Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department has made a recent assessment of the potential merits of providing longer term funding for violence reduction units, beyond the current one year settlement.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Crime prevention is key to the government’s Safer Streets mission and ambition to halve knife crime. Violence Reduction Units (VRUs) play an important role by uniting local partners to collectively identify and address the underlying drivers of serious violence within their communities.
This financial year (2025/26), we have allocated £47m to a network of 20 VRUs, in the areas experiencing the most severe challenges, to support their valuable work. In addition, we have provided further funding to enable the roll out of Young Futures Panels in the first year of their establishment.
The most recently published independent evaluation demonstrates that VRUs, in combination with additional hotspot police patrols, are reducing hospital admissions, with a clear impact on their target cohort of young people under 25. There were statistically significant reductions in hospital admissions for violence amongst this age group. In addition, VRUs continue to demonstrate progress and show signs of maturing and becoming embedded in local responses to prevent violence.
Allocations decisions on Violence Reduction Units and the wider policing system will be finalised early this year.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of central Government funding for Violence Reduction Units.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Crime prevention is key to the government’s Safer Streets mission and ambition to halve knife crime. Violence Reduction Units (VRUs) play an important role by uniting local partners to collectively identify and address the underlying drivers of serious violence within their communities.
This financial year (2025/26), we have allocated £47m to a network of 20 VRUs, in the areas experiencing the most severe challenges, to support their valuable work. In addition, we have provided further funding to enable the roll out of Young Futures Panels in the first year of their establishment.
The most recently published independent evaluation demonstrates that VRUs, in combination with additional hotspot police patrols, are reducing hospital admissions, with a clear impact on their target cohort of young people under 25. There were statistically significant reductions in hospital admissions for violence amongst this age group. In addition, VRUs continue to demonstrate progress and show signs of maturing and becoming embedded in local responses to prevent violence.
Allocations decisions on Violence Reduction Units and the wider policing system will be finalised early this year.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of Violence Reduction Units in reducing youth violence.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Crime prevention is key to the government’s Safer Streets mission and ambition to halve knife crime. Violence Reduction Units (VRUs) play an important role by uniting local partners to collectively identify and address the underlying drivers of serious violence within their communities.
This financial year (2025/26), we have allocated £47m to a network of 20 VRUs, in the areas experiencing the most severe challenges, to support their valuable work. In addition, we have provided further funding to enable the roll out of Young Futures Panels in the first year of their establishment.
The most recently published independent evaluation demonstrates that VRUs, in combination with additional hotspot police patrols, are reducing hospital admissions, with a clear impact on their target cohort of young people under 25. There were statistically significant reductions in hospital admissions for violence amongst this age group. In addition, VRUs continue to demonstrate progress and show signs of maturing and becoming embedded in local responses to prevent violence.
Allocations decisions on Violence Reduction Units and the wider policing system will be finalised early this year.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when her Department will announce funding arrangements for Violence Reduction Units for future financial years.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Crime prevention is key to the government’s Safer Streets mission and ambition to halve knife crime. Violence Reduction Units (VRUs) play an important role by uniting local partners to collectively identify and address the underlying drivers of serious violence within their communities.
This financial year (2025/26), we have allocated £47m to a network of 20 VRUs, in the areas experiencing the most severe challenges, to support their valuable work. In addition, we have provided further funding to enable the roll out of Young Futures Panels in the first year of their establishment.
The most recently published independent evaluation demonstrates that VRUs, in combination with additional hotspot police patrols, are reducing hospital admissions, with a clear impact on their target cohort of young people under 25. There were statistically significant reductions in hospital admissions for violence amongst this age group. In addition, VRUs continue to demonstrate progress and show signs of maturing and becoming embedded in local responses to prevent violence.
Allocations decisions on Violence Reduction Units and the wider policing system will be finalised early this year.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether calls to his Department's MP Enquiry line team have been outsourced.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
Calls to the MP Enquiry Line have not been outsourced. MP Enquiry Line call agents are Home Office staff.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will hold discussions with the Federation of Wholesale Distributors on trends in the level of crime affecting the wholesale sector.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
The Government is concerned about recent increases in crime affecting the retail and wholesale sector, including organised theft. We take this very seriously and are committed to tackling it.
I recently met the Federation of Wholesale Distributors, as part of a meeting with senior policing leads and representatives of the retail sector, to discuss shoplifting and retail crime and action we have taken.. Home Office officials are also taking forward further discussions with the Federation of Wholesale Distributors about the crime affecting them specifically.
On the 23 October, the National Police Chiefs Council published a Retail Crime Action Plan, which includes a commitment to prioritise police attendance at the scene where violence has been used towards shop staff, where an offender has been detained by store security, and where evidence needs to be secured and can only be done by police personnel. Additionally, where CCTV or other digital images are secured, police will run this through the Police National Database using facial recognition technology to further aid efforts to identify prolific offenders or potentially dangerous individuals.
The 23 October also saw the launch of Pegasus, a unique private-public partnership that will radically improve the way retailers are able to share intelligence with policing, to better understand the tactics used by organised retail crime gangs and identify more offenders. This will include development of a new information sharing platform and training for retailers.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of compensation payments made under the Windrush Compensation Scheme to people experiencing psychological trauma resulting from discrimination because they could not prove their right to stay in the UK.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Windrush Compensation Scheme is designed to compensate members of the Windrush generation and their families for the losses and impacts they have suffered because they were unable to demonstrate their lawful immigration status.
The scheme acts as a single gateway for compensation in fourteen categories covering a broad range of impacts, including denial of access to services and a deterioration in mental or physical health. There is no cap on the amount of compensation we will pay. This is in recognition of the wide-reaching ways people have been affected.
Since its launch, the Home Office has continued to listen and respond to feedback from affected individuals and stakeholders about the scheme, expanding and amending it as our understanding of the way people have been affected has improved. In August 2022 we expanded the homelessness category and introduced a completely new ‘Living Costs’ category for close family members.
Compensation payments are made as quickly as possible. Decision makers draw upon all the evidence that has been provided and gathered, to make a holistic assessment of the effect on an individual’s life. Each person’s claim is deeply personal and requires careful and detailed consideration to understand their individual circumstances and experiences. All claims are processed with the utmost care and sensitivity.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of compensation payments made under the Windrush Compensation Scheme for people who experienced discrimination from public services because they could not prove their right to stay in the UK.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Windrush Compensation Scheme is designed to compensate members of the Windrush generation and their families for the losses and impacts they have suffered because they were unable to demonstrate their lawful immigration status.
The scheme acts as a single gateway for compensation in fourteen categories covering a broad range of impacts, including denial of access to services and a deterioration in mental or physical health. There is no cap on the amount of compensation we will pay. This is in recognition of the wide-reaching ways people have been affected.
Since its launch, the Home Office has continued to listen and respond to feedback from affected individuals and stakeholders about the scheme, expanding and amending it as our understanding of the way people have been affected has improved. In August 2022 we expanded the homelessness category and introduced a completely new ‘Living Costs’ category for close family members.
Compensation payments are made as quickly as possible. Decision makers draw upon all the evidence that has been provided and gathered, to make a holistic assessment of the effect on an individual’s life. Each person’s claim is deeply personal and requires careful and detailed consideration to understand their individual circumstances and experiences. All claims are processed with the utmost care and sensitivity.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of compensation payments made under the Windrush scheme to former armed forces personnel.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Windrush Compensation Scheme is designed to compensate members of the Windrush generation and their families for the losses and impacts they have suffered because they were unable to demonstrate their lawful immigration status.
The scheme acts as a single gateway for compensation in fourteen categories covering a broad range of impacts, including denial of access to services and a deterioration in mental or physical health. There is no cap on the amount of compensation we will pay. This is in recognition of the wide-reaching ways people have been affected.
Since its launch, the Home Office has continued to listen and respond to feedback from affected individuals and stakeholders about the scheme, expanding and amending it as our understanding of the way people have been affected has improved. In August 2022 we expanded the homelessness category and introduced a completely new ‘Living Costs’ category for close family members.
Compensation payments are made as quickly as possible. Decision makers draw upon all the evidence that has been provided and gathered, to make a holistic assessment of the effect on an individual’s life. Each person’s claim is deeply personal and requires careful and detailed consideration to understand their individual circumstances and experiences. All claims are processed with the utmost care and sensitivity.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has made an assessment of the implications for her Department's policies of the report entitled Reforming the Windrush Compensation Scheme published by Justice in 2021.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The victims of the Windrush scandal suffered terrible injustices, and this Government remains steadfast in our commitment to do everything in our power to right the wrongs. We are determined to ensure everyone who was affected receives every penny of the compensation to which they are entitled. We are making significant progress towards achieving this aim, and we have now paid or offered more than £72.5 million in compensation.
Since its launch, the Home Office has continued to listen and respond to feedback from affected communities and stakeholders about how the Scheme operates and its accessibility. The changes we made to the Scheme in December 2020 and August 2022, mean people receive significantly more money more quickly. Last year we published redesigned claim forms and refreshed casework guidance, with the aim of reducing the time taken to process claims and improving individuals’ experiences of applying to the Scheme. We also made changes to the Homelessness category and created a new category, ‘Living Costs’, to compensate close family members for certain contributions to a primary claimant’s living costs. These significant and positive policy changes were made following consultation with claimants and stakeholders.