Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the principal barriers have been to the deportation of foreign nationals convicted of sexual offences since 2024; and what steps her Department is taking to help tackle those barriers.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office deals with significant and complex challenges when seeking to return those who have no right to be in the UK to their country of origin. Sometimes the UK’s current obligations under international law prohibit us from returning certain individuals despite their criminality. Legal or re-documentation barriers can frustrate immediate deportation. Despite these barriers, we are fully committed to making our communities safer by deporting those who break our laws.
To address these challenges, this government is committed to reforming the appeals process by creating a new appeals body with professionally trained adjudicators. We will also strengthen the certification regime to deny appeal rights for clearly unmeritorious claims. Furthermore, the number of countries that foreign national offenders can be deported to before they can lodge an appeal from abroad has also been increased.
We are also working to reform Human Rights and Modern Slavery claims. In these areas we will rebalance the public interest test for Article 8 claims and work with our international partners to reform the application of the ECHR’s prohibition on inhuman or degrading treatment. With the Modern Slavery reforms legislation will be brought forward to clarify our responsibilities under international law, the removal of reconsideration for negative decisions, enhanced screening for individuals detained for removal, and a stronger link between timely disclosure and credibility of a claim.
Finally, under new measures introduced by the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025, sexual offences which give rise to the notification requirement in Schedule 3 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 will be assumed to be ‘particularly serious’ for the purpose of applying Article 33(2) of the Refugee Convention, thereby allowing the UK to exclude those individuals from being granted asylum protections in the UK.
Where removal is still not possible due to our ECHR obligations, the provision will ensure that such individuals are not afforded the generous benefits of protection status in the UK.
Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many foreign nationals convicted of sexual offences have been removed under the Early Removal Scheme in each year since 2020.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
The information requested regarding foreign national offenders (FNOs) convicted of sexual offences removed under the Early Removal Scheme (ERS) is not available from published statistics.
The Home Office has published figures on FNOs removed under the ERS, from 2010 Q1 up until 2022 Q2, which can be found within ‘FNO_09’, here: Migration transparency data - GOV.UK.
The Home Office also recently published figures on FNOs removed under the ERS, from 01 March 2023 up to 31 October 2025, which can be found here: Returns from the UK from 1 March 2023 to 31 October 2025 - GOV.UK
Data on FNOs removed under ERS between July 2022 and February 2023 is not currently available from published statistics, but work is currently underway to publish more detailed information on FNOs subject to deportation. Further information on this work can be found at: Statistics on foreign national offenders and the immigration system - GOV.UK.
Asked by: Ian Roome (Liberal Democrat - North Devon)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 28 January 2025 to Question 26922 on Waste Disposal: Monitoring, what progress she has made on the introduction of the Digital Waste Tracking Service.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra has made good progress on implementing Digital Waste Tracking.
As announced in July 2025 Defra is implementing digital waste tracking through a phased approach beginning with a service for permitted waste receiving site operators.
Asked by: Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat - North East Fife)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, if her Department has any plans to provide financial support to the operations of UNHCR in Afghanistan.
Answered by Hamish Falconer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The UK remains one of the largest donors to Afghanistan, providing £151 million in aid for the 2025/26 financial year. The UK does not currently directly fund United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) operations in Afghanistan, but we have supported those operations indirectly via pooled funds managed by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Future funding allocations for UN and non-governmental organisation partners in Afghanistan will be set out in the normal way in due course.
Asked by: Caroline Dinenage (Conservative - Gosport)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what discussions his Department has had with Greenwich Hospital, Royal Museums Greenwich and the Greenwich Foundation on a coordinated plan to secure the future operations of the Old Royal Naval College.
Answered by Louise Sandher-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
The Ministry of Defence works closely with parties who have an interest in the Old Royal Naval College. In exercising his power to grant leases on the Old Royal Naval College, the Secretary of State gives regard to the suitability of occupants to maintain the site, and to public access. Under the terms of their lease, responsibility for heritage conservation, maintenance, and repair rests with the Greenwich Foundation for the Old Royal Naval College. Public access is a matter for all tenants, and employment is a matter for individual employers on site.
Asked by: Caroline Dinenage (Conservative - Gosport)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure the long-term financial sustainability of and continued public access to the Old Royal Naval College.
Answered by Louise Sandher-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
The Ministry of Defence works closely with parties who have an interest in the Old Royal Naval College. In exercising his power to grant leases on the Old Royal Naval College, the Secretary of State gives regard to the suitability of occupants to maintain the site, and to public access. Under the terms of their lease, responsibility for heritage conservation, maintenance, and repair rests with the Greenwich Foundation for the Old Royal Naval College. Public access is a matter for all tenants, and employment is a matter for individual employers on site.
Asked by: Caroline Dinenage (Conservative - Gosport)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment he has made of the potential risks to employment, public access and heritage conservation at the Old Royal Naval College.
Answered by Louise Sandher-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
The Ministry of Defence works closely with parties who have an interest in the Old Royal Naval College. In exercising his power to grant leases on the Old Royal Naval College, the Secretary of State gives regard to the suitability of occupants to maintain the site, and to public access. Under the terms of their lease, responsibility for heritage conservation, maintenance, and repair rests with the Greenwich Foundation for the Old Royal Naval College. Public access is a matter for all tenants, and employment is a matter for individual employers on site.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, where the UK recognises as the capital of the State of Palestine.
Answered by Hamish Falconer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
It is the longstanding position of the UK Government that Jerusalem should be a shared capital of two states, with its final status determined as part of a negotiated, peaceful settlement between Israelis and Palestinians, respecting the access and religious rights of all peoples. The future status of the British Consulate General in Jerusalem will be decided in light of progress towards this historic goal.
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: Ben Obese-Jecty (Conservative - Huntingdon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether the draft Public Order Act 2023 (Interference With Use or Operation of Key National Infrastructure) Regulations 2025 covers online activity.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
On Thursday 27 November 2025, the Home Office laid an affirmative Statutory Instrument in Parliament to amend Section 7 and Section 8 of the Public Order Act 2023 (“POA”). This will amend the list of key national infrastructure within Section 7 of the POA, to add the life sciences sector and define the life sciences sector in Section 8 of the POA.
Under Section 7 POA, a person commits an offence if:
Whether an activity, online or otherwise, meets the criminal threshold within section 7 POA will be fact specific and is an operational matter for the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and the courts, who are all operationally independent from the government.