Asked by: Bob Ainsworth (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment her Department has made of the progress made by crime agencies in (a) Coventry, (b) the West Midlands and (c) England to sign up to the principles of the Crisis Care Concordat.
Answered by Baroness Featherstone
As part of the roll-out of the Mental Health Crisis Care Concordat, published by the Government in February 2014, health, social care and criminal justice partners across England have been invited to develop and sign local Concordat
declarations. The relevant Police and Crime Commissioner and Police Force are two of seven essential signatories to each local declaration.
I share the aim of the Right Honourable Norman Lamb MP, the Minister for Care and Support, that declarations should be in place throughout England by the end of 2014. Progress towards this across all areas of England can be seen at the
following webpage: http://www.crisiscareconcordat.org.uk/explore-the-map/
I understand that there are plans for Crisis Care declarations covering Coventry and the West Midlands to be agreed in early December.
Asked by: Bob Ainsworth (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of customers using the Passport Check and Send Service had their passport application rejected due to (a) completing the application form incorrectly, (b) providing incorrect supporting documents and (c) providing the incorrect fee in the last period for which figures are available.
Answered by James Brokenshire
According to data obtained from Her Majesty's Passport Office in respect of
customers using the passport check and send service for the period April 2013 to March 2014:
(a) 0.36% had their applications rejected by Her Majesty's Passport Office due
to completing their application form incorrectly.
(b) 0.22% had their applications rejected due to providing incorrect supporting
documents.
(c) No customer using check and send services had their applications rejected
due to providing the incorrect fee.
Asked by: Bob Ainsworth (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of passport renewal applications have been upgraded from a standard application to the premium service in each of the last six months.
Answered by James Brokenshire
Historical data on the number of upgrades from a standard application to a
premium service is not collated centrally.
Asked by: Bob Ainsworth (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of (a) adult and (b) child passport renewal applications were processed within the three-week service standard in each of the last six months.
Answered by James Brokenshire
he table below shows the number of straightforward passport applications
received within the UK which were processed within 3 weeks.
Month | Proportion of straightforward applications processed within 3 weeks |
Dec 13 | 99.99% |
Jan 14 | 99.99% |
Feb 14 | 99.98% |
Mar 14 | 99.95% |
Apr 14 | 99.59% |
May 14 | 92.26% |
Her Majesty's Passport Office does not hold a further breakdown of this information by
application type. The cost of bringing that information together would be
disproportionate and so it is not possible to provide the information you have
requested.
Asked by: Bob Ainsworth (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department has taken to tackle domestic violence and sexual abuse since 2010.
Answered by Norman Baker
Domestic and sexual violence are devastating crimes and are not acceptable
within our society. The Coalition Government's continued approach to tackling
such violence and abuse is set out in our Violence against Women and Girls
Action Plan, updated in March 2014.
Supporting victims is at the heart of this approach, which includes giving
victims more confidence to report, and it is encouraging that police recorded
crime figures show more victims are having the confidence to come forward.
The Government has ring-fenced nearly £40 million of stable funding from 2010
up to 2015 for specialist local domestic and sexual violence support services,
rape crisis centres, the national domestic violence helplines and stalking
helpline.
Over the spending review period the Home Office funding of £28 million provides
for:
144 Independent Domestic Violence Advisers, 87 dedicated Independent
Sexual Violence Advisers, 54 Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conference
Co-ordinators, and funding to Coordinated Action Against Domestic Abuse
to provide support and advice to MARACs, as well as running a programme
of quality assurance and £1.2 million for three years from 2012 to improve
services for young people suffering sexual violence in major urban areas.
£900,000 a year is used towards the running costs of national helplines for
victims of domestic violence and stalking.
In 2013, the Home Secretary commissioned Her Majesty's Inspectorate of
Constabulary to undertake a comprehensive review on how the police deal with
domestic violence and abuse. HMIC's report exposed significant failings. In
response to the Review, the Home Secretary has established a National
Oversight Group, which she is chairing, and on which I sit, to ensure HMIC's
recommendations are acted upon. The Group met for the first time on 10 June.
The Home Secretary has also written to chief constables making it clear that
every police force must have an action plan in place by September 2014, to
improve their response to domestic violence and abuse.
Asked by: Bob Ainsworth (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to increase the reporting of domestic and sexual violence offences by victims.
Answered by Norman Baker
Domestic and sexual violence are devastating crimes and are not acceptable
within our society. The Coalition Government's continued approach to tackling
such violence and abuse is set out in our Violence against Women and Girls
Action Plan, updated in March 2014.
Supporting victims is at the heart of this approach, which includes giving
victims more confidence to report, and it is encouraging that police recorded
crime figures show more victims are having the confidence to come forward.
The Government has ring-fenced nearly £40 million of stable funding from 2010
up to 2015 for specialist local domestic and sexual violence support services,
rape crisis centres, the national domestic violence helplines and stalking
helpline.
Over the spending review period the Home Office funding of £28 million provides
for:
144 Independent Domestic Violence Advisers, 87 dedicated Independent
Sexual Violence Advisers, 54 Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conference
Co-ordinators, and funding to Coordinated Action Against Domestic Abuse
to provide support and advice to MARACs, as well as running a programme
of quality assurance and £1.2 million for three years from 2012 to improve
services for young people suffering sexual violence in major urban areas.
£900,000 a year is used towards the running costs of national helplines for
victims of domestic violence and stalking.
In 2013, the Home Secretary commissioned Her Majesty's Inspectorate of
Constabulary to undertake a comprehensive review on how the police deal with
domestic violence and abuse. HMIC's report exposed significant failings. In
response to the Review, the Home Secretary has established a National
Oversight Group, which she is chairing, and on which I sit, to ensure HMIC's
recommendations are acted upon. The Group met for the first time on 10 June.
The Home Secretary has also written to chief constables making it clear that
every police force must have an action plan in place by September 2014, to
improve their response to domestic violence and abuse.
Asked by: Bob Ainsworth (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what funding under which categories of expenditure her Department has allocated to domestic and sexual violence support services in each of the last five years.
Answered by Norman Baker
Domestic and sexual violence are devastating crimes and are not acceptable
within our society. The Coalition Government's continued approach to tackling
such violence and abuse is set out in our Violence against Women and Girls
Action Plan, updated in March 2014.
Supporting victims is at the heart of this approach, which includes giving
victims more confidence to report, and it is encouraging that police recorded
crime figures show more victims are having the confidence to come forward.
The Government has ring-fenced nearly £40 million of stable funding from 2010
up to 2015 for specialist local domestic and sexual violence support services,
rape crisis centres, the national domestic violence helplines and stalking
helpline.
Over the spending review period the Home Office funding of £28 million provides
for:
144 Independent Domestic Violence Advisers, 87 dedicated Independent
Sexual Violence Advisers, 54 Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conference
Co-ordinators, and funding to Coordinated Action Against Domestic Abuse
to provide support and advice to MARACs, as well as running a programme
of quality assurance and £1.2 million for three years from 2012 to improve
services for young people suffering sexual violence in major urban areas.
£900,000 a year is used towards the running costs of national helplines for
victims of domestic violence and stalking.
In 2013, the Home Secretary commissioned Her Majesty's Inspectorate of
Constabulary to undertake a comprehensive review on how the police deal with
domestic violence and abuse. HMIC's report exposed significant failings. In
response to the Review, the Home Secretary has established a National
Oversight Group, which she is chairing, and on which I sit, to ensure HMIC's
recommendations are acted upon. The Group met for the first time on 10 June.
The Home Secretary has also written to chief constables making it clear that
every police force must have an action plan in place by September 2014, to
improve their response to domestic violence and abuse.
Asked by: Bob Ainsworth (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many police community support officers there were in (a) Coventry, (b) Coventry North East constituency, (c) the West Midlands and (d) England in each of the last five years.
Answered by Damian Green
The following table contains the requested data for police community support
officers in:
(a) Coventry Basic Command Unit, from 31 March 2009 to 31 March 2011. Figures
at basic command unit level ceased to be collected from then to reduce the
administratvie burden on the police.
(b) figures for Coventry North East constituency are not collected by the Home
Office.
(c) (d) the West Midlands police force, the West Midlands region and England,
from 31 March 2009 to 30 September 2013.
Asked by: Bob Ainsworth (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what measures her Department has introduced in the last year to reduce the number of businesses employing illegal immigrants.
Answered by James Brokenshire
Employers have a duty to ensure that their employees have the right to work in the UK, and this duty has been underpinned by a civil penalty scheme since 2008. The government is taking measures to ensure a tougher response to employers who use illegal labour, whilst simplifying arrangements for legitimate businesses to conduct right to work checks.
To deter employers from using illegal workers, the Home Office is doubling the maximum penalty to £20,000. The government is also using the current Immigration Bill to make it easier to enforce unpaid civil penalties in the civil courts. In addition, with the creation of the new Immigration Enforcement Directorate last year, there has been a forty seven per cent increase in illegal working enforcement operations and a corresponding increase in civil penalties imposed: with 1862 penalties served in 2013/14 (to the end of February) compared to 1270 in 2012/13. We are also ensuring greater collaboration across government to increase our ‘enforcement reach' and the range of sanctions that can be brought to bear against rogue employers who exploit illegal workers.