Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has had recent discussions with the Metropolitan Police on creating a stop and search charter for London.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office has a regular programme of force engagement on stop and search, including with the Metropolitan Police Service. This has not specifically covered the creation of a stop and search charter for London.
The Home Office have recently run a consultation on our proposed framework for community scrutiny of stop and search, to ensure the power is used proportionately and appropriately.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the most common causes of gaps in the time between (a) visa or asylum appeals being approved at tribunal and (b) those decisions being implemented.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The requested information cannot be accurately extracted from our internal systems. To provide this information would require a manual trawl of successful appeals and to do so would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average time taken to implement (a) visa and (b) asylum appeals that were accepted at tribunal stage was in the last 12 months.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The requested information cannot be accurately extracted from our internal systems. To provide this information would require a manual trawl of successful appeals and to do so would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to reduce the time taken to implement visa and asylum appeals that are overturned by the tribunal court.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The requested information cannot be accurately extracted from our internal systems. To provide this information would require a manual trawl of successful appeals and to do so would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will publish a timetable on the implementation of buffer zones around abortion clinics.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Public Order Act 2023 received Royal Assent on 2 May. Implementation of the Public Order Act measures is staggered.
The Government respects the will of Parliament and is working to commence Safe Access Zones as soon as is practicably possible. We have been considering what needs to be done to ensure Safe Access Zones can be implemented as effectively as possible, with law enforcement agencies having a clear and consistent understanding around enforcement, and abortion service providers and protestors being clear as to what is expected under the new law.
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: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions she has had with the Leader of the House on parliamentary time for legislation on the introduction of buffer zones around abortion clinics.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
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: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will publish her Department's risk assessment for its policy of seizing medicines in short-term holding centres.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
We take the welfare of people in our care extremely seriously and we continue to improve our short-term holding facilities. Individual risk assessments are conducted on all individuals entering a detention facility. Suitability for detention is assessed on a case-by-case basis with consideration of appropriate escalation points to safeguard individuals with vulnerabilities, including on prescribed medication.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when she plans to publish the review into the process of police officer dismissals.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
Officers who fall seriously short of the standards expected have no place in our police, and we must ensure they can be dismissed as swiftly as possible.
The Government established a review to consider the effectiveness of the disciplinary system at removing officers who fall far short of the high standards expected of them. Ministers are considering the findings of the review carefully and will make announcements on next steps as soon as practicable.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether the Government plans to reintroduce the ban on animal experimentation.
Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)
Animal testing of cosmetics for consumer safety has been banned in the UK since 1998 and this remains in force.
On 17 May 2023 the Government announced it is going further by banning, with immediate effect, licences to test ingredients exclusively used in the production of cosmetics for the purposes of worker safety.
The Home Secretary has issued a Written Ministerial Statement, which can be found here: https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2023-05-17/hcws779.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many additional immigration officers are undergoing training in order to expand the current staffing level.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
For security reasons, we would not disclose this level of detail about our workforce. The overall number of officers employed by both Immigration Enforcement and Border Force is at page 107 of the Home Office Annual Report and Accounts: HO annual report and accounts 2020-21 (publishing.service.gov.uk).