Asked by: Lord Coaker (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the safeguarding of individuals accepted into the National Referral Mechanism.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
In October 2017, the Government announced an ambitious package of reforms to the National Referral Mechanism (NRM), which were developed following the 2014 Oppenheim Review, an 18-month pilot testing alternative decision-making processes, and extensive stakeholder consultation.
Adults identified in the NRM can receive specialist and tailored support through the Victim Care Contract, where they can receive accommodation, financial support, assistance in accessing mental and physical health care including counselling, and access to legal support.
Through robust contract management we ensure the safeguarding of victims of modern slavery. The prime contractor for the Victim Care Contract, The Salvation Army, is responsible for ensuring that all subcontracted provision meets the needs of victims. The Salvation Army conducts regular safeguarding reviews and it has a duty to escalate to the Home Office any safeguarding concerns that it finds. Furthermore, as part of reforms to the NRM, work is also underway to develop an independent inspection framework for care provision based on the Human Trafficking Foundation’s Survivor Care Standards.
Child victims of modern slavery are supported by local authorities under existing statutory child protection arrangements.
Asked by: Lord Coaker (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking to tackle human trafficking and modern slavery at (a) airports and (b) seaports; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
The Home Office is committed to protecting the vulnerable and modern slav-ery remains a top priority for Border Force and its operational partners.
Border Force has a network of specially trained Safeguarding and Modern Slavery (SAMS) teams based in all regions. SAMS officers are operational and readily available to ensure children and vulnerable people, including potential victims of modern slavery are dealt with effectively.
All frontline officers undertake mandatory training in SAMS related issues including keeping children safe, recognising trafficking indicators, the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) and Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).
Border Force also participates in multi-agency anti trafficking operations, engaging with airlines and port operators to provide training in modern slavery detection.
Asked by: Lord Coaker (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how the additional funds for tackling knife crime announced in the Spring Statement will be allocated to (a) the seven police forces with the highest rise in knife crime, (b) Nottinghamshire Police Force and (c) other police forces.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Chancellor of the Exchequer announced on 13 March that an additional £100 million funding in 19/20 will help in the police’s immediate response to the rise in serious knife crime, enabling priority forces to immediately begin planning to put in place the additional capacity they need. The funding will also be invested in Violence Reduction Units, bringing together a range of agencies including health, education, social services and others, to develop a multi-agency approach in preventing serious violence altogether. It is important that we recognise that greater law enforcement on its own will not reduce serious violence and that we must continue to focus on prevention.
The majority of the investment will go towards supporting police forces where violent crime is impacting the most, to take immediate action to sup-press the violence we are seeing, to make our streets safer. We are engaging with partners including the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners and we are developing the criteria by which forces will receive this funding
Asked by: Lord Coaker (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum seekers live in (a) National Asylum Support Service accommodation and (b) other accommodation.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
The number of asylum seekers and those supported asylum seekers living in asylum accommodation are part of published statistics and can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-statistics-year-ending-september-2018/list-of-tables
Asked by: Lord Coaker (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what is the average length of time that an applicant for asylum has to wait for a decision.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
The Home Office does not publish data relating to the average length of time an applicant for asylum has to wait for a decision but does publish data on the percentage of asylum applications processed within the previous service standard to decide 98% of straight forward asylum claims within 6 months of the date of claim.
Data on performance against the current published service standard can be found on tabs Asy_10 and Asy_11 of the Asylum Transparency Data November 2018 at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/asylum-transparency-data-november-2018
In the November release of the transparency data, the Home Office are still reporting performance against our previous service standard to decide all straight forward asylum cases within 6 months of the date of claim. The next release of transparency data, scheduled for 28 February 2019, will still contain data on performance and will be labelled under the title of percentage of cases decided within 6 months rather than explicitly referring to the service standard.
Asked by: Lord Coaker (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, which police forces have been successful in bids to the 2018-19 Knife Crime Prevention Fund; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The anti-knife crime Community Fund is part of the Government’s commit-ment in its Serious Violence Strategy on early intervention and prevention to tackle knife crime. The fund is open only to voluntary and community sector groups to apply. Police forces are not eligible to apply
In year 1 (2017-18) we funded 47 successful projects and a further 68 in year 2 (2018-19). We announced the successful 68 bids on 2 August 2018 with total funding of £1.5 million. All monies have been allocated and work to deliver the interventions is ongoing. The following links contain the list of pro-jects funded in years 1 and 2:
Asked by: Lord Coaker (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much funding remains available from the 2018-19 Knife Crime Prevention fund; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The anti-knife crime Community Fund is part of the Government’s commit-ment in its Serious Violence Strategy on early intervention and prevention to tackle knife crime. The fund is open only to voluntary and community sector groups to apply. Police forces are not eligible to apply
In year 1 (2017-18) we funded 47 successful projects and a further 68 in year 2 (2018-19). We announced the successful 68 bids on 2 August 2018 with total funding of £1.5 million. All monies have been allocated and work to deliver the interventions is ongoing. The following links contain the list of pro-jects funded in years 1 and 2:
Asked by: Lord Coaker (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what plans he has for the future of the voluntary national transfer scheme for unaccompanied asylum seeking children; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
Data on the local authorities participating in the National Transfer Scheme (NTS), including the number of transfers in and out of each authority, can be found in the Asylum transparency dataset, last published in November 2018 at; https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/asylum-transparency-data-november-2018.
Since it was launched in July 2016, 790 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children have been transferred via the NTS. This is a significant achievement which has seen many local authorities offer placements for children whose best interests are served by transferring to another local authority. However we recognise that the scheme is not operating as effectively as we would like. We will continue to engage with local authorities across the country to encourage further offers and consider options in how best to share the burden.
Asked by: Lord Coaker (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will list the number of unaccompanied asylum seeking children each local authority area has accepted under the voluntary national transfer scheme; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
Data on the local authorities participating in the National Transfer Scheme (NTS), including the number of transfers in and out of each authority, can be found in the Asylum transparency dataset, last published in November 2018 at; https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/asylum-transparency-data-november-2018.
Since it was launched in July 2016, 790 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children have been transferred via the NTS. This is a significant achievement which has seen many local authorities offer placements for children whose best interests are served by transferring to another local authority. However we recognise that the scheme is not operating as effectively as we would like. We will continue to engage with local authorities across the country to encourage further offers and consider options in how best to share the burden.
Asked by: Lord Coaker (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many unaccompanied asylum seeking children Nottinghamshire County Council has accepted under the voluntary national transfer scheme; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
Data on the local authorities participating in the National Transfer Scheme (NTS), including the number of transfers in and out of each authority, can be found in the Asylum transparency dataset, last published in November 2018 at; https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/asylum-transparency-data-november-2018.
Since it was launched in July 2016, 790 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children have been transferred via the NTS. This is a significant achievement which has seen many local authorities offer placements for children whose best interests are served by transferring to another local authority. However we recognise that the scheme is not operating as effectively as we would like. We will continue to engage with local authorities across the country to encourage further offers and consider options in how best to share the burden.