Asked by: Lord Godson (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, in the context of any handover of responsibility for counter-extremism work from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to the Home Office, which department will have responsibility for (1) cross-Government engagement principles, (2) establishing an extremism-specific due diligence tool, (3) blasphemy-related extremism, and (4) religiously motivated hate crime.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office work on countering extremism, and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government continues to lead work on strengthening community cohesion with local councils. It is vital that the two programmes on cohesion and extremism work in parallel.
On the definition of extremism, I refer Lord Godson to the Answer provided by the Security Minister on 22 January to Question UIN 23874, and to the Urgent Question response provided by the Security Minister on 28 January.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, for what purposes Companies House has used artificial intelligence in the last 12 months.
Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is at the heart of the Government’s plan to kickstart an era of economic growth, transform how we deliver public services, and boost living standards for working people across the country. Companies House trialled Microsoft Copilot to support administrative tasks. It has deployed specific AI tools to generate tailored communications content and develop new IT services more quickly. Companies House is also developing and testing advanced analytics, machine learning and AI that detect suspicious activity and identify trends.
Asked by: Lord Godson (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether a decision has been made as to whether or not the process of listing extremist organisations and groups should be continued and, if not, whether they have any plans to publicly announce its discontinuance.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office work on countering extremism, and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government continues to lead work on strengthening community cohesion with local councils. It is vital that the two programmes on cohesion and extremism work in parallel.
On the definition of extremism, I refer Lord Godson to the Answer provided by the Security Minister on 22 January to Question UIN 23874, and to the Urgent Question response provided by the Security Minister on 28 January.
Asked by: Lord Godson (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what discussions have taken place between the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Home Office regarding the handover of responsibility for counter-extremism work to the Home Office.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office work on countering extremism, and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government continues to lead work on strengthening community cohesion with local councils. It is vital that the two programmes on cohesion and extremism work in parallel.
On the definition of extremism, I refer Lord Godson to the Answer provided by the Security Minister on 22 January to Question UIN 23874, and to the Urgent Question response provided by the Security Minister on 28 January.
Asked by: Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether the Department of Culture, Media and Sport intends to publish a strategy for English public libraries.
Answered by Baroness Twycross - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Minister for Creative Industries, Arts and Tourism, Sir Chris Bryant MP, who has the policy remit for public libraries in England, has engaged with library sector organisations and leaders. They discussed the challenges in the sector and reflected on priority policy areas. He is considering their views and DCMS continues to promote the role of libraries across a range of government priorities.
Asked by: Lord Pearson of Rannoch (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Hanson of Flint on 22 January (HL3896), what assessment they have made of the appropriateness of identifying membership of grooming gangs by reference to Pakistani origin.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
Further to my previous response, the Government will lay out a clear timetable before Easter on how we will take forward the 20 recommendations from the final report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse. We will also set up a new panel to ensure victims' and survivors' voices are prioritised in future policy making.
We have been clear that local authorities, who are responsible for delivering local services, are best placed to commission local inquiries, and we stand ready to support as we can. That is why the Home Secretary announced to Parliament on the 6 and 16 January 2025 a range of measures, including stronger national backing for local inquiries and funding provisions to help local councils set up their own reviews. The Home Office will develop a new effective framework for victim-centred, locally-led inquiries, and work with Oldham Council and four other pilot areas to implement it. Additionally, local councils which are yet to hold regional investigations where the group-based sexual offences have been more prevalent will be urged to conduct their own reviews to prevent offending happening again.
I refer the Rt Hon Member to the Home Secretary's statement made on 16 January, which set out the actions the Government is taking forward to improve our response to, and understanding of, child sexual exploitation and abuse, including group-based abuse This includes improving the data available on the perpetration of these crimes and the Home Secretary has asked the Child Sexual Exploitation Police Taskforce to expand the ethnicity data it collects and publishes - gathering data from the end of the investigation when a fuller picture is available.
The Home Secretary is also appointing Baroness Louise Casey to lead an audit to improve our understanding of the scale, nature and drivers of group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse at a national and local level, including what is known about the demographics of perpetrators and victims, and to make recommendations on what additional action is needed to improve our response.
Asked by: Lord Pearson of Rannoch (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Hanson of Flint on 22 January (HL3896), what assessment they have made of the proportion of Muslims among members of grooming gangs.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
Further to my previous response, the Government will lay out a clear timetable before Easter on how we will take forward the 20 recommendations from the final report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse. We will also set up a new panel to ensure victims' and survivors' voices are prioritised in future policy making.
We have been clear that local authorities, who are responsible for delivering local services, are best placed to commission local inquiries, and we stand ready to support as we can. That is why the Home Secretary announced to Parliament on the 6 and 16 January 2025 a range of measures, including stronger national backing for local inquiries and funding provisions to help local councils set up their own reviews. The Home Office will develop a new effective framework for victim-centred, locally-led inquiries, and work with Oldham Council and four other pilot areas to implement it. Additionally, local councils which are yet to hold regional investigations where the group-based sexual offences have been more prevalent will be urged to conduct their own reviews to prevent offending happening again.
I refer the Rt Hon Member to the Home Secretary's statement made on 16 January, which set out the actions the Government is taking forward to improve our response to, and understanding of, child sexual exploitation and abuse, including group-based abuse This includes improving the data available on the perpetration of these crimes and the Home Secretary has asked the Child Sexual Exploitation Police Taskforce to expand the ethnicity data it collects and publishes - gathering data from the end of the investigation when a fuller picture is available.
The Home Secretary is also appointing Baroness Louise Casey to lead an audit to improve our understanding of the scale, nature and drivers of group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse at a national and local level, including what is known about the demographics of perpetrators and victims, and to make recommendations on what additional action is needed to improve our response.
Asked by: Laurence Turner (Labour - Birmingham Northfield)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, pursuant to the Answer of 27 January 2025 to Question 25524 on UK International Consumer Centre, if he will place a copy of the agreement referenced in the Commons Library.
Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
I regret that the grant funding agreement cannot be submitted to the Commons Library. Grant letters and details are commercially sensitive for both the parties.
Releasing these details would, or would be likely to, prejudice the interests of those concerned by damaging the confidence which customers, suppliers or investors have, threatening their ability to obtain supplies or secure finance, and potentially weakening their position in a competitive environment by revealing market-sensitive information or information of potential usefulness to others such as its competitors.
Asked by: Lord Godson (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the potential benefits of having a single definition of extremism.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office work on countering extremism, and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government continues to lead work on strengthening community cohesion with local councils. It is vital that the two programmes on cohesion and extremism work in parallel.
On the definition of extremism, I refer Lord Godson to the Answer provided by the Security Minister on 22 January to Question UIN 23874, and to the Urgent Question response provided by the Security Minister on 28 January.
Asked by: Caroline Johnson (Conservative - Sleaford and North Hykeham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of items of correspondence from Parliamentarians received by (a) her Department, (b) herself and (c) her ministerial team have not received a substantive response in each month since August 2024.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
On policy correspondence cases that have not yet received a substantive response for each month since August 2024 are in the following table.
Month | Total received | Total Outstanding | Home Secretary response | Other Ministerial response | % outstanding |
August 2024 | 538 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
September 2024 | 472 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0.2% |
October 2024 | 606 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 0.8% |
November 2024 | 625 | 8 | 0 | 8 | 1.3% |
December 2024 | 541 | 69 | 3 | 66 | 12.8% |
Total | 2782 | 83 | 4 | 79 | 3% |
Data about intake and performance in answering MP Correspondence on case specific matters (including UK Visa and Immigration, Immigration Enforcement, Border Force and HM Passport Office) is published quarterly with the latest data available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/customer-service-operations-data-q3-2024