Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many potential crimes involving AI deepfake programmes were reported in each of the last three years.
Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)
Generative artificial intelligence services have made it easier to produce convincing deepfake content and, whilst there are legitimate use cases this is also impacting a range of crime types.
The Home Office is working closely with law enforcement, international partners, industry and across Government to address the risks associated with deepfakes. This includes reviewing the extent to which existing criminal law provides coverage of AI-enabled offending and harmful behaviour, including the production and distribution of deepfake material using generative AI. If the review suggests alterations to the criminal law are required to clarify its application to AI-generated synthetic and manipulated material then amendments will be considered in the usual way.
The Online Safety Act places new requirements on social media platforms to swiftly remove illegal content - including artificial intelligence-generated deepfakes - as soon as they become aware of it. The Act also updates Ofcom’s statutory media literacy duty to require it to take tangible steps to prioritise the public's awareness of and resilience to misinformation and disinformation online. This includes enabling users to establish the reliability, accuracy, and authenticity of content.
We have no current plans to ban services which generate deepfakes, however Government has been clear that companies providing AI services should take steps to ensure safety and reduce the risks of misuse. This was discussed at the Government’s AI Safety Summit in November 2023, reinforcing our commitment to international collaboration on this shared challenge.
Crime is recorded on the basis of the underlying offence, not whether a deepfake was involved, and we are therefore unable to provide a figure for deepfake-enabled crimes.
We are unable to provide figures for departmental spending as this is captured according to crime type, or broader work on artificial intelligence, and not broken down into activities specific to deepfakes.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether his Department is taking steps to help tackle the rise in artificial intelligence generated deepfake crime.
Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)
Generative artificial intelligence services have made it easier to produce convincing deepfake content and, whilst there are legitimate use cases this is also impacting a range of crime types.
The Home Office is working closely with law enforcement, international partners, industry and across Government to address the risks associated with deepfakes. This includes reviewing the extent to which existing criminal law provides coverage of AI-enabled offending and harmful behaviour, including the production and distribution of deepfake material using generative AI. If the review suggests alterations to the criminal law are required to clarify its application to AI-generated synthetic and manipulated material then amendments will be considered in the usual way.
The Online Safety Act places new requirements on social media platforms to swiftly remove illegal content - including artificial intelligence-generated deepfakes - as soon as they become aware of it. The Act also updates Ofcom’s statutory media literacy duty to require it to take tangible steps to prioritise the public's awareness of and resilience to misinformation and disinformation online. This includes enabling users to establish the reliability, accuracy, and authenticity of content.
We have no current plans to ban services which generate deepfakes, however Government has been clear that companies providing AI services should take steps to ensure safety and reduce the risks of misuse. This was discussed at the Government’s AI Safety Summit in November 2023, reinforcing our commitment to international collaboration on this shared challenge.
Crime is recorded on the basis of the underlying offence, not whether a deepfake was involved, and we are therefore unable to provide a figure for deepfake-enabled crimes.
We are unable to provide figures for departmental spending as this is captured according to crime type, or broader work on artificial intelligence, and not broken down into activities specific to deepfakes.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he has plans to outlaw the use of artificial intelligence deepfake programmes.
Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)
Generative artificial intelligence services have made it easier to produce convincing deepfake content and, whilst there are legitimate use cases this is also impacting a range of crime types.
The Home Office is working closely with law enforcement, international partners, industry and across Government to address the risks associated with deepfakes. This includes reviewing the extent to which existing criminal law provides coverage of AI-enabled offending and harmful behaviour, including the production and distribution of deepfake material using generative AI. If the review suggests alterations to the criminal law are required to clarify its application to AI-generated synthetic and manipulated material then amendments will be considered in the usual way.
The Online Safety Act places new requirements on social media platforms to swiftly remove illegal content - including artificial intelligence-generated deepfakes - as soon as they become aware of it. The Act also updates Ofcom’s statutory media literacy duty to require it to take tangible steps to prioritise the public's awareness of and resilience to misinformation and disinformation online. This includes enabling users to establish the reliability, accuracy, and authenticity of content.
We have no current plans to ban services which generate deepfakes, however Government has been clear that companies providing AI services should take steps to ensure safety and reduce the risks of misuse. This was discussed at the Government’s AI Safety Summit in November 2023, reinforcing our commitment to international collaboration on this shared challenge.
Crime is recorded on the basis of the underlying offence, not whether a deepfake was involved, and we are therefore unable to provide a figure for deepfake-enabled crimes.
We are unable to provide figures for departmental spending as this is captured according to crime type, or broader work on artificial intelligence, and not broken down into activities specific to deepfakes.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the cost to the public purse was to process fraud related crimes in each year since 2015.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
We do not hold annual data on the public sector costs of policing and criminal justice costs (CJS) of fraud.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many illegal migrants are due to be rehoused from hotels to other forms of accommodation in (a) the United Kingdom and (b) Romford constituency by the end of February 2024.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson - Minister of State (Minister for Illegal Migration)
The Home Office has always been clear that use of hotels as temporary accommodation for asylum seekers was a short-term measure to ensure that we met our statutory obligation to accommodate asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute during a period of unprecedented numbers of small boat arrivals.
We are making significant progress in closing hotels, with 50 due to be closed by the end of January and many more in the coming months.
The programme of closures will be managed carefully to ensure all supported asylum seekers are provided with suitable alternative accommodation elsewhere in the estate. Dispersal accommodation and large disused military sites are cheaper for the taxpayer and less impactful on communities.
Data on the number of supported asylum seekers in accommodation (including in contingency hotels and other contingency accommodation) is published in table Asy_D11 here: Asylum and resettlement datasets - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)(opens in a new tab).
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will hold discussions with (a) HSBC and (b) Standard Chartered on taking steps to publish all communications between their organisations and the Hong Kong Mandatory Provident Fund Authority in the last three years.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The publication of such communications is ultimately a decision for Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF) trustees, who are regulated by the MPF Authority in Hong Kong. The Government firmly opposes the MPF’s discrimination against British National (Overseas) status holders (BN(O)s) and we will continue to urge the Hong Kong authorities and all relevant bodies to facilitate early drawdown of funds for BN(O)s as is the case for other Hong Kong residents who move overseas permanently. The conduct of UK banking institutions is not a matter for the Home Office, but I have asked my officials to raise this matter with HM Treasury.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he has taken to work with relevant authorities to tackle violent crime against retail workers in (i) England and (ii) Romford constituency.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government recognises the significant impact shoplifting has on businesses, communities and consumers. The Crime Survey for England and Wales shows neighbourhood crime is down 51% compared to findings from the year ending March 2010.
However, Police Recorded Crime figures show shoplifting offences increased by 25% in the 12 months to June 2023. Statistics also show the number of people charged with shoplifting offences has risen by 29% in the year ending June 2023.
We have recently made significant steps to improve the police response to retail crime, including shoplifting.
In October, the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) published the Retail Crime Action Plan. Through this Plan, all forces across England and Wales have committed to prioritise police attendance at the scene where violence has been used towards shop staff, where an offender has been detained by store security, and where evidence needs to be secured and can only be done by police personnel. Additionally, where CCTV or other digital images are secured, police will run this through the Police National Database to aid efforts to identify prolific offenders or potentially dangerous individuals.
This builds on the NPCC commitment that police forces across England and Wales will follow up all crimes where there is actionable evidence and the chance of identifying an offender, including shoplifting.
October also saw the launch of Pegasus, a unique private-public partnership, which involves retailers providing data, intelligence and evidence to Opal, the national police intelligence unit on organised acquisitive crime, to develop a better strategic picture and help forces crack down on serious offenders.
The Government is clear that violent and abusive behaviour towards any worker, particularly those who provide a valuable service to the public, is never acceptable.
In 2022 we took the significant step to introduce a statutory aggravating factor for assault against those who are serving the public. Section 156 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 means the public facing nature of a victim’s role will be considered an aggravating factor when it comes to sentencing for assault offences, allowing the court to give a longer sentence within the statutory maximum for the offence.
The Government also continues to work closely with retail businesses, security representatives, trade associations and policing through the National Retail Crime Steering Group (NRCSG) to ensure the response to retail crime is as robust as it can be.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he has taken to work with relevant authorities to tackle shoplifting in (a) England and (b) Romford constituency.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government recognises the significant impact shoplifting has on businesses, communities and consumers. The Crime Survey for England and Wales shows neighbourhood crime is down 51% compared to findings from the year ending March 2010.
However, Police Recorded Crime figures show shoplifting offences increased by 25% in the 12 months to June 2023. Statistics also show the number of people charged with shoplifting offences has risen by 29% in the year ending June 2023.
We have recently made significant steps to improve the police response to retail crime, including shoplifting.
In October, the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) published the Retail Crime Action Plan. Through this Plan, all forces across England and Wales have committed to prioritise police attendance at the scene where violence has been used towards shop staff, where an offender has been detained by store security, and where evidence needs to be secured and can only be done by police personnel. Additionally, where CCTV or other digital images are secured, police will run this through the Police National Database to aid efforts to identify prolific offenders or potentially dangerous individuals.
This builds on the NPCC commitment that police forces across England and Wales will follow up all crimes where there is actionable evidence and the chance of identifying an offender, including shoplifting.
October also saw the launch of Pegasus, a unique private-public partnership, which involves retailers providing data, intelligence and evidence to Opal, the national police intelligence unit on organised acquisitive crime, to develop a better strategic picture and help forces crack down on serious offenders.
The Government is clear that violent and abusive behaviour towards any worker, particularly those who provide a valuable service to the public, is never acceptable.
In 2022 we took the significant step to introduce a statutory aggravating factor for assault against those who are serving the public. Section 156 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 means the public facing nature of a victim’s role will be considered an aggravating factor when it comes to sentencing for assault offences, allowing the court to give a longer sentence within the statutory maximum for the offence.
The Government also continues to work closely with retail businesses, security representatives, trade associations and policing through the National Retail Crime Steering Group (NRCSG) to ensure the response to retail crime is as robust as it can be.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he has taken to work with relevant authorities to tackle knife (a) possession and (b) crime among youth in (i) England and (ii) Romford constituency.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
Tackling knife crime is a priority and the Government is determined to crack down on the scourge of violence devastating our communities.
We recently consulted on new legislative proposals to tackle knife crime and as a result, in the Criminal Justice Bill, we have introduced provisions to provide more powers for police to seize knives held in private that could be used in crimes, increase the maximum penalty for the offences of selling prohibited weapons and selling knives to under 18s. In the next few weeks, the Government intends to introduce a new ban on zombie-style machetes and knives.
As a result of the Government’s Police Uplift Programme (PUP) the Metropolitan police service has recruited 3,468 additional uplift officers against a total three-year allocation of 4,557 officers. The Metropolitan Police’s funding will be up to £3,581.1 million for 2024/25, an increase of up to £118.9 million when compared to 2023/24.
Under this Government, it has never been easier for the police to make legitimate use of stop and search powers. Every knife seized through stop and search is a potential life saved. In 2022-23, stop and search removed over 15,000 weapons and firearms from our streets and resulted over 74,000 arrests across England and Wales. In Essex there were over 2,000 resultant arrests following a stop and search and almost 4,600 searches resulted in a stolen or prohibited article being found in 2022-23.
The Home Office has invested over £160m since 2019 into the development of 20 Violence Reduction Units across England and Wales with a further £55m made available for 2023/24. Since 2019, we have provided over £43 million to develop and run the London Violence Reduction Unit, which covers Havering. This includes an investment of £9.5m in 2023/24. Violence Reduction Units deter people, particularly young people, from becoming involved in serious violence by bringing together partners from health, probation, policing, housing and beyond and investing in the best evidence-based interventions.
Through our Grip programme, we are providing additional funding to enable the Metropolitan police to boost patrols in specific streets and neighbourhoods most affected by violence, including Romford High Street. This programme is providing regular, visible patrols to deter violence and provide community reassurance as well as problem-oriented policing.
Problem-oriented policing is based on an analytical approach that seeks to identify and respond to the specific drivers of violence as they affect the particular location, so that working with partners, the police can take effective preventative action to tackle these. Since 2019, we have provided The Met Police with c.£51.8 million for their delivery of the programme and have awarded them a further c.£8.9 million for this (23/24) financial year.
Violence Reduction Units, in combination with GRIP, have delivered a statistically significant reduction in hospital admissions for violent injuries since funding began in 2019 (an estimated 3,220 admissions have been prevented in areas where the programmes operate).
Over 10 years the Home Office is investing £200m in early intervention and prevention initiatives to help children and young people at risk of exploitation and involvement in serious violence, through the Youth Endowment Fund.
The YEF have funded the SW!TCH Lives project in Romford, which aimed to promote positive actions and emotions and reduce risky behaviour by providing young people with consistent, positive role models, weekly mentoring and positive peer networks. They have also funded ‘You and Me Counselling’ as part of the COVID-19 Learning Project, which aimed to provide targeted support to young people at risk of being involved in violence; and second, to learn fast about the best ways to reach young people during a period of social distancing.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking to tackle bike thefts in (a) London and (b) Havering.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Crime Survey England and Wales latest findings shows bicycle theft is down 54% in year ending June 2023, compared with year ending March 2010.
In 2020 the Government published Gear Change – a bold vision for cycling and walking. Theme 4 of Gear Change includes various initiatives to reduce cycle theft.
Through National Cycle Crime Group, working with Department for Transport, Cycle Crime Reduction Partnerships have been set up across the country to coordinate regional enforcement activity to disrupt organised cycle theft and raise awareness of better security. Partnerships have been established in in Birmingham, Manchester, Scotland, Oxford, Cambridge, and Wales, with more currently being established in London.
British Transport Police have also launched the ‘double lock it’ campaign with police forces and organisations, providing advice to owners to help better protect their bicycles. Further information on the campaign and bicycle locks can be found here: https://www.btp.police.uk/police-forces/british-transport-police/areas/campaigns/double-lock-it/.