Asked by: Lord Spellar (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that police have adequate powers to detain vehicles with number plates that are non-readable by automatic number plate recognition systems in order to assess whether the vehicle or driver have committed other offences.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
This Government takes road safety extremely seriously and is committed to reducing the numbers of those killed and injured on our roads, as well as tackling behaviours that make our roads less safe. We have tough penalties and rigorous enforcement in place to deter offending behaviour. The government published the Road Safety Strategy on 7 January which consults on a number of motoring offences, including tougher enforcement to tackle illegal number plates. Police have a suite of powers to deal with vehicles being driven illegally, anti-socially or carelessly and without insurance or a driving licence. These powers include seizure and disposal of vehicles involved in offences. Police also have the power to stop a vehicle so that further investigation of potential offences can take place.The Government is also working with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency, the National Police Chiefs’ Council, the police and industry to improve the identification and enforcement of number plate crime.
Asked by: Lord Spellar (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many work visas were issued to residents of China last year.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office publishes data on entry clearance visas by visa type, nationality and year in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’.
Data on grants of work visas to Chinese nationals 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.
Please note that nationals of China may be resident in other countries at the point of application.
Chinese (main applicants) were granted 4499 work visas in 2024, including 1699 in the skilled worker category.
Asked by: Lord Spellar (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Hanson of Flint on 3 September (HL10232), how many asylum seekers are currently placed in (1) hotels, (2) houses of multiple occupation, and (3) other locations and facilities in England, broken down by local council.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
The latest published Immigration Statistics detail the number of supported asylum seekers accommodated in contingency and dispersed accommodation, including houses of multiple occupation, across England as at 30 June 2025.
The below figures are broken down by region. The data is available on GOV.UK under Immigration statistics and can be further broken down by local authority.
Region | Hotels | Dispersed Accommodation | Other |
East Midlands | 1,755 | 5,142 | 348 |
East of England | 2,757 | 2,527 | 1,556 |
London | 10,081 | 4,350 | 2,730 |
North East | 309 | 6,891 | 96 |
North West | 3,686 | 16,820 | 690 |
South East | 3,402 | 3,122 | 449 |
South West | 2,132 | 2,262 | 126 |
West Midlands | 3,913 | 8,930 | 427 |
Yorkshire and Humber | 2,129 | 6,956 | 601 |
This Government is delivering on its pledge to close asylum hotels; drastically reducing taxpayer costs and giving control back to local communities. This Government is committed to ending the use of hotels to house asylum seekers by the end of the Parliament.
Asked by: Lord Spellar (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when he plans to reply to the letter of 12 February 2024 from the Rt hon. Member for Warley.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
The letter was transferred to the Home Office from the Department for Business and Trade on 18 April. We are considering the matters raised and will respond shortly.
Asked by: Lord Spellar (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when she plans to bring into force the provisions of the Public Order Act 2023 introducing safe access zones around abortion clinics.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
The timescales for commencing the new Section 9 offence of interference with access to, or provision of, abortion services will be confirmed in due course.
Asked by: Lord Spellar (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum seekers are housed in (a) Sandwell and (b) each of the other local authorities in the West Midlands as of 13 October 2023.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
Published statistics of where asylum seekers are accommodated can be viewed under the Local Authority Dataset Asy-D11 at:
Asylum and resettlement datasets - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Lord Spellar (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many student visas were issued to students at (a) Oxford and (b) Cambridge University in 2022.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
We do not routinely publish the number of student visas for individual sponsors. For details of our published data on student visas, this can be found in the available Migration Statistics on GOV.UK: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-statistics-year-ending-june-2023/why-do-people-come-to-the-uk-to-study
Asked by: Lord Spellar (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment she has made of the ability of TLScontact to meet the terms of its contract with her Department.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
UKVI closely monitor and manage the contract with TLS Contact on a daily basis and robustly review how they are performing to ensure we are providing a high-quality service for our visa customers.
This includes holding regular reviews to assess their performance in line with the Service Level Agreements in the contract and to ensure any service level failures are identified and resolved. We have a clear governance process in place to ensure that any incidents, risks and issues are effectively addressed.
Asked by: Lord Spellar (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to her Answer to the hon. Member for Warley on 13 December 2022, Official Report, column 874, whether she has made a recent assessment of the potential merits of proscribing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Answered by Tom Tugendhat
While the UK Government keeps the list of proscribed organisations under review, we do not routinely comment on whether an organisation is or is not being considered for proscription.
We have long been clear about our concerns over the malign activity of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The UK maintains sanctions on over 300 Iranian individuals and entities covering human rights abuses, nuclear proliferation and terrorism. The Government has also imposed sanctions on the IRGC in its entirety and on several senior security and political figures in Iran, including senior commanders within the IRGC and its Basij force.
Asked by: Lord Spellar (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of the performance of Action Fraud.
Answered by Tom Tugendhat
Tackling fraud is a priority for this government. Making it easier and more efficient for the public to report fraud is central to our efforts.
In light of advances to technology, growing demand on the service and an independent review by Sir Craig Mackey exploring the performance and function of Action Fraud, we are providing over £30 million to City of London Police over the next three years to support the upgrade of the Action Fraud service.
The upgrade is already underway, with improvements so far including more staff, better trained staff and vulnerable victims being prioritised. In 2023, a new, user-friendly, accessible reporting tool and website will be launched, offering an improved victim experience and simpler pathways to access further support and guidance.
The new service is expected to be fully operational by 2024. The upgrades will provide better support services and reporting tools for victims, produce greater intelligence and insight for policing so they can investigate more frauds, and allow for greater prevention and disruption at scale using this intelligence.