Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many custody suites have been closed since 2010.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
This information is not held centrally, but is available from police forces.
Decisions about the most effective use of available resources, including the number of custody suites in a force area, are a matter for the Police and Crime Commissioner and Chief Constable locally (the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime and the Commissioner in the case of the Metropolitan Police and the Corporation and the Commissioner in the case of the City of London Police), tailored to the operational needs of the police in their local community.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many referrals have been made under the Prevent strategy since 2015, by (a) age, (b) gender, (c) location by region, (d) ethnicity, (e) type of referring authority and (f) type of extremism; and what proportion of the total number of those referrals have resulted in placement in the CHANNEL programme for each of those categories.
Answered by Ben Wallace
Since 2012, over 1000 vulnerable people have received support through Channel. Around a quarter of cases receiving support are for far right extremism. The Home Office intends to publish further Prevent and Channel data in the near future.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when she expects to publish the latest review of the Government's CONTEST strategy.
Answered by Ben Wallace
The Home Office led a cross-Government review of the CONTEST strategy in 2016. The NSC has considered and approved recommendations. We will publish the new strategy shortly.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
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 providing people over 65 with advice on the prevention of fires in domestic homes.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
It is for individual fire and rescue services to determine how best they can use their resources to mitigate the risks associated with fire in their communities. Over 65’s are disproportionately represented in fire fatality statistics; they consistently make up about 50% of those who die in dwelling fires, yet make up less than 18% of the population.
Of the 581,000 visits by fire and rescue services to individuals in their own homes carried out in 2015/16, nearly half (268,000) were made to those aged 65 and over.
These visits are designed to help householders to assess the risk of fire and enable fire and rescue services to provide them with tailored fire prevention advice and, in some cases, with products designed to minimise the risks should a fire break out. These could include smoke alarms, flame retardant bedding, electric deep fat fryers and, in some cases, personal fire suppression systems.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many sexual abuse cases involving children there have been in (a) Bolton, (b) Lancashire, (c) England, (d) Scotland and (e) Wales in each of the last five years.
Answered by Norman Baker
Home Office Statistics does not collect information on sexual abuse cases
involving children.
While the Home Office does hold data for offences covered by the Sexual
Offences Act 2003 (which may cover some sexual abuse offences), we do not hold
data on how many cases there are.
The Department for Education collects and publishes information on the numbers
of children referred to and assessed by children's social services in England.
This includes statistics at local authority level on the number of children who
are subject of a child protection plan by category of abuse, including sexual
abuse.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions she has had with the Association of Chief Police Officers about proposals for the emergency services communications network to be operated on a commercially available network.
Answered by Damian Green
The recommendation to base the replacement communication system, for the
emergency services, on a commercially available network was agreed during
development of the Emergency Service Mobile Communications Programme Business
Case. This preferred direction of travel and alternative options, were briefed
to ACPO, and were written with the involvement, assurance and approval of the 3
emergency services, funding departments and the devolved governments of Wales
and Scotland.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assurances she has received from operators of commercially available mobile networks that the emergency services will be able to over-ride commercial or public traffic during emergencies.
Answered by Damian Green
The Emergency Services Mobile Communications Programme has worked with the
Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) since February 2013, running a series of
supplier workshops and market engagement sessions throughout 2013 and the first
quarter of 2014 ahead of procurement launch. The MNOs have run a series of
capability demonstrations, organised by the Programme, to showcase development
of this technical solution. The Programme has confidence that this capability
is deliverable. The MNOs met the Minister for the Cabinet Office during
February 2014, where they confirmed their ability and willingness to deliver
the technology required to enable the emergency services to operate effectively
over a commercially available mobile network, including provision of
prioritisation of Emergency Service traffic.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she has taken to ensure the Emergency Services Mobile Communications Programme delivers a cost effective network that meets the standards of security and resilience essential for mission-critical communications.
Answered by Damian Green
The Programme has undertaken an extensive market engagement exercise to help
determine the technical and commercial feasibility of the proposed Emergency
Services Network (ESN). The results of these industry soundings indicate that
it should be possible to move to Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) solution based
technologies that will be more cost effective and will allow the Emergency
Services communications to evolve in line with developments in the consumer
market. The outline business case, approved in March 2014, included costs for
the security and resilience enhancements required to provide the appropriate
service levels for ESN users.