Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what was the total (a) value and (b) number of grants and funding awarded via competitive bidding processes by her Department in each of the last four years; and how many competitive bidding applications have been received by her Department in each of the last four years.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
| 19/20 | 20/21 | 21/22 | 22/23 (to date) |
Competed Grant Schemes | 39 | 32 | 43 | 39 |
Total Value | £103,795,959.94 | £124,252,424.08 | £144,852,941.85 | £95,967,218.56 |
I can confirm that the Home Office holds information relating to the number of competitive bidding applications received in each of the last four years. However, this information can only be obtained at disproportionate costs to the Home Office.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when the Government will publish its new strategy for tackling hate crime, including hate crime committed online.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The Government is working at pace to respond to the Law Commission’s review of hate crime laws and develop a new Hate Crime Strategy, and intends to publish the new Strategy shortly.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when the Government plans to respond to the Law Commission’s review of hate crime laws, published 6 December 2021.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The Government is working at pace to respond to the Law Commission’s review of hate crime laws and develop a new Hate Crime Strategy, and intends to publish the new Strategy shortly.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what plans the Government has to increase the resources available to the police to investigate online communications offences.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
We are recruiting an additional 20,000 police officers by March 2023, the biggest recruitment drive in decades. As at 31 March 2022, 13,576 additional officers have been recruited as part of the Police Uplift Programme in England and Wales, 68% of the 20,000 officer target.
On the 2nd February 2022, the Government published a total police funding settlement of up to £16.9 billion in 2022/23, an increase of up to £1.1 billion when compared to 2021/22. This includes funding for national priorities, such as tackling serious violence and county lines.
This significant investment shows the Government is committed to supporting the entire policing sector.
It is for Chief Constables and directly elected Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs), and Mayors with PCC functions to make operational decisions including how to allocate resource based on their local knowledge and experience.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps the Government has taken to assess whether the current powers available to law enforcement are sufficient to tackle illegal anonymous abuse online; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
If an offence is committed law enforcement can request data relating to the use of anonymous social media accounts through the communications data powers available to them under the Investigatory Powers Act 2016.
The Home Office will be reviewing and publishing a report on the operation of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 which provides the statutory basis for the use of investigatory powers.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many times (a) he and (b) his officials have met with representatives of groups working to tackle online harms in respect of (i) anti-black racism, (ii) anti-Muslim hatred, (iii) antisemitism, (iv) homophobia, (v) child sexual exploitation and abuse and (f) terrorism in the last three months; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Across Government, we regularly engage with civil society representatives to understand the online threat communities face and to help inform our efforts to tackle online harms. We are clear that what is unacceptable offline should be unacceptable online.
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. We are also working with civil society partners and social media platforms to encourage victim reporting of online hate crime, including hateful online abuse related to Covid-19.
Home Office officials also meet a range of stakeholders regularly to discuss the online child sexual exploitation and abuse threat and what can and is being done to tackle it. This includes technology companies, non-governmental organisations and other government partners. We have recently been engaging with relevant organisations on the Voluntary Principles to Counter Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse and the government’s online harms agenda.
The Government does not routinely comment on Ministerial meetings which are held as part of the process of policy development and delivery.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to tackle misogyny and racism experienced by Muslim women.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
This government recognises the discrimination and intolerance faced by Muslim communities. We have some of the strongest legislation in the world to tackle hate crime and, where groups incite racial hatred or are engaged in racially or religiously motivated criminal activity, we would expect them to be prosecuted.
The Government has taken steps to combat anti-Muslim Hatred through supporting Tell MAMA (Measuring Anti-Muslim Attacks) with just over £2.8m between 2016 and 2020 to monitor and combat anti-Muslim hatred.
In addition, the Places of Worship protective security funding scheme, which provides security measures for mosques and other places of worship, has been allocated £3.2m for 2020-21, double what was awarded last year.
We also funded a national public awareness hate crime campaign in 2018 and 2019 which includes a specific example of anti-Muslim hatred to make clear the Government’s position that such incidents are unacceptable and are a crime.
The Home Office have also funded specific locally targeted projects including through the Building Stronger Britain Together programme tackling both the far right and perceptions of Islamophobia
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what progress has been made toward securing the future of family reunion routes in negotiations with the EU; and whether the UK will continue to apply the Dublin III Regulation if the UK leaves the EU without a deal.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
If the UK leaves the EU with a deal we will continue to participate in the Dublin III Regulation, under which unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in the EU currently reunite with family members in other EU Member States, during the implementation period.
The UK would cease participating in the Dublin III Regulation immediately if we were to leave the EU without a deal. However, the Immigration, Nationality and Asylum (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 makes a ‘saving’ such that any Dublin family reunion cases which have entered the system prior to exit day will continue to be processed in a no deal situation.
We want a close future partnership to tackle the shared challenges on asylum and illegal migration. Section 17 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 commits the Government to seek to negotiate an agreement with the EU which allows for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in the EU to join family members lawfully present in the UK, where it is in their best interests. This commitment stands whether we leave the EU with or without a deal. Effecting transfers relies on an agreement being in place and we endeavour to negotiate such an agreement as soon as possible.
In either a deal or no deal scenario, children will still be able to apply to join family members in the UK who benefit from international protection under the UK’s refugee family reunion provisions under the Immigration Rules.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, for what reason the UK has not opted into EU Directive 2018/1673 on combating money laundering by criminal law.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
As set out in the Eighth Annual Report to Parliament on the Application of Protocols 19 and 21 to the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and the Treaty on the Functioning of the Union (TFEU) in Relation to EU Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) Matters (1 December 2016 – 30 November 2017) (Cm 9580), the UK Government decided not to opt into the EU Directive on combating money laundering by criminal law as our domestic legislation is already largely compliant with the Directive’s measures, and in relation to the offences and sentences set out in the Directive, the UK already goes much further. Therefore, it was not considered that opting in would enhance the UK’s approach to tackling money laundering.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the equivalence of the UK's corporate liability regime achieve with article 7 (the liability of legal persons) of EU Directive 2018/1673 on combating money laundering by criminal law.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
As set out in the Eighth Annual Report to Parliament on the Application of Protocols 19 and 21 to the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and the Treaty on the Functioning of the Union (TFEU) in Relation to EU Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) Matters (1 December 2016 – 30 November 2017) (Cm 9580), the UK Government decided not to opt into the EU Directive on combating money laundering by criminal law as our domestic legislation is already largely compliant with the Directive’s measures, and in relation to the offences and sentences set out in the Directive, the UK already goes much further. Therefore, it was not considered that opting in would enhance the UK’s approach to tackling money laundering.