Asked by: Andrew Bridgen (Independent - North West Leicestershire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if her Department will assess the potential merits of people widowed to police officers prior to April 2015 being entitled to a widow's pension in the event of their re-marriage.
Answered by Nick Hurd
Survivors of officers who were members of the 2006 and 2015 police pension schemes are, since 2006, paid survivor pensions for life.
On 18 January 2016, the Police Pensions Regulations 1987 and the Police (Injury Benefit) Regulations 2006 were amended to allow widows, widowers and civil partners of police officers in England and Wales who have died on duty and who qualified for a survivor pension after 1 April 2015 to continue to receive their survivors’ benefits for life. Successive governments have been clear that we have a general presumption against making retrospective changes to public service pension schemes. However the Government believes that the arguments for making this change in respect of police officers who died on duty are sufficiently compelling to allow a limited exception in this case.
There are no plans to make any further changes to survivor benefits for police pension schemes.
Asked by: Andrew Bridgen (Independent - North West Leicestershire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what progress her Department's Joint Fraud Taskforce has made since it was established; and whether that taskforce plans to publish a report outling its work in its first year.
Answered by Ben Wallace
The Joint Fraud Taskforce is a partnership between government, law enforcement and the financial sector, working in new innovative ways to deliver a more effective response to fraud.
To-date, closer working between the banks and the police through the Taskforce has led to: the closure or heightened monitoring of thousands of bank accounts linked to fraud; a nationwide campaign to locate ten prolific fraudsters that has led to four arrests; and bank branches across London introducing new processes to identify potential victims of fraud and provide them with swift support from Trading Standards and the police.
The Home Secretary chaired an Oversight Board of the Taskforce in September, where a forward programme was agreed that will focus on: improving the national, regional and local law enforcement response to fraud; introducing a system to make it much easier for the victims of fraud to have their money repatriated; an industry led strategic action plan to address card not present fraud; launching a very visible national fraud prevention campaign to provide targeted advice to protect members of the public; and a new collective approach to better support victims of fraud. We have no current plans to publish a report on the first year of the Joint Fraud Taskforce.
Asked by: Andrew Bridgen (Independent - North West Leicestershire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of Action Fraud.
Answered by Ben Wallace
Action Fraud is the national reporting point for fraud and financially-motivated cyber crime. We have seen significant improvement in performance; official figures show reports of fraud have trebled since Action Fraud was rolled out nationally, addressing the concern that fraud was an under-reported crime type.
Since it's launch the Government has been building the capability of police forces, GCHQ and the NCA to respond to online cyber crime. Over the last year, Action Fraud has introduced an improved system which keeps victims informed of the progress of their case. The number of disseminations to local forces has also increased.
Asked by: Andrew Bridgen (Independent - North West Leicestershire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people of each nationality are awaiting deportation.
Answered by James Brokenshire
The Home Office does not disclose country specific information regarding deportation of foreign national offenders in any public material, including Freedom of Information Requests, as its disclosure could prejudice relations between the UK and foreign governments. Parliamentary Questions are approached in the same way.