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Written Question
Home Office: Legal Costs
Monday 25th March 2024

Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the total cost to the public purse was of legal (a) support and (b) representation to Ministers in his Department in relation to their official conduct in each of the last three years.

Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)

Such information is not centrally recorded or collated in the form requested. More generally, I would refer the honourable Member to the long-standing policies on legal expenditure, as set out recently by Cabinet Office Ministers on 12 March 2024, Official Report, PQ 17709 Written questions and answers - Written questions, answers and statements - UK Parliament and 12 March 2024, Official Report, House of Lords, Cols. 1901-1904. Ministers: Legal Costs - Hansard - UK Parliament.


Written Question
Home Office: Domestic Visits
Monday 18th March 2024

Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the destinations were of domestic overnight visits undertaken by Ministers within their Department in each of the last three financial years.

Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)

I refer the Hon. Member to my response to UIN 17620 on 13th March 2024.


Written Question
Home Office: Fraud and Maladministration
Thursday 14th March 2024

Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate he has made of the amount of money lost to fraud and error by his Department in each of the last three financial years.

Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)

The Government is proud of its record in proactively seeking to find and prevent more fraud in the system. We have established the dedicated Public Sector Fraud Authority (PSFA). In its first year it delivered £311 million in audited counter fraud benefits.

The PSFA produces a Fraud Landscape Report.

Cross-Government Fraud Landscape Annual Report 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

This provides data on fraud and error detection, loss, and recoveries in central government, outside of the tax and welfare system. The 2020/21 Report was published in March 2023.


Written Question
Home Office: Domestic Visits
Wednesday 13th March 2024

Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many domestic overnight visits Ministers within their Department have taken in each of the last three financial years; and what the cost to the public purse was of those visits.

Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)

The Government publishes on GOV.UK details of the cost of overseas Ministerial travel, including costs of travel, and on other costs (vias, accommodation, meals).

But as has been the case under successive administrations, the Government does not publish granular detail on Ministers’ travel at home or abroad.


Written Question
Home Office: WhatsApp
Monday 11th March 2024

Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what guidance his Department issues on the use of WhatsApp.

Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)

Whatsapp is not a supported application and is not available for all Home Office Staff.

However, if staff in specific roles have a valid business justification to use Whatsapp for their job, they can apply to have it installed on their corporate mobile devices via an exceptions process, and will receive guidance on how to configure the app to ensure it meets Home Office security standards.


Written Question
Home Office: Publishing
Monday 11th March 2024

Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what reports and guidance their Department has produced in the last three financial years; and how much was spent on their (a) printing and (b) distribution.

Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)

The requested information is not centrally held, and complying with this request would incur a disproportionate cost to the department.

Reports and guidance that the Department has published can be found on gov.uk


Written Question
Home Office: Advertising
Thursday 7th March 2024

Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much funding his Department has (a) budgeted for and (b) spent on advertising in each of the last three financial years.

Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)

Determining the amount allocated for and spent by the Home Office on advertising specifically is not readily available from our finance system.

To try to identify the information under scope would require a manual review of multiple expenditure categories and transactions, over three financial years.

This could only be done at disproportionate cost.


Written Question
Home Office: Magazine Press
Wednesday 6th March 2024

Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much funding his Department (a) allocated for and (b) spent on magazine subscriptions in each of the last three financial years.

Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)

Determining the amount allocated for and spent by the Home Office on magazine subscriptions is not readily available from our finance system.

The Home Office does not have expenditure categories in our financial system that would allow us to quickly identify spending at this level of granularity.

To try to identify the information under scope would require a manual review of multiple expenditures categories and transactions, over multiple business areas.

This could only be done at disproportionate cost.


Written Question
Home Office: Press
Tuesday 5th March 2024

Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what subscriptions to (a) newspapers, (b) magazines and (c) online journals his Department has paid for in each of the last three financial years.

Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)

To answer for the whole department would incur disproportionate cost.

Newspapers and magazines that communications directorate and private office have subscribed to in the last three financial years are listed below.

a) Newspapers:

The Daily Express
The Daily Mail
The Daily Mirror
The Daily Telegraph
The Financial Times and FT.Com
The Guardian
The Sun
The Times
Sunday Times online

b) Magazines:

Campaign Magazine
Harvard Business Review
PR Week online
Private Eye
Spectator
The Economist
The New Statesman


Written Question
Home Office: Vacancies
Monday 4th March 2024

Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of digital roles within his Department were vacant as of 26 February 2024.

Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)

There are 2691 digital roles within the departments’ digital function, of which 6% (160) are currently vacant.