Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to Final Police Funding Settlement (England and Wales) 2026-27, how much funding her Department has specifically provided for violence reduction units in the 2026-27 financial year.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Violence prevention is crucial to achieving our ambition of halving knife crime and making our streets safer.
The 2026/27 Police Funding Settlement included an allocation of £66.6m for Serious Violence Reduction Programmes.
This funding will be used to maintain our network of 20 Violence Reduction Units (VRUs) in the areas of England and Wales which are experiencing over 80% of knife crime; support public sector bodies to fulfil their statutory requirements under the Serious Violence Duty and continue the promising work of the Young Futures Panel pilots, which are identifying young people at risk of being drawn into crime and intervening earlier with positive, diversionary support.
Asked by: James Naish (Labour - Rushcliffe)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of police funding for rural forces in light of geographic scale, response times and organised criminal activity affecting farms and rural businesses.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
This Government is introducing the most radical and comprehensive policing reforms in nearly 200 years. We will modernise policing in this country – equipping it to tackle more sophisticated, online, and cross-border crimes (like wildlife crime and organised equipment theft), while also restoring neighbourhood policing.
We are on track to hit 3,000 more neighbourhood officers in March – and our target remains 13k by the end of the parliament. With the Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee every neighbourhood, rural or urban, now gets a named contactable officer and a response to non-urgent queries in 72 hours. Every rural area will also be covered by a Local Policing Area under a commander responsible for emergency response, local crime investigation and neighbourhood policing. They will be set targets to ensure they answer 90% of 999 calls within 10 seconds and attend 90% of the most serious incidents within 20 minutes in rural areas.
This financial year (FY25/26) we are providing £800,000 of funding to the National Rural Crime Unit and the National Wildlife Crime Unit, and we will be providing the same level of funding in 26/27. These capabilities play key roles in helping police across the UK tackle organised theft and disrupt serious and organised crime groups, which can pose unique challenges for policing in large and isolated rural areas.
The Government recognises that there can be challenges in responding to rural crime, which is why we worked closely with the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) to deliver the next iteration of their Rural and Wildlife Crime strategy and sets out operational and organisational policing priorities in respect of tackling those crimes that predominantly affect our rural communities.
Asked by: Iqbal Mohamed (Independent - Dewsbury and Batley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with regard to the Animals in Science Regulation Unit Annual Report 2024, published in December 2025, how the number of unannounced audits in 2024 compares with previous years; and whether she she is taking to help increase the number of unannounced audits in future years.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The numbers of unannounced audits conducted are reported in the published Animals in Science Regulation Unit (ASRU) Annual Reports.
Year | Number of unannounced audits |
2024 | 10 |
2023 | 14 |
2022 | 10 |
The Annual Report for 2024 can be found at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/animals-in-science-regulation-unit-annual-report-2024
ASRU has planned to increase the number of unannounced audits as part of its work to strength regulatory oversight. ASRU has also increased its number of inspectors, enabling a greater volume of risk-based audits across the system.
Announced and unannounced audits play an important role in providing regulatory assurance. Audit numbers are only one indicator of the level of regulatory oversight; the quality, depth and scope of audits are central to assessing compliance effectively.
Asked by: Munira Wilson (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to help prevent bicycle theft in Twickenham constituency.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The central aim of our police reforms is to protect and revitalise neighbourhood policing. We are lifting national responsibilities from local forces so they can focus on tackling issues of key concern to communities, such as dealing with bike theft. The Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee will ensure that every community in England and Wales will have named and contactable officers dealing with local issues, and that neighbourhood teams spend the majority of their time in their communities providing visible patrols and engaging with local communities and businesses.
In addition, we are also providing the police with new powers to support their response. The Crime and Policing Bill, now at Committee Stage in the House of Lords, will ensure that Officers can enter and search premises where stolen items – such as GPS-tracked bicycles – are reasonably believed to have been stolen and located, and where it is not reasonably practicable to obtain a court warrant. This will significantly enhance the ability of the police to act swiftly and effectively in recovering stolen property.
Asked by: Louie French (Conservative - Old Bexley and Sidcup)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to help reduce crimes committed with catapults, especially against animals.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government shares concerns over the misuse of catapults, whether against people, property or wildlife.
There are a wide range of laws in place to punish those who misuse catapults. The Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 provides the police, local authorities and other local agencies with a range of tools and powers that they can use to respond to anti-social behaviour involving catapults. This includes Community Protection Warnings and Notices and Public Spaces Protection Orders (PSPOs). The Prevention of Crime Act 1953 creates the offence of carrying an offensive weapon in a public place and there are significant penalties under the Offences against the Person Act 1861 if a person is deliberately harmed.
Specific to animals and birds, the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 protects all wild birds and some wild animals in England and Wales. It is illegal under this Act to deliberately attempt to kill, injure, or harm protected species of wild birds. There are a range of other offences found in further legislation to protect wild animals from cruelty such as the Wild Mammals (Protection) Act 1996 and the Animal Welfare Act 2006. Significant sanctions are available to judges to hand down to those convicted of crimes under these Acts.
We have noted proposals for new restrictions, and we are actively considering what more might be done around enforcement.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment the Department has made of the effectiveness of A&E navigator programmes in reducing a) youth violence and b) exploitation of young people.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
According to the Youth Endowment Fund toolkit, the available studies suggest that A&E navigator programmes could have a high impact on preventing further involvement in violence.
The majority of Violence Reduction Units in England and Wales deliver A&E navigator programmes. We will continue to learn from the ongoing delivery of A&E navigators to ensure victims of violence and exploitation are effectively supported.
Asked by: James Naish (Labour - Rushcliffe)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 22 April 2025 to Question 44172 on Public Order Act 2023, what progress her Department has made with post-legislative scrutiny of the Public Order Act 2023.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
As part of this Government’s commitment to protect the rights to freedom of expression and assembly, in May 2025 the Home Office began conducting post-legislative scrutiny of the Public Order Act 2023.
The post-legislative scrutiny of this Public Order Act 2023 is ongoing and once completed, the command paper will be sent to the Home Affairs Select Committee in accordance with the guidance on established post legislative scrutiny. In parallel the Home Secretary has commissioned Lord Macdonald of River Glaven KC to conduct a review of public order and hate crime legislation which will be concluded by the end of Spring.
Asked by: Ben Obese-Jecty (Conservative - Huntingdon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 19 March 2026 to Question 117963 on Firearms: Licensing, what steps are detailed in the action plan on how the three police forces intend to address the issues in the accelerated cause of concern.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) issued an accelerated cause of concern notice to the Chief Constables of the three forces involved in the tripartite firearms licensing arrangement involving Bedfordshire Police, Cambridgeshire Constabulary and Hertfordshire Constabulary on 9 January 2026. The notice requested that the three Chief Constables set out in an action plan how they intended to address the issues set out in the notice within 28 working days.
The three Chief Constables responded to HMICFRS within the specified deadline and the content of their response to the Inspectorate, who are independent of Government, was not shared with the Home Office.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of current processes for handling incidents involving harassment, alarm or distress motivated by homophobia where relevant evidence cannot be admitted or relied upon in court; and what steps she is taking to ensure that such cases are still appropriately investigated and that victims receive adequate protection and support.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
On the 14th February, the government tabled an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill to extend existing aggravated offences under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 to ensure equal protection across the protected characteristics of race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, transgender identity and sex.
The police are operationally independent and responsible for investigating alleged offences, working closely with the Crown Prosecution Service to build cases that meet the evidential and public interest tests. A range of offences may apply depending on the circumstances, including under the Public Order Act 1986 and the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, and where hostility based on sexual orientation is proven, courts may apply statutory sentencing uplifts.
Where particular evidence cannot be admitted or relied upon in court, the police are expected to pursue all reasonable lines of enquiry using admissible material, and to seek early investigative advice from the Crown Prosecution Service where appropriate. Where the evidential threshold for a charge is not met, the police can still take steps to protect victims, including the use of bail conditions and other protective measures where the relevant legal tests are satisfied.
Victims of hate crime are entitled to support under the Victims’ Code, including being kept informed of progress and signposted to appropriate services. The Government continues to fund local and national victim support services and works closely with policing partners, the Crown Prosecution Service and the College of Policing to promote consistent, evidence-led responses to hate-motivated incidents so that victims are protected and offenders are brought to justice wherever possible.
Asked by: Helen Grant (Conservative - Maidstone and Malling)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what safeguards are in place to ensure that outcome-linked funding arrangements do not give rise to perceived conflicts of interest in operational decision-making.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
We fully recognise the serious and growing threat that freight crime poses to businesses, drivers, and the wider economy. The Government does not fund NaVCIS. Instead NaVCIS is funded by the industry, including finance and leasing companies, insurers and hauliers.
NaVCIS is a national policing unit that provides dedicated specialist intelligence, and it engages with a range of partners to tackle organised vehicle crime.The Governance arrangements for NaVCIS are a matter for the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC).