Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what provisions exist under the one name for all policy for citizens with dual nationality to maintain legal recognition of previous or original names.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
The intent behind the policy is to have one name for all official purposes. Specific exceptions exist under the one names policy where a dual national cannot meet the requirements of the policy for reasons beyond their control, for example where there are restrictions on their ability to change their name in travel documents of their other nationality.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department is taking to reduce the risks of disposable barbecues to wildlife and the natural environment.
Answered by Nick Hurd
The Home Office works in close partnership with local fire and rescue authorities to promote a range of fire safety messages through the national Fire Kills campaign. Messages on outdoor fire safety, including the fire risks related to barbecues, are included within the educational materials made available to fire and rescue authorities to support local activity. In addition, the campaign works with the Gas Safe Register to support the promotion of carbon monoxide safety messages associated with barbecues.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 2 April 2019 to Question 236388 on Religious Buildings: Security, what plans are in place to enable his Department to consult communities on the security of places of worship.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Places of Worship Protective Security Fund (POW) is a key commit-ment in the Hate Crime Action Plan published in 2016. The scheme has been running for three years, and we ensure we continuously listen to feedback from faith communities on the scheme, including the independent panel to the scheme made up of representatives across faith groups. This feedback has resulted in improvements being made for each year of the scheme.
In March the Home Secretary announced an increase in the amount of funding for the POW scheme to £1.6m, for 2019-20. We are working urgently to make commercial improvements to the scheme to make it easier for places of worship to apply, reducing the administrative burden and widening the eligibility criteria.
More widely, following the events in Christchurch, the Home Secretary committed to consulting with faith communities to understand what more could and should be done to help protect faith communities at their places of worship. We will be working with groups such as the Anti-Muslim Hatred Working Group, Tell Mama and those representing other faiths as part of this consultation. This engagement with communities is starting immediately with opportunities for wider consultation, including from people feeding in on individual basis, following thereafter. We will be outlining how to engage on Gov.UK shortly
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent representations he has received from community faith groups on the security of places of worship.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Places of Worship Protective Security Fund (POW) is a key commit-ment in the Hate Crime Action Plan published in 2016. The scheme has been running for three years, and we ensure we continuously listen to feedback from faith communities on the scheme, including the independent panel to the scheme made up of representatives across faith groups. This feedback has resulted in improvements being made for each year of the scheme.
In March the Home Secretary announced an increase in the amount of funding for the POW scheme to £1.6m, for 2019-20. We are working urgently to make commercial improvements to the scheme to make it easier for places of worship to apply, reducing the administrative burden and widening the eligibility criteria.
More widely, following the events in Christchurch, the Home Secretary committed to consulting with faith communities to understand what more could and should be done to help protect faith communities at their places of worship. We will be working with groups such as the Anti-Muslim Hatred Working Group, Tell Mama and those representing other faiths as part of this consultation. This engagement with communities is starting immediately with opportunities for wider consultation, including from people feeding in on individual basis, following thereafter. We will be outlining how to engage on Gov.UK shortly
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment he has made of the level of threat to places of worship by far-right politically motivated violence in the UK; and what plans he has to support those places of worship.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The threat to places of worship from far-right violence is considered independently of government by the police and Joint Terrorism Assessment Centre (JTAC) and the police consider appropriate action to be taken in light of these assessments.
The Places of Worship Protective Security Funding Scheme is a key Home Office commitment in the Hate Crime Action Plan to respond to concerns about faith-based hate crime. The scheme is open to Christian, Muslim, Sikh and Hindu faiths and provides funding for physical security measures at places which are vulnerable to hate crime.
Decisions on funding are based on eligibility criteria set out in the Home Office guidance to applicants and the recommendations of the multi-faith independent advisory panel (with security expertise), this process therefore includes an assessment of vulnerability to hate crime. Last month, we announced an uplift of funding for the 2019/20 Places of Worship scheme to £1.6 million. This is double the amount awarded in 2018/19.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
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 allocating funding to mosques for security on a risk-assessed basis.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The threat to places of worship from far-right violence is considered independently of government by the police and Joint Terrorism Assessment Centre (JTAC) and the police consider appropriate action to be taken in light of these assessments.
The Places of Worship Protective Security Funding Scheme is a key Home Office commitment in the Hate Crime Action Plan to respond to concerns about faith-based hate crime. The scheme is open to Christian, Muslim, Sikh and Hindu faiths and provides funding for physical security measures at places which are vulnerable to hate crime.
Decisions on funding are based on eligibility criteria set out in the Home Office guidance to applicants and the recommendations of the multi-faith independent advisory panel (with security expertise), this process therefore includes an assessment of vulnerability to hate crime. Last month, we announced an uplift of funding for the 2019/20 Places of Worship scheme to £1.6 million. This is double the amount awarded in 2018/19.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department is taking to tackle retail crime and violence against shopworkers in Yorkshire and the Humber.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
All forms of retail crime are unacceptable, and everyone has the right to feel safe at work.
I chair the National Retail Crime Steering Group (NRCSG) which brings together partners including the police, trade bodies – including the Associ-ation of Convenience Stores - and retailers and is overseeing a range of work to tackle retail crime. This includes the collation and dissemination of good practice and developing guidance on the use of Impact Statements for Business, which give victims of business crime the opportunity to set out the impact the crime has had on the business, including, for example, financial loss. The NRCSG also continues to work with retailers to improve the management and response to shop theft using a partnership approach according to local circumstances.
On 21 January I announced that we will launch a call for evidence on violence and abuse towards shop workers to strengthen our understanding of this issue, including how existing legislation is being applied.
In addition, the Sentencing Council is reviewing its guidelines on assault and a consultation on a revised guideline is anticipated to commence this Summer.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that retired emergency service workers have access to mental health support.
Answered by Nick Hurd
Since 2014, the Government has provided £7m to pay for mental health support through Mind’s Blue Light Programme. This ensures that our current and former emergency service workers have the support they require.
Emergency service workers have demonstrated extraordinary courage and fortitude in the face of major challenges over recent years, including terrorist attacks and the Grenfell Tower fire. We are grateful to them for their tireless work and dedication to duty.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of staffing levels in the Home Office for the processing in a timely manner of applications for support under section 4 of the Asylum and Immigration Act 1999.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
The Home Office recognises the importance of ensuring that we have sufficient appropriately trained staff to assess asylum support applications and to meet our customers’ priority needs. The Home Office has rolling recruitment campaigns to ensure the number of staff are maintained at a level that allows cases to be processed.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of applications for support under section 4 of the Asylum and Immigration Act 1999 to prevent asylum seekers becoming destitute were processed within 14 days in each of the last three years.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
The Home Office monitors closely the performance of asylum support application decision making and has a range of targets for processing support applications depending on the nature of the application being made. However information on processing times is not recorded in a format suitable for publication and there are no plans to publish such statistics at this time.