Asked by: Cameron Thomas (Liberal Democrat - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to enable citizenship applicants to track the progress of their applications.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
Citizenship customers can submit their application for British citizenship online, however they are not currently able to track it’s progress.
The service standard for the processing of a straightforward application for British citizenship is six months.
The most recent migration transparency data confirms that 99.36% of straightforward applications for citizenship are processed within service standard. This can be found at the following link: Migration transparency data - GOV.UK
The Home Office does contacts customers and provides them with an update, where an application cannot be processed within the published service standard.
Asked by: Cameron Thomas (Liberal Democrat - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate her Department has made of the time it will take UK Visas and Immigration to process its backlog of citizenship applications for people with indefinite leave to remain.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The service standard for the processing of a straightforward application for British citizenship is six months.
The most recent migration transparency data confirms that 99.36% of straightforward applications for citizenship are processed within published service standard.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/migration-transparency-data#passports-citizenship-and-civil-registration
Asked by: Cameron Thomas (Liberal Democrat - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether there is a backlog of citizenship applications from people with indefinite leave to remain.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The service standard for the processing of a straightforward application for British citizenship is six months.
The most recent migration transparency data confirms that 99.36% of straightforward applications for citizenship are processed within published service standard.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/migration-transparency-data#passports-citizenship-and-civil-registration
Asked by: Cameron Thomas (Liberal Democrat - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to support male victims of domestic violence.
Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
We recognise that men and boys experience abusive and violent crimes, such as stalking, domestic abuse, and sexual violence. That is why we are committed to ensuring male victims and survivors get the support they need. We are working tirelessly across government to deliver the Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy as soon as possible, which will set out commitments for all victims, including for men and boys that are victims of abuse.
We know that male victims may face different barriers to accessing support. The Home Office and Ministry of Justice fund specialist services for victims of these crimes, including services for male victims, such as Respect, Galop, SignHealth, Hourglass, and Mankind UK. This includes the Men’s Advice Line, run by Respect, which offers vital support to male victims of domestic abuse.
Asked by: Cameron Thomas (Liberal Democrat - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department plans to take steps to help tackle the dismissal of High Court injunctions relating to the development of traveller sites.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
It is for the independent courts to determine the lawfulness of individual injunctions. Local authorities and the police have a range of powers available to manage unauthorised encampments.
Statutory guidance issued by the Home Office sets out how these powers should be applied, including the importance of considering welfare needs and ensuring that any enforcement action is lawful, necessary and proportionate.
Asked by: Cameron Thomas (Liberal Democrat - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to deliver effective community policing in rural areas.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government is committed to strong neighbourhood policing for everyone in England and Wales, wherever they live. On 10 April, the Prime Minister outlined further details about our Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee, including that by July, every community, including rural communities, will have named and contactable officers dedicated to addressing their issues.
This financial year we will be providing the first Home Office funding since 2023 for the National Rural Crime Unit (NRCU) as well as continuing funding for the National Wildlife Crime Unit (NWCU). The funding boost of over £800,000 in total will help the units tackle those crimes that predominantly affect our rural communities.
This will allow these specialist units to continue their work in tackling rural and wildlife crime which can pose unique challenges for policing given the scale and isolation of rural areas.
The National Police Chiefs' Council Wildlife and Rural Crime Strategy 2022-2025 provides a framework through which policing, and its partners can work together to tackle the most prevalent threats and emerging issues which predominantly affect rural communities NPCC-Wildlife-Rural-Crime-Strategy-2022-2025.pdf (nwcu.police.uk) We are working closely with the NPCC to deliver the next iteration of their strategy, to ensure the government's Safer Streets Mission benefits every community no matter where they live, including rural communities.
Asked by: Cameron Thomas (Liberal Democrat - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what information her Department holds on financial deficits within police constabularies in England and Wales.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The 2025-26 final police funding settlement provides funding of up to £19.6 billion for the policing system in England and Wales. This is an overall increase of up to £1.1 billion when compared to the 2024-25 settlement and represents a 6% cash terms increase and 3.5% real terms increase in funding.
It is the responsibility of locally elected Police and Crime Commissioners (PCC) and Chief Constables to set a balanced budget and to publish information to enable the local public to assess the performance of the police force.
PCCs in consultation with the Chief Constable are responsible for identifying and agreeing a medium-term financial strategy which includes funding and spending plans for both revenue and capital. This strategy should have regard to affordability and take into account multiple years, the inter-dependencies of revenue budgets and capital investments, the role of reserves and the consideration of risks.
The Home Office works closely with the policing sector to monitor force financial pressures, which includes reviewing the published Medium Term Financial Plans.
Asked by: Cameron Thomas (Liberal Democrat - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to ensure health and care worker’s on Tier 2 visa’s are protected from exploitation by their employers.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Government condemns the exploitation of international care workers by rogue employers in the adult social care sector and continues to take robust action against this unscrupulous behaviour.
If an individual is in danger or at risk of exploitation, we urge them to come forward so we can work with the police or other law enforcement bodies, including the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA), to support them through the National Referral Mechanism (NRM).
The enforcement bodies are currently working together to investigate a range of allegations about the adult care sector. The evidence ranges from labour market offences such as charging for work finding fees and non-payment of National Minimum Wage to the higher level of exploitative abuses such as debt bondage and modern slavery.
We have recently implemented prohibitions on Skilled Worker sponsors recouping sponsorship costs from those they sponsor, and those doing so now risk losing their licence. We also intend to ban any employer who flouts employment laws from acting as a sponsor in the future.
Asked by: Cameron Thomas (Liberal Democrat - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to (a) help tackle anti-social behaviour and (b) cooperate with the police in communities that host large-scale sporting events other than football.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Tackling anti-social behaviour (ASB) is a top priority for this Government and a key part of our Safer Streets Mission.
The Government recently announced Respect Orders which will be introduced through the Crime and Policing Bill. Respect Orders can be applied for by the police and local councils and are issued by the courts. They will enable courts to place wide-ranging restrictions on the behaviour of the most persistent and disruptive ASB offenders. They will include a power of arrest for any suspected breach, meaning officers can take action quickly to disrupt ongoing ASB. Breach will be a criminal offence, which is heard in the criminal courts with a wide range of sentencing options, including community orders, unlimited fines and, for the most severe cases, up to two years’ imprisonment.
We will also put thousands of new neighbourhood police and community support officers into local communities, so residents know who to turn to when things go wrong.
Where the Government is involved in the planning of large scale sporting events (like the commonwealth games 2022), there is ongoing engagement with local police to ensure risks are identified and addressed in the planning and delivery of the event. The local Safety Advisory Group (SAG) co-ordinated by the Local Authority provides advice and guidance on specific areas of responsibility for organisers and other agencies involved in organising events.