Asked by: Madeleine Moon (Labour - Bridgend)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how her Department plans to support the efficient management of migration flows and integration of refugees when the UK no longer receives funding from the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
All projects under the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) will continue to receive funding for the lifetime of their projects, even if the UK leaves the EU without a deal.
Asked by: Madeleine Moon (Labour - Bridgend)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 9 May 2019 to Question 250458, in what exceptional circumstances there is discretion to grant visas outside the Immigration Rules for extended family members.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
Where a refugee family reunion application does not meet the requirements of the Immigration Rules, caseworkers must consider whether there are any exceptional circumstances or compassionate factors which may justify a grant of leave outside the Immigration Rules. We revised our guidance in 2016 to include more detail on the types of case that may benefit from a visa outside the Rules, this includes young adult sons or daughters who are dependent on family here and living in dangerous situations.
Specifically, exceptional circumstances or compassionate factors apply where a refusal would either breach the right to respect for family life under Article 8 of the ECHR or result in unjustifiably harsh consequences for the applicant or their family.
It is for the applicant to demonstrate what the exceptional circumstances or compassionate factors are in their case. Each case must be decided on its individual merits.
Asked by: Madeleine Moon (Labour - Bridgend)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his department is taking to prevent the availability and distribution of child sexual abuse material online; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Whilst there is no definitive number of child sex abuse images online, industry made over 10m referrals to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in 2017, and the Internet Watch Foundation last year processed 132,636 reports in 2017 (26% increase on 2016).
As well as working closely with the IWF, including the sharing of hashes with industry, the UK Government has invested in Project Arachnid – a tool that crawls the web to find indecent imagery and get it removed. It has issued approximately 1 million notices to service providers.
In September 2018, the Home Secretary called on industry to raise their response online child sexual exploitation and abuse, including to block child sexual abuse material as soon as companies detect it being uploaded. The Home Office and DCMS are also developing a White Paper which will set out a range of legislative and non-legislative measures to counter online harms and set clear responsibilities for tech companies to keep UK citizens safe online. Protecting children from exploitation and abuse online will be a central component of the White Paper.
Asked by: Madeleine Moon (Labour - Bridgend)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate he has made of the number of child sexual abuse images online in each of the last five years; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Whilst there is no definitive number of child sex abuse images online, industry made over 10m referrals to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in 2017, and the Internet Watch Foundation last year processed 132,636 reports in 2017 (26% increase on 2016).
As well as working closely with the IWF, including the sharing of hashes with industry, the UK Government has invested in Project Arachnid – a tool that crawls the web to find indecent imagery and get it removed. It has issued approximately 1 million notices to service providers.
In September 2018, the Home Secretary called on industry to raise their response online child sexual exploitation and abuse, including to block child sexual abuse material as soon as companies detect it being uploaded. The Home Office and DCMS are also developing a White Paper which will set out a range of legislative and non-legislative measures to counter online harms and set clear responsibilities for tech companies to keep UK citizens safe online. Protecting children from exploitation and abuse online will be a central component of the White Paper.
Asked by: Madeleine Moon (Labour - Bridgend)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will establish a royal commission on the role and future funding of policing.
Answered by Nick Hurd
The Home Office has no plans to establish a Royal Commission into police funding. Such a Commission would be a substantial undertaking requiring significant time and resource.
Instead, the Government is on the front foot in engaging with the police and we recognise the changing demands they are facing. The department supports forces to achieve their vision for policing through funding and work to improve forces' capabilities under five main strands: local policing; specialist capabilities; workforce; digital policing; and business enablers.
Asked by: Madeleine Moon (Labour - Bridgend)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people have been issued with a Biometric Residence Permit that will require them to leave the UK when their youngest child reaches the age of 18 in each of the last five years; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
The Home Office does not collate or publish the statistical information in the format requested.
The Home Office does not routinely require people to leave the UK on the expiry of a Biometric Residence Permit. It is open to such individuals to make an appropriate application for further leave in the UK prior to the expiry of any Biometric Residence Permit they may hold.
Asked by: Madeleine Moon (Labour - Bridgend)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many settlement visas his Department has issued in each of the last 10 years; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
Information on the number of visas granted by detailed category is published in the quarterly Immigration Statistics, Visas volume 1 table vi_01_q, latest edition at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-statistics-year-ending-june-2018/list-of-tables#visas
Asked by: Madeleine Moon (Labour - Bridgend)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people have been issued with a Biometric Residence Permit that will require them to leave the UK when their youngest child reaches the age of 18 in each of the last five years; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
The Home Office does not collate or publish the statistical information in the format requested.
The Home Office does not routinely require people to leave the UK on the expiry of a Biometric Residence Permit. It is open to such individuals to make an appropriate application for further leave in the UK prior to the expiry of any Biometric Residence Permit they may hold.
Asked by: Madeleine Moon (Labour - Bridgend)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will review the licence provisions to enable people to grow hemp for personal (a) food and (b) clothing use.
Answered by Nick Hurd
There are currently no plans to review the policy which gives rise to the licensing regime for cannabis cultivation.
The long-standing ‘industrial hemp’ licensing regime exists to enable growers- large or small- to cultivate low THC varieties of cannabis for use of the seed or fibre in clothing or culinary applications. Cultivation solely for ‘personal use’ would not be permitted within this policy.
Asked by: Madeleine Moon (Labour - Bridgend)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the timetable is for the publication of the consultation on offensive and dangerous weapons.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Government published its consultation for proposals for new legislative measures on offensive and dangerous weapons on 14 October 2017 and the consultation closed on 9 December. The consultation received 10,712 responses.
My Right Honourable Friend, the Home Secretary, made a Written Ministerial Statement to the House on 20 June (Official Report HCWS780) announcing the publication of a summary of the responses that the consultation received. Copies of the summary are available in the House Library and on the Gov.uk website at https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/offensive-and-dangerous-weapons-new-legislation.