Asked by: Wendy Morton (Conservative - Aldridge-Brownhills)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of recent police recruitment and deployment changes on neighbourhood crime levels.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government published a performance framework in April 2025 which sets out how forces will be held to account. It includes measures on crime and other key indicators, including growth of neighbourhood policing.
The framework outlines to forces and the public the performance measures used to assess progress. The framework can be found at this link Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee performance framework (accessible) - GOV.UK.
Asked by: Ben Obese-Jecty (Conservative - Huntingdon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the contribution of the Minister for Policing and Crime during the Third Delegated Legislation Committee on 17 December 2025, when she plans to send a command paper to the Home Affairs Select Committee on the use of public order legislation.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The government has committed to undertake post legislative scrutiny of the Public Order Act 2023. This process began in May.
When complete, we will send the command paper to the Home Affairs Select Committee as is routine and in line with the guidance on completing post legislative scrutiny.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department has made a recent assessment of the potential merits of providing longer term funding for violence reduction units, beyond the current one year settlement.
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: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of central Government funding for Violence Reduction Units.
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: 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: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when her Department will announce funding arrangements for Violence Reduction Units for future financial years.
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: Lee Dillon (Liberal Democrat - Newbury)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of proposed shotgun licensing reforms on rural employment.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government response to the 2023 firearms licensing consultation, published on 13 February this year, included a commitment to having a public consultation on strengthening the licensing controls on shotguns to bring them more into line with the controls on other firearms in the interests of public safety. We intend to publish this consultation shortly.
We will carefully consider all of the views put forward during the consultation once it is completed, including from those who live and work in rural communities, before taking any decision on whether and what changes may be necessary in the interests of public safety. We will also provide an assessment of the impact of any changes that we bring forward after the consultation, including to the business community in rural areas.
Asked by: Lee Dillon (Liberal Democrat - Newbury)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department carried out an impact assessment on the introduction of an affirmative statutory instrument to amend the Public Order Act 2023.
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 (POA) (2023). 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.
A full impact assessment has not been produced for this instrument. However, the Economic Note makes frequent use of the original Impact Assessment produced for the Public Order Bill in 2022. The Economic Note also contains a specific impact test for statutory Equalities Duties in which it assesses there to be no expected impacts on any protected characteristics as an outcome of these regulations.
An Explanatory Memorandum and an Economic Note are available alongside this instrument at: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2025/9780348277029/resources
The Impact Assessment conducted for the Public Order Bill in 2022 is available here: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/58-03/0008/Impact%20Assessment%20-%20Public%20Order%20Bill%20-%2017May22.PDF
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.
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 assessment she has made of whether slow police response times to rural crime contribute to repeat offending.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Rural communities can be assured that visible, neighbourhood policing is returning to our communities. Our Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee will deliver more neighbourhood police by the end of the Parliament, whilst also ensuring each community, including rural communities, has a named, contactable officer to turn to.
The Home Office will continue to work with policing colleagues on options to deliver the 13,000 neighbourhood policing personnel, including setting out further plans and funding for subsequent years shortly.
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.
This financial year the Home Office has provided the first Government funding since 2023 for the National Rural Crime Unit (£365,000) as well as continuing funding for the National Wildlife Crime Unit (£450,000). The National Rural Crime Unit assists all police forces, including Essex, with specialist operational support in their responses to rural crime.
All reported crimes should be taken seriously, investigated and, where appropriate, taken through the courts and met with tough sentences. Operational decisions will continue to be a matter for individual police chiefs and their force, and it is right that each incident is looked at on a case-by-case basis, on the evidence available and in proportion to the crime.