Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
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 a) threats, b) surveillance and c) other forms of intimidation by the Iranian state on Iranian activists residing in the United Kingdom.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
Though we do not routinely comment on operational matters or specific threats, the UK will always stand up to threats from foreign states. Any attempt by a foreign state to intimidate, harass or harm individuals in the UK will not be tolerated, and will be thoroughly investigated.
The National Security Act 2023 strengthens our powers to counter state threats, including from Iran, and provides the security services and law enforcement agencies with the tools they need to deter, detect, and disrupt these threats. Last year, new training for front police officers and staff was rolled out to increase their understanding of state threats, which will improve law enforcement’s ability to detect and investigate incidents which may be state directed.
The UK Government, law enforcement and our international partners continue to work together to identify, deter and respond to threats from Iran. In September, the G7 Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM) issued a public statement condemning transnational repression and other malign activities by Iran.
The Government's top priority is our national security, and we will continue to use all appropriate tools at our disposal to protect the UK, and its people, from any Iran-linked threats.
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 the Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee on police response times to time-sensitive incidents in rural villages, such as a) Bulphan, b) Orsett and c) Horndon-on-the-Hill in South Basildon and East Thurrock constituency.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee set out commitments for police forces to implement, by July 2025, and by the end of Parliament. Forces are now delivering on the Guarantee across England and Wales to ensure consistent and high-quality neighbourhood policing, including in rural areas.
Forces now have named, contactable officers dedicated to tackling issues in their communities. Forces are also providing a guarantee of 72-hour response times to neighbourhood queries from communities.
All reports into the police, either via telephone or online, are triaged by the local force control room and response type and timeliness will be determined by the nature of the report and availability of resources. The Home Office does not hold data on response times to time-sensitive incidents in rural villages, however, should an incident be time critical and requiring rapid response, the public are advised to call 999.
Based on their £4,495,599 allocation from the Neighbourhood Policing Grant, Essex are projected to grow by 74 FTE NHP police officers in 2025-26.
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 adequacy of police response times to rural crime by Essex Police.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
I refer the Hon. Member to UIN 101709 answered on 9th January 2026.
Asked by: Baroness Featherstone (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of whether the retrospective application of new settlement rules is consistent with the principles of administrative fairness and legitimate expectation for residents who entered under previous settlement rules.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
The earned settlement model, proposed in ‘A Fairer Pathway to Settlement’, is currently subject to a public consultation, which remains open until 12 February 2026.
The consultation seeks views on whether there should be transitional arrangements for those already on a pathway to settlement, in order to ease the impact of changes for particular groups or preserve already afforded permissions by the previous system. No transitional arrangements have been decided upon yet.
Details of the earned settlement model, including any transitional arrangements for those already in the UK, will be finalised following that consultation. The principles of administrative fairness will be considered in the formulation of the final policy with the aid of the consultation findings. The final model will also be subject to economic and equality impact assessments, which we have committed to publish in due course.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of police time is spent on possession offences compared with tackling organised drug crime.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Police Activity Survey (PAS) provides an estimate of how much police time is spent on various policing activities. The PAS was conducted over a 7-day period in February 2023, with 35 out of the 43 police forces in England and Wales participating.
The results show that over this period, responding to specific crime incident activity accounts for 34.9% of all recorded police time. Of the time spent on specific crime incident activity, 3.1% was spent on possession of drug crime incidents, 2.7% on possession of weapons incidents and 5.6% on trafficking of drug incidents.
The PAS does not capture whether or not the offences were organised crime related. Therefore, no specific data is available on the proportion of time spent on tackling organised drug crime.
Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
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 aligning shotgun and firearm licensing systems on (a) public safety and (b) police licensing resource capacity.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government response to the 2023 firearms licensing consultation, published on 13 February 2025, 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, before deciding whether and what changes are necessary in the interests of public safety. We will also provide an impact assessment in relation to any changes that we intend to bring forward after the consultation including, as appropriate, impact on the police, the rural economy, sports, wildlife management and crop protection, in the normal way.
Asked by: James Cleverly (Conservative - Braintree)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the oral answer of 26 November 2025, Official Report, House of Lords, Column 1331, on West Midlands Police: Maccabi Tel Aviv Fans, if she will publish the review.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary’s inspection report on West Midlands Police’s match assessment for the Aston Villa v Maccabi Tel Aviv match has been published on GOV.UK.
The report has also been deposited in both House libraries and shared with the Home Affairs Select Committee.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to ensure adequate policing in Washington and Gateshead South constituency.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government’s Safer Streets Mission sets a clear expectation for policing to deliver safer communities and improved public confidence. An effective, well-supported police service is central to achieving this.
For 2025-26, a total of up to £422.2 million will be available for Northumbria Police through the police funding settlement, an overall increase of up to £28.8 million when compared to the 2024-25 settlement.
This includes:
It is for Chief Constables and directly elected PCCs, and Mayors with PCC functions, to make operational decisions based on their local knowledge and experience. This includes how best to allocate and deploy the resources at their disposal to provide an effective service to local communities.
Asked by: Chris Kane (Labour - Stirling and Strathallan)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many Charity Worker Visa applications have been granted in each year of the operation of that visa route.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Home Office publishes data on entry clearance visas by visa route, including Charity Worker visas, in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’.
Data on the outcomes of visa applications are published in table ‘Vis_D02’ of the detailed entry clearance visas dataset.
Information on how to use the dataset can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbook. The latest data is from January 2005 up to the end of September 2025.
Information on future Home Office statistical release dates can be found in the ‘Research and statistics calendar’.
Asked by: Tristan Osborne (Labour - Chatham and Aylesford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of reclassifying Ketamine from a Class B to Class A drug.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Ketamine is a dangerous substance, which can cause irreversible bladder damage and in some cases death. Ministers are concerned about the harms ketamine causes and on 16 October 2025 the Department for Health and Social Care launched a campaign to alert young people to its dangers.
In January 2025 the Government asked the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) to provide an updated harms assessment of ketamine, advice on reducing those harms and whether ketamine should be moved from Class B to Class A within the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.
The ACMD carried out a public call for evidence in August 2025, and we expect to receive its report soon. We will then carefully consider its recommendations.