Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking to (a) identify and (b) prosecute sanctions evasion.
Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)
HMG is committed to investing in its sanction’s policy and enforcement architecture. In recognition of the centrality of sanctions, the FCDO established a permanent Sanctions Directorate in 2022 with over 120 permanent staff delivering its response. In addition, we have strengthened financial sanctions enforcement capacity and capability. OFSI has significantly increased its staffing from 40 FTE in February 2022 to over 100.
On 13 March 2023, the Prime Minister announced a new Economic Deterrence Initiative (EDI) which will tackle sanctions evasion across the UK’s trade, transport and financial sanctions. The initiative will be a cross-government effort, led by FCDO and involving a range of Departments and agencies including DBT, HMT and DFT, as well as HMRC and NCA.
With funding of up to £50m over two years, the initiative will improve our sanctions implementation and enforcement. This will maximise the impact of our trade, transport and financial sanctions, including by cracking down on sanctions evasion.
The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 brought powers to provide for the civil forfeiture of cyrptoassets and can be used as a tool to prevent cryptoassets being used as vector for sanctions evasion.
Finally, a new kleptocracy cell in the NCA has been established to target sanctions evasion and corrupt Russian assets hidden in the UK – meaning oligarchs in London will have nowhere to hide.
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of providing additional funding for policing in Cardiff in recognition of its capital city status.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
On 31st January, the Government confirmed a total police funding settlement of up to £18.4 billion in 2024-25, an increase of up to £842.9 million when compared to 2023-24.
South Wales Police will receive up to £399.9 million in 2024-25, an increase of up to £24.4 million compared to 2023-24.
The Government has previously carefully considered requests for additional funding from South Wales Police.
The Home Office will continue to work with South Wales Police to assess its pressures and any capital city funding requirements as part of the wider review of police funding.
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many Afghan refugees who were not made offers of alternative housing were made homeless following the closure of hotel accommodation in each local authority in Wales.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
All 55 hotels being used to house around 8,000 Afghans at the end of March were no longer being used as bridging accommodation by 31 August.
The UK Government has granted all Afghans relocated through safe and legal routes with Indefinite Leave to Remain, including the immediate right to work, alongside access to the benefits system and vital health, education, and employment support.
On top of this the Government made available £35m of new funding to enable Local Authorities to provide increased support for Afghan households to move from hotels into settled accommodation.
The monitoring of Homelessness duties owed to this cohort is the responsibility of the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC).
DLUHC has been gathering survey data from local authorities in England on homelessness duties owed to Afghans leaving bridging accommodation. This data has been published in the Homelessness management information – Afghan nationals: England.
In summary the total number of Afghan households in this cohort in temporary accommodation under a homelessness duty in England as of 31 August was 188.
This is based on a voluntary survey to local authorities in England with a 74% response rate, of which 35% of local authorities had reported owing homelessness duties to Afghan households leaving bridging accommodation.
DLUHC will continue to monitor homelessness duties to this cohort going forwards and the Home Office will continue to publish statistics on resettlement schemes in the usual way.
The information requested for each local authority in Wales is not currently available. The following operational data published by the Home Office may be of interest: Afghan bridging hotel exit operational data - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many (a) asylum and (b) general immigration cases from Welsh constituencies have been waiting for a decision for over (i) six months, (ii) one year and (iii) two years.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office publishes data on work in progress in the Migration Transparency Data. However, this is not available by constituency. Data on the asylum work in progress are provided in table Asy_03 of the immigration and protection data. The latest data relates to as at 30 June 2022. Data on migration work in progress are provided in table VSI_03 of the visas and citizenship data. The latest data relates to as at 30 September 2022.
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many applicants claiming asylum on the basis of LGBT+ status were (a) accepted, (b) rejected, (c) detained and (d) deported in each of the last five years.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Regarding part (a) and (b) of the question, the Home Office publishes data on asylum in the ‘Immigration Statistics Quarterly Release’.
Data on asylum claims where sexual orientation formed part of the basis for the claim are published in tables SOC00 – SOC04 of the ‘LGB asylum data tables’. Information on how to use the dataset can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbook. The latest data relates to 2020. Information on future Home Office statistical release dates can be found in the ‘Research and statistics calendar’. Please note, these statistics are experimental and should be interpreted with caution. Further information can be found in the asylum claims on the basis of sexual orientation topic.
Regarding part (c) and (d) of the question, the basis of an asylum claim is not routinely recorded in relation to detention or returns and the information sought could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 28 May 2020 to Question 41464 on UK Border Force and UK Visas and Immigration: Coronavirus; if she will publish the same data for each month from May 2020 to January 2021.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The attached table shows at column C the number of Border Force and UK Visas and Immigration employees who have been recorded as beginning a period of sickness absence due to COVID-19 symptoms.
Column D shows the number of employees recorded as beginning a period of isolation at home on paid special leave, either resulting from being identified as a close contact of someone with COVID-19 symptoms or because the employee themselves had been required to shield in line with Government guidance.
We do not hold data centrally on those employees who have mild symptoms and are well enough to continue to work from home, or who are isolating at home but are able to work from home and therefore do not need to take paid special leave.
We do not hold data centrally on the outcomes of COVID-19 testing of our employees.
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions she has had with social media and streaming platforms on the availability of violent gang and drug-related content to under 18s.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Government is committed to delivering on the people’s priorities by tackling violent crime. We are clear that internet companies must go further and faster to tackle illegal content online. It is already an offence to incite, assist or encourage violence online.
We are proactively working with law enforcement agencies and meeting with social media companies to address a full range of online harms (including serious violence, gang and drug content online), as part of our wider aims set out in the Online Harms White Paper. The full Government response to the Online Harms White Paper will be published shortly. This?will set out our plans for a new legislative framework that will drive robust action to tackle the spread of illegal content online and to keep children safe.
The Government has invested significantly to tackle serious violence and county lines: £119million in 2020-21, including £20 million to tackle county lines drug dealing and £1.5million to fund the Social Media Hub, delivered by the Metropolitan Police Service. The Hub includes a dedicated team of police officers and staff to take action against harmful online material, focusing on investigative, disruption and enforcement work against online gang activity, as well as making referrals to social media companies so illegal and harmful content can be taken down.
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many places of worship have received funding from her Department for additional safety and security measures by religious denomination in Wales in the last 12 months; and how much each such place of worship has received.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Places of Worship Protective Security Fund (POW) is a key commitment in the Hate Crime Action Plan published in 2016. The Scheme provides funding to places of worship that have been victims of or are vulnerable to hate crime attacks and provides for physical protective measures such as alarms, fencing and access control. The fifth year of the scheme recently closed, and successful applicants will be announced in due course.
Funding in the region of £38,500 was allocated to one place of worship in Wales in year four (2019/2020). The scheme is open to places of worship across England and Wales, and we will continue to promote the scheme across Wales for future rounds of funding.
The Jewish Community Protective Security Grant was introduced in 2015 following a series of terrorist attacks against Jews and Jewish locations across Europe. For 2019-20 a grant of £14m was provided to fund additional protective security measures, primarily guarding, at Jewish state, free and independent schools, colleges, nurseries and some other Jewish community sites, including synagogues. A grant of £14m is to be provided in 2020-21. We do not keep a breakdown of funding by region.
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the extent of the use of the messaging platform Telegram by far-right and extreme-right wing organisations to organise; and when she last made representations to representatives of that company on that matter.
Answered by James Brokenshire
The Government has been clear that tech companies need to work together and act more quickly to remove all forms of terrorist content from their platforms.
We know that terrorists and extremists exploit a wide range of platforms to spread their views and to incite terrorist attacks, from mainstream platforms to secure messaging applications and anonymous forums.
To tackle terrorism online, the Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU), based in the Metropolitan Police, refers illegal terrorist content to companies for removal. Within the Home Office, we work closely with our international partners and engage with industry colleagues to discuss how platforms can best safeguard their users from terrorism, while also encouraging tech companies work together as one coordinated body through the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT), to reduce the availability of terrorist content online.
Details of meetings between Ministers and external bodies and organisations are provided through the usual quarterly returns published by the Cabinet Office.
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when she last met with representatives of (a) Facebook, (b) YouTube, (c) Twitter, (d) Telegram, (e) FourChan, (f) WhatsApp, (g) Instagram, (h) TikTok, and (i) Gab to discuss the steps those organisations are taking to (i) combat extremist material, (ii) remove material from proscribed organisations and (iii) remove other material linked to criminal activity in the UK from their platforms.
Answered by James Brokenshire
The Government has been clear that tech companies need to work together and act more quickly to remove all forms of terrorist content from their platforms.
We know that terrorists and extremists exploit a wide range of platforms to spread their views and to incite terrorist attacks, from mainstream platforms to secure messaging applications and anonymous forums.
To tackle terrorism online, the Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU), based in the Metropolitan Police, refers illegal terrorist content to companies for removal. Within the Home Office, we work closely with our international partners and engage with industry colleagues to discuss how platforms can best safeguard their users from terrorism, while also encouraging tech companies work together as one coordinated body through the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT), to reduce the availability of terrorist content online.
Details of meetings between Ministers and external bodies and organisations are provided through the usual quarterly returns published by the Cabinet Office.