment. Technology and intelligence capabilities are also being used to prevent crossing attempts and to inform operational responses on beaches and inland. Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) is paramount in the approach taken by both ourselves and the French once migrant vessels are at sea. The French continue to stop the majority of those attempting to cross, and over twice as many crossings have been prevented so far in 2021 compared to the same point in 2020.
Asked by: Tom Hunt (Conservative - Ipswich)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many fines for exceeding the speed limit have been issued between Junction 55 and Junction 57 of the A14 trunk road for each year from (a) 2010 to (b) 2020.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Home Office collects and publishes data on the number of fixed penalty notices (FPNs) issued for speed limit offences. These data can be found in the ‘Police Powers and Procedures, England and Wales’ statistical bulletin, which can be accessed here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/police-powers-and-procedures-england-and-wales
Detailed information on the location where the offence took place is not collected or held by the Home Office.
Asked by: Tom Hunt (Conservative - Ipswich)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of bringing forward legislative proposals to better protect shop workers from abuse and violence in the workplace as set out in the British Retail Consortium's Shopworkers' Protection Pledge, published in September 2020; and what steps her Department is taking to help reduce the number of incidences of abuse and violence towards shop workers in the workplace (a) at all times and (b) during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The existing Sentencing Assaults guidelines by the Sentencing Council already requires courts to treat the fact that an offence was committed against those working in the public sector or providing a service to the public as an aggravating factor, making the offence more serious. The Government does not consider that a change to the law is required
The Government is working closely with retailers through the National Retail Crime Steering Group (NRCSG) co-chaired by the British Retail Consortium to deliver a programme of work which aims to provide better support to victims, improve reporting, increase data sharing and raise awareness of this despicable crime.
Following the outbreak of Covid-19, the Sentencing Council published interim guidance in April that clarifies that, when sentencing assault offences relating to the transmission of Covid-19, the courts should treat this as meriting a more severe sentence.
Asked by: Tom Hunt (Conservative - Ipswich)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the effect of the lack of a specific offence of pet theft on (a) the police's ability to record pet theft and (b) the incentives for the police to investigate pet theft with regard to the severity of sentences upon successful prosecution.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Government understands the distress caused by the theft of a pet, which is already a criminal offence under the Theft Act 1968 and carries a maximum penalty of 7 years’ imprisonment. We expect the police to record all such crimes reported to them so that they can determine how best to investigate
Asked by: Tom Hunt (Conservative - Ipswich)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department has taken to tackle increased instances of pet theft during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Government understands the distress caused by the theft of a pet, which is already a criminal offence under the Theft Act 1968 and carries a maximum penalty of 7 years’ imprisonment. We expect the police to record all such crimes reported to them so that they can determine how best to investigate