Asked by: Wendy Morton (Conservative - Aldridge-Brownhills)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to expand the use of stop-and-search powers in areas with persistently high levels of knife crime.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Stop and search is an important power that helps the police to get knives off our streets and save lives.
Police have powers to search any individual or vehicle where there are reasonable grounds to suspect they will find offensive weapons. Where serious violence has occurred or is anticipated, powers are available to authorise weapons searches with or without reasonable suspicion in a particular area for a limited time.
Chief constables and their officers are best placed to make operational decisions about how these powers are deployed in response to crime trends, intelligence and local needs.
In addition to supporting the use of stop and search in our efforts to reduce knife crime, we have banned zombie-style knives and ninja swords, strengthened legislation, and removed over 60,000 knives through surrender schemes and targeted operations. We are investing in prevention through the Young Futures Programme and rebuilding neighbourhood policing, with 13,000 additional police officers, Police Community Support Officers and Special Constables in neighbourhood policing roles across England and Wales by the end of this Parliament. This includes delivering 3,000 additional officers into neighbourhood policing roles by March 2026.
In the year ending March 2025, 15,955 (3.0%) stop and searches resulted in an offensive weapon or firearm being found.
Searches carried out for firearms and offensive weapons had the highest find rate at 15.7% (670) and 12.3% (9,483) respectively.
The number of arrests following searches under all legislation increased by 2,705 (up 3.6% to 78,746) in the year ending March 2025.
Data on stop and search for the year ending March 2025 was published on 6 November 2025: Police powers and procedures: Stop and search, arrests and mental health detentions, England and Wales, year ending 31 March 2025
Asked by: Debbie Abrahams (Labour - Oldham East and Saddleworth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will provide updated guidance to police forces on the enforcement of speed limits, in the context of the number of deaths caused by drivers exceeding the speed limit.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Excess speed remains a major cause of death and serious injury on our roads. Anyone who breaks the speed limit should expect to face sanction.
Current National Police Chiefs’ Council National Guidance on Speeding Enforcement advocates proportionality in applying the law and discretion to take account of the individual circumstances of each speeding offence and take the action they consider appropriate.
Enforcement measures range from informal advice, the offer of a speed awareness course or fixed penalty, and where speeding results in a fatality to court prosecution.
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 the difference in police response times to time-sensitive incidents such as (a) vehicle theft and (b) robberies of retail premises in (i) rural areas and (ii) urban areas.
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.
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 the potential impact of delayed police response times on (a) crime reporting and (b) public confidence in rural communities.
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.
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, whether police forces are required to publish response time data broken down by rural and urban classification.
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.
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: Wendy Morton (Conservative - Aldridge-Brownhills)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to expand the use of stop-and-search powers in areas with persistently high levels of knife crime.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Stop and search is an important power that helps the police to get knives off our streets and save lives.
Police have powers to search any individual or vehicle where there are reasonable grounds to suspect they will find offensive weapons. Where serious violence has occurred or is anticipated, powers are available to authorise weapons searches with or without reasonable suspicion in a particular area for a limited time.
Chief constables and their officers are best placed to make operational decisions about how these powers are deployed in response to crime trends, intelligence and local needs.
In addition to supporting the use of stop and search in our efforts to reduce knife crime, we have banned zombie-style knives and ninja swords, strengthened legislation, and removed over 60,000 knives through surrender schemes and targeted operations. We are investing in prevention through the Young Futures Programme and rebuilding neighbourhood policing, with 13,000 additional police officers, Police Community Support Officers and Special Constables in neighbourhood policing roles across England and Wales by the end of this Parliament. This includes delivering 3,000 additional officers into neighbourhood policing roles by March 2026.
In the year ending March 2025, 15,955 (3.0%) stop and searches resulted in an offensive weapon or firearm being found.
Searches carried out for firearms and offensive weapons had the highest find rate at 15.7% (670) and 12.3% (9,483) respectively.
The number of arrests following searches under all legislation increased by 2,705 (up 3.6% to 78,746) in the year ending March 2025.
Data on stop and search for the year ending March 2025 was published on 6 November 2025: Police powers and procedures: Stop and search, arrests and mental health detentions, England and Wales, year ending 31 March 2025
Asked by: Tom Morrison (Liberal Democrat - Cheadle)
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 the time taken to obtain national passports on the access by refugees to regulated professions; and what steps she plans to take to ensure that refugees with the right to work can access roles for which they are qualified.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
Refugees do not automatically hold British nationality. Instead, they are typically granted refugee status or humanitarian protection, which allows them to live and work in the UK but does not confer British citizenship.
Refugees are not required to hold a British passport in order to work in the UK. Identity checks, including those for regulated professions, can be satisfied using alternative documentation such as a Biometric Residence Permit (BRP).
Where international travel is required for work purposes, refugees may apply for a Refugee Travel Document rather than a national passport.
Asked by: Tom Morrison (Liberal Democrat - Cheadle)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many applications submitted under the Super-Priority Visa Service have exceeded the 24-hour decision standard in the last 12 months; and what the longest waiting time has been.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
While the Home Office does not produce stand along statistics to fully answer this question, some of the information requested can be found here: Migration transparency data - GOV.UK