Asked by: Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to enact new laws designed to protect children who are at risk of sex abuse online.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Shadow Chief Whip (Lords)
Nothing is more important than the safety of our children. The UK Government is committed to stamping out all forms of child sexual exploitation and abuse and continuing to be a global leader in tackling child sexual exploitation and abuse.
Last year we announced an additional £30 million to safeguard children from child sexual exploitation and abuse, both at home and online. This includes £9.86 million to the National Crime Agency (NCA) to improve its ability to tackle perpetrators seeking to offend against children via the Dark Web and £3.36 million to further improve our understanding and tackle all aspects of the threat.
Recognising the unprecedented challenge posed by the impact of COVID-19 and restrictions to prevent its spread, the Prime Minister hosted a cross-Government Hidden Harms Virtual Summit, to bring together key decisions makers and agree actions to combat hidden crimes, including child sexual abuse. We have also worked across government, with law enforcement and the third sector to provide information and advice about child sexual exploitation and abuse to schools, parents, carers and children and to ensure that victims and survivors continue to have access to the greatest possible support.
For example through the NCA’s #OnlineSafetyAtHome campaign and their ThinkUKnow resources, as well as published guidance on GOV.UK. We have also galvanised industry and international partners to raise awareness of online safety in response to COVID-19 and formally launched the Voluntary Principles to Counter Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse.
In the Queen’s Speech in December 2019, the Government committed to develop legislation to improve internet safety for all. This will build on the proposals in the Online Harms White Paper, published in April 2019 which set out our plans for world-leading legislation to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online.
We intend to establish in law a new duty of care on companies towards their users, overseen by an independent regulator. The duty of care will require companies to put in place appropriate systems to deal with harmful content on their services and keep users safe. Companies will be required to take particularly robust action on tackling online child sexual exploitation and abuse.
On 12 February the Government published an initial response to the Online Harms White Paper consultation. We are working on a full Government response, which will be published shortly. This will be released alongside an interim code of practice to tackle online child sexual exploitation and abuse. This code will set out steps that companies can take to tackle online child sexual exploitation and abuse on a voluntary basis, ahead of any regulatory system introduced following the proposals in the Online Harms White Paper.
Asked by: Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people were deported from each constituent part of the UK in 2013 and 2014.
Answered by James Brokenshire
We are unable to provide a breakdown of the number of removals for each constituent part of the UK but the total number of removals is available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statistics-october-to-december-2014-data-tables
Asked by: Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what counter-terrorism measures she has put in place to counter the threat of Islamic State.
Answered by James Brokenshire
This Government has put in place a range of counter-terrorism measures to
protect the public and British interests from all forms of terrorism, including
that posed by ISIL. Our priority is to dissuade people from travelling to
areas of conflict in the first place. To this end, our Prevent Strategy
includes work to identify and support individuals at risk of radicalisation.
The Counter-Terrorism and Security Act, which received Royal Assent last month,
added to existing powers by: disrupting the ability of people to travel abroad
to fight, and to return here; enhancing our ability to monitor and control the
actions of those in the UK that pose a threat; and combating the underlying
ideology that feeds, supports and sanctions terrorism.
The fight against Islamist extremist terrorism is not just one that we can wage
by the police and border controls. It needs every school, every university,
every college, every community to recognise they have a role to play. The
Prevent duty contained in the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act requires
specified authorities to have due regard to the need to prevent people from
being drawn into terrorism.
Asked by: Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people (a) applied and (b) successfully resettled in Northern Ireland under the Vulnerable Persons Relocation Scheme in 2013 and 2014.
Answered by James Brokenshire
The Vulnerable Persons Relocation scheme was launched in January 2014 to help particularly vulnerable Syrians who are displaced in the regions neighbouring Syria, for whom resettlement to the UK is the only option. In particular, the programme prioritises survivors of torture and violence, women and children at risk and those in need of medical care. We are working closely with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the region to identify the exceptional cases whose needs are so profound that they need to be resettled to a country like the UK.
Individuals do not apply but are referred by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Northern Ireland is not currently participating in the scheme.
143 people were relocated to the UK under the Vulnerable Persons Relocation scheme between the first group of arrivals on 25 March 2014 and the end of December 2014. This is the latest publicly available figure, as numbers are released as part of the Home Office official statistics each quarter.
Asked by: Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many foreign criminals remain in the UK after being released from prison in the latest period for which figures are available; and how many were deported.
Answered by James Brokenshire
The information requested is available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-enforcement-data-february-2015