Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when the serious violence taskforce last met.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Serious Violence Taskforce was established in 2018 to oversee the implementation of the Serious Violence Strategy. It last met on 26 June 2019.
The Government remains incredibly grateful for the work of the Taskforce which brought together Ministers, senior leaders and key partners. The Taskforce influenced additional action and investment in this area, for example through the creation of the new £200m Youth Endowment Fund, the consultation on the new duty on agencies to reduce serious violence and the launch of the Independent Review of Drugs Misuse.
The Government’s Manifesto set out an ambitious package of reforms to deliver on the people’s priorities and tackle violent crime and safeguard people’s streets and neighbourhoods. The Prime Minister and Home Secretary are driving this with a new cross-Whitehall Crime and Justice Taskforce to ensure we use every lever at our disposal to fight crime.
We will consider the future role for the Serious Violence Taskforce in delivering these priorities, within this context.
Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when the serious violence taskforce next plans to meet.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Serious Violence Taskforce was established in 2018 to oversee the implementation of the Serious Violence Strategy. It last met on 26 June 2019.
The Government remains incredibly grateful for the work of the Taskforce which brought together Ministers, senior leaders and key partners. The Taskforce influenced additional action and investment in this area, for example through the creation of the new £200m Youth Endowment Fund, the consultation on the new duty on agencies to reduce serious violence and the launch of the Independent Review of Drugs Misuse.
The Government’s Manifesto set out an ambitious package of reforms to deliver on the people’s priorities and tackle violent crime and safeguard people’s streets and neighbourhoods. The Prime Minister and Home Secretary are driving this with a new cross-Whitehall Crime and Justice Taskforce to ensure we use every lever at our disposal to fight crime.
We will consider the future role for the Serious Violence Taskforce in delivering these priorities, within this context.
Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether any child has been referred to Prevent on the basis of their (a) involvement with Extinction Rebellion, (b) attendance at school strikes for climate and (c) attendance at any other protest.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
This information would be held by the Police, who are operationally independent of the Home Office. The Home Office does not hold data on individuals referred to Prevent.
Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many times UK law enforcement authorities accessed information on citizens of other EU member states using the Second generation Schengen Information System in the last 12 months.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
The annual statistics on the use of the Schengen Information System (SIS II) is published annually by EU-LISA (EU Agency ensuring 24/7 operational management of EU large-scale IT systems) and is usually made available in February each year.
Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many requests the UK made to EU member states under the European Arrest Warrant in the last 12 months.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
The Home Office does not hold the information requested.
However, statistics on the European Arrest Warrant are published by the National Crime Agency each year. These figures include a breakdown of the numbers of requests made by the UK.
These figures are published at: http://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/publications/european-arrest-warrant-statistics
Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many requests under the European Arrest Warrant the UK received from EU member states in the last 12 months.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
The Home Office does not hold the information requested.
However, statistics on the European Arrest Warrant are published by the National Crime Agency each year. These figures include a breakdown of the numbers of requests received from EU Member States.
These figures are published at: http://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/publications/european-arrest-warrant-statistics
Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, on how many occasions did EU member states access information about UK citizens using the Second generation Schengen Information System in the last 12 months.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
The annual statistics on the use of the Schengen Information System (SIS II) is published annually by EU-LISA (EU Agency ensuring 24/7 operational management of EU large-scale IT systems) and is usually made available in February each year.
Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what is the timeframe is for the appointment of a new independent reviewer of Prevent; and what steps he is taking to ensure that the report on that review will be published by the statutory deadline of August 2020.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
We are currently considering the next steps for the review and these will update the House in due course.
Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of reported rape cases were not passed to the Crown Prosecution Service by the police forces of England and Wales in 2017-18.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Government does not hold data on the total number of reported rape cases which are not passed on to the Crown Prosecution Service by the police.
The Crown Prosecution Service publishes data on the number of pre-charge decisions for rape cases.
The Government expects every report of sexual violence and rape to be treated seriously from the point of disclosure and continues to work with the police to look at ways to improve police investigations. Through the refreshed Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy we have committed to undertake an end-to-end review into the criminal justice response to rape, from the point of police report through to final outcome in court, which will include examining police referrals to the Crown Prosecution Service for a charging decision.
Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assistance his Department has (a) requested and (b) received from the European Counter-Terrorism Centre on apprehending foreign fighters.
Answered by Ben Wallace
The Government values the role of Europol in helping law enforcement agencies coordinate investigations into serious and organised cross border crime and terrorism. That includes the European Counter Terrorism Centre (ECTC) which was set up in 2016 as an operations centre and hub of expertise for EU Member States at Europol. Since September 2017 the UK has embedded UK Police Officers within the ECTC and works closely with our European partners through the centre.
Information exchange between UK authorities and Europol is well-established and takes place on a daily and routine basis on a wide range of criminal activity. This includes information sharing to tackle the threat of terrorism and cooperation continues to assist UK efforts to tackle cross-border terrorist activity impacting on the UK.
We cannot comment specifically on the assistance that the Department has requested and received from the ECTC as this is operationally sensitive information.