Asked by: Tobias Ellwood (Conservative - Bournemouth East)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment his Department has made of the level of risk posed by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq to service personnel (a) deployed on Op Shader and (b) otherwise serving overseas.
Answered by James Heappey
The force protection of UK service personnel deployed on Op SHADER and otherwise serving overseas is kept under constant review. For reasons of operational security, I am unable to comment on specific assessments or mitigations.
Asked by: Tobias Ellwood (Conservative - Bournemouth East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to his Department's press release entitled New law to ban zombie-style knives and machetes, published on 25 January 2024, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of that proposed legislation on preventing the sale of zombie-style knives; and what steps his Department plans to take to confiscate zombie-style knives already in public possession.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The maximum penalty for being in possession of a bladed or pointed article in public is 4 years imprisonment. In 2015, we introduced minimum custodial sentences for repeat knife possession, alongside the existing minimum sentence for threatening with a knife. Adults face a minimum of 6 months’ imprisonment whilst young people aged 16 or 17 face a minimum 4-month Detention and Training Order.
Measures in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which came into force on 28 June 2022, strengthen existing provisions by ensuring that the courts pass at least the minimum sentence for certain offences, including threat and repeat possession of a knife or offensive weapon, unless there are exceptional circumstances.
Sentencing in individual cases is a matter for our independent courts. Parliament has provided the courts with a broad range of sentencing powers to deal effectively and appropriately with offenders, including discharges, fines, community sentences, suspended sentences and custodial sentences.
It is the function of the court to decide the sentence in each case subject to the maximum that Parliament has provided and any guidelines that may be laid down by the Sentencing Council or the Court of Appeal. Sentencing must also be proportionate to the offence committed, considering all the circumstances of each case. That is why our sentencing framework generally sets maximum penalties but not mandatory or minimum penalties.
Research shows that it is the certainty of apprehension and punishment which consistently has a deterrent effect. However, it is of course crucial that serious offenders serve sentences that truly reflect the severity of their crimes, helping to protect the public and giving victims confidence that justice has been served.
Where someone is actually harmed by a knife or offensive weapon, there are a range of serious offences that the person may be charged with, such as causing grievous bodily harm. These can result in lengthy sentences including life imprisonment.
The Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Offensive Weapons) (Amendment, Surrender and Compensation) Order 2024 was laid in Parliament on 25 January 2024.
Once the legislation has been approved by Parliament, a surrender scheme will come into effect on 26 August 2024 to remove zombie style machetes and knives from circulation. The manufacture, supply, sale and possession of zombie-style knives and machetes will be outlawed from 24 September, and this will be enforced by the Police, Trading Standards and Border Force. An impact assessment, supporting the Statutory Instrument, will be published very shortly.
Asked by: Tobias Ellwood (Conservative - Bournemouth East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of introducing mandatory jail terms for people caught in possession of (a) blades, (b) knives and (c) other pointed articles without authorisation.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The maximum penalty for being in possession of a bladed or pointed article in public is 4 years imprisonment. In 2015, we introduced minimum custodial sentences for repeat knife possession, alongside the existing minimum sentence for threatening with a knife. Adults face a minimum of 6 months’ imprisonment whilst young people aged 16 or 17 face a minimum 4-month Detention and Training Order.
Measures in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which came into force on 28 June 2022, strengthen existing provisions by ensuring that the courts pass at least the minimum sentence for certain offences, including threat and repeat possession of a knife or offensive weapon, unless there are exceptional circumstances.
Sentencing in individual cases is a matter for our independent courts. Parliament has provided the courts with a broad range of sentencing powers to deal effectively and appropriately with offenders, including discharges, fines, community sentences, suspended sentences and custodial sentences.
It is the function of the court to decide the sentence in each case subject to the maximum that Parliament has provided and any guidelines that may be laid down by the Sentencing Council or the Court of Appeal. Sentencing must also be proportionate to the offence committed, considering all the circumstances of each case. That is why our sentencing framework generally sets maximum penalties but not mandatory or minimum penalties.
Research shows that it is the certainty of apprehension and punishment which consistently has a deterrent effect. However, it is of course crucial that serious offenders serve sentences that truly reflect the severity of their crimes, helping to protect the public and giving victims confidence that justice has been served.
Where someone is actually harmed by a knife or offensive weapon, there are a range of serious offences that the person may be charged with, such as causing grievous bodily harm. These can result in lengthy sentences including life imprisonment.
The Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Offensive Weapons) (Amendment, Surrender and Compensation) Order 2024 was laid in Parliament on 25 January 2024.
Once the legislation has been approved by Parliament, a surrender scheme will come into effect on 26 August 2024 to remove zombie style machetes and knives from circulation. The manufacture, supply, sale and possession of zombie-style knives and machetes will be outlawed from 24 September, and this will be enforced by the Police, Trading Standards and Border Force. An impact assessment, supporting the Statutory Instrument, will be published very shortly.
Asked by: Tobias Ellwood (Conservative - Bournemouth East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what flood defence measures his Department is putting in place to help protect agriculture.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Farmers and land managers have an increasingly important role to play in reducing the risk of flooding and coastal erosion as we adapt to climate change, through measures such as natural flood management.
In addition to protecting homes, the flood investment programme also protects agricultural land. In our six-year record £5.2 billion floods investment programme, the amount of funding a project can attract will depend on the damage it will avoid and the benefits it will deliver. A project's impact on agricultural land is included as part of the funding calculator and attracts funding. Since 2015 we have protected over 900,000 acres of agricultural land. Approximately 40% of schemes, and 45% of investment, better protects properties in rural communities. Government assistance is sometimes provided in particularly exceptional circumstances. For example, on Saturday 6th January the Government announced farmers who have suffered uninsurable damage to their land as a result of Storm Henk will be able to apply grants of up to £25,000 through the Farming Recovery Fund towards reinstatement costs for farmers adversely affected by exceptional flooding.
There are also measures that benefit flood risk mitigation under all three components of the Environmental Land Management schemes. As announced on 4th January, farmers and other land managers will be paid for a variety of land management actions that support flood risk mitigation, including new actions to manage grasslands and arable land for flood resilience and updated actions to store flood water on agricultural land. These actions will be available from later this year, through a streamlined single application process. The first round of Landscape Recovery included a focus on restoring England’s streams and rivers: the selected projects will restore water bodies, rivers, and floodplains to a more natural state, reduce of nutrient pollution, benefit aquatic species, and improve flood mitigation and resilience to climate change. Many of the Landscape Recovery Round 2 projects that are centred around rivers are also aiming to deliver similar environmental outcomes, including flood mitigation.
Asked by: Tobias Ellwood (Conservative - Bournemouth East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether fluoride is added to the water supply anywhere in the UK.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Fluoride is a naturally occurring mineral found in varying amounts in soil, food, and drink, including drinking water supplies. Currently approximately six million people in England live in areas with a water fluoridation scheme where the fluoride concentration has been adjusted, in line with legal limits, to help reduce tooth decay. Further details on the areas involved are available at the following link:
Asked by: Tobias Ellwood (Conservative - Bournemouth East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department is taking to help protect young people from online (a) abuse and (b) grooming.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government remains firmly committed to tackling all forms of child sexual abuse online and in our communities across the UK and internationally. Our approach is underpinned by the Tackling Child Sexual Abuse Strategy which sets out firm commitments to drive action across the whole system.
The Online Safety Act gained Royal Assent in October 2023, and seeks to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online. The Act will for the first time, place clear legal duties on technology companies to take proactive steps to identify, remove and prevent users encountering illegal content, including child sexual abuse, from their platforms. The Government has worked closely with Ofcom to ensure that the implementation period that will be necessary following passage of the legislation is as short as possible.
Child sexual abuse is named in the act as a priority offence meaning companies must use systems and processes to minimise, remove, and report this content to the NCA or another foreign body. The regulator shall publish codes of practice which will include specific measures on CSEA, setting out how companies will have to comply with their legal duties. Companies must take the steps recommended by Ofcom or take measures that are equally as effective.
The Home Office continues to work with international Partners to work on law enforcement cooperation to pursue offenders and bring them to justice, and building capacity to combat this complex and evolving threat around the world given the nature of evolving threat
Asked by: Tobias Ellwood (Conservative - Bournemouth East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department is taking steps to mitigate against the effects of cold weather on transport.
Answered by Anthony Browne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Secretary of State for Transport can confirm that well-practised resilience plans have been put in place across the transport network in preparation for the winter period.
Asked by: Tobias Ellwood (Conservative - Bournemouth East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of the progress of the Sustainable Farming Incentive.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Over 8,500 farmers have applied to the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) and more than 6,000 agreement offers have been issued.
On 4 January updated payment rates were announced, with the average value of an SFI agreement increasing by 10%. Around 50 new paid-for actions will be added to the SFI and Countryside Stewardship schemes from summer 2024, giving farmers more choice and an offer for all farm types and locations.
From this summer, farmers will be able to apply for Countryside Stewardship Mid Tier and SFI actions through a single application process, making it easier for farmers and land managers to see what is available to them and access the funding in a more straightforward way.
Asked by: Tobias Ellwood (Conservative - Bournemouth East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department is taking to tackle the rise in fatal knife related incidents in Bournemouth East constituency.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government is committed to ensuring that the police have the resources they need to tackle violent crime. That is why I have recently confirmed Dorset’s police funding settlement of £179.8 million in 2024/25, an increase of up to £11.1 million when compared to 2023/24. I am also pleased to have recently approved, on an exceptional basis, an additional £600 thousand in 23/24 to enable the police to respond recent exceptional policing demand arising in Bournemouth.
We have also increased the number of police officers through the Police Uplift Programme and as of 31 March 2023, 20,947 additional officers have been recruited in England and Wales delivering on the manifesto commitment of 20,000 more police officers by the end of March 2023. As of 31 March 2023, Dorset has recruited 174 additional uplift officers against a total three-year allocation of 166 officers and at this time there were 1,441 police officers in Dorset, a total growth of 174 additional officers against the baseline (1,267) at the start of the Police Uplift Programme.
We keep all relevant legislation under review in the interests of public safety and we recently consulted on new legislative proposals to tackle knife crime and published the government response on 30 August 2023. As a result, in the Criminal Justice Bill, we have introduced provisions to:
o Provide more powers for police to seize knives held in private that could be used in crimes .
o Increase the maximum penalty for the offences of selling prohibited weapons and selling knives to under 18s.
o Create a new offence of possessing an article with blade or point or offensive weapon with intent to use unlawful violence or cause someone to fear unlawful violence.
And via secondary legislation we will introduce, in the next few weeks, a new ban on zombie-style machetes and knives that seem to appeal who those who want to use them as weapons.
In addition, we have introduced the Serious Violence Duty, which requires relevant agencies to work in partnership to tackle violence. Funding has also been provided to support implementation of the duty (for Dorset amounting to £292 thousand in the 23/24, with funding continuing in 24/25).
Asked by: Tobias Ellwood (Conservative - Bournemouth East)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether he plans to send additional defence capabilities to the (a) Gulf of Aden and (b) Red Sea region following the attack on HMS Diamond.
Answered by James Heappey
On 11 January 2024, Royal Air Force aircraft joined coalition forces in striking a number of facilities used by the Houthi rebel faction in Yemen to attack shipping in the southern Red Sea.
This followed the Houthis persistence in threatening merchant ships and deliberate targeting of HMS Diamond and US Navy vessels on 9 January 2024.
This limited, necessary and proportionate action in self-defence was taken alongside the United States against targets tied to these attacks, to degrade Houthi military capabilities and protect global shipping.
As announced during the 8 January 2024 Defence Orals, HMS Richmond is sailing from the UK to the Red Sea. We keep operational deployments under review to ensure that we are able to respond to the situation in the region.