Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the impact of the reduction to the Official Development Assistance budget on the UK’s security; and if she will publish that assessment.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Foreign Secretary is the Secretary of State with overall responsibility for the UK ODA budget and assessing the impact of any reductions.
Regarding the Home Office ODA budget allocation, the Home Office’s non-discretionary ODA in–donor spend on refugees and asylum seekers in the UK will not be changed, in alignment with our legal obligations.
Between our ODA and CSSF allocations we have maintained the vast majority of our other ODA funded activity. Much of our work overseas seeks to support host country law enforcement agencies to develop their capabilities in preventing the spread of illicit commodities and illegal movement of people. The Home Office also has overseas law enforcement work which is funded from core non-ODA budgets. Some of our ODA funded activity was planned to stop at the end of FY 20/21 as part of conventional multi-year programme planning. In some cases the activity overseas has been scaled back.
The interventions the Home Office are making with our ODA budget are crucial to addressing developing countries needs to become more open societies, strengthen public intuitions and facilitating economic development. This is in turn will support the UK’s ability to counter serious and organised crime and illegal migration in the future.
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate she has made of the security costs associated with hosting the G7 summit in Cornwall; and which Government Department is responsible for meeting those costs.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Cabinet Office G7 Presidency Taskforce hold a central budget for the UK presidency year. The Government will meet the additional costs incurred by Devon and Cornwall police for the G7 Leaders’ Summit which is subject to a Home Office assurance process.
The full policing costs for major events are not known until after the event, due to the responsive nature of the work.
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to (a) reduce incidences and (b) raise awareness of delivery text scams.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Fraudsters are sophisticated and will exploit any vulnerabilities they can, especially as more of us find ourselves at home and online.
We are working hard to tackle fraud. As part of the 2020 Spending Review, the Government committed a further £63m to the Home Office to tackle economic crime, including fraud. This is in addition to the funding the Home Office commits each year to the National Economic Crime Centre in the NCA, and police forces, including over £15m each year to the City of London Police as the national lead force for fraud.
The Dedicated Card and Payment Crime Unit (DCPCU), a specialist unit which was set up last year in collaboration with City of London Police, the Metropolitan Police and UK Finance, recently made 8 arrests as part of an investigation in Royal Mail text scams (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-57226704).
However, we recognise there is still more to do, and are working closely with DCMS, the telecommunication industry, regulators and consumer groups to tackle fraud and close those vulnerabilities (e.g., like the ability to ‘spoof’ the number of a legitimate organisation) criminals too easily exploit in order to protect the public.
We are also raising awareness among the public to help them protect themselves.
Royal Mail has issued guidance on how to spot fake emails and communications and what to do if you have received one. More information can be found on the Royal Mail’s website: https://www.royalmail.com/help/scam-examples.
Action Fraud issued an alert on delivery scams on 23 December last year (found here: https://www.actionfraudalert.co.uk/da/357020/Scam%20warning%20-%20Fake%20DPD%20emails%20and%20texts.html).
We continue to encourage the public to forward suspicious text messages to 7726 (which is free of charge) and anyone who has been a targeted by a scam to report it. Action Fraud is the national reporting service for all victims of fraud and cybercrime and can be contacted by phone on 0300 123 2040 or through their website: http://www.actionfraud.police.uk/report_fraud.
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many reported instances of fraud committed by fake travel operators there were in each year since 2010.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Home Office collects quarterly data on the number of reports of fraud made to Action Fraud and that have been recorded as criminal offences by the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB). This data is published as official statistics by the Office for National Statistics on a quarterly basis and is available from June 2015 to December 2020 in table A5 below:
It is not possible to distinguish how many reports of fraud committed by fake travel operators were recorded as these could fall under the various fraud types, such as ‘Time share and holiday fraud’, ‘Ticket fraud’ and ‘Other fraud’ depending on the circumstances.
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions she has had with (a) social media companies and (b) online accommodation booking platforms on tackling holiday and travel related fraud since the recent easing of international travel restrictions.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
Fraudsters will use any hook to commit these crimes and COVID-19 has been no exception. We have seen criminals exploiting people’s unease and fear of the pandemic through opportunistically selling bogus PPE, running phishing campaigns impersonating government departments, and even vaccine fraud.
As restrictions begin to ease, it is important that we continue to remain vigilant to any risks and vulnerabilities. That is why we are engaging with the private sector to discuss the threat from online fraud and the need to prevent fraud and protect the public on these platforms.
As set out in our Economic Crime Plan (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/economic-crime-plan-2019-to-2022), we are clear that a public- private partnership is essential in tackling fraud. Government, industry, law enforcement, regulators and consumer groups are in regular conversation with the aim of protecting the public from fraud. This includes developing some voluntary charters of the actions that certain industries, including online platforms, will take to prevent fraud.
The Government will build on this work through our Fraud Action Plan, an ambitious approach grounded in prevention, education, effective enforcement and regulatory reforms that will be published after the Spending Review.
We continue to encourage anyone who has been a targeted by fraud to report it. Action Fraud is the central police reporting point for all victims of fraud and can be contacted by phone on 0300 123 2040 or through their website: https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/reporting-fraud-and-cyber-crime. This information is being used by the City of London Police alongside crime reports to identify, disrupt and stop fraudsters.
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate she has made of the number of people who have fallen victim to scammers purporting to be part of the delivery or courier industry since March 2020.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Home Office collects data on the number of fraud offences recorded by the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) but cases relating to delivery or courier fraud are not separately identifiable.
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the status is of her Department's public consultation on Protect Duty, announced on 24 February 2020; and what the timescale is for that consultation.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Home Office remains committed to developing a Protect Duty to further improve security at publicly accessible locations. We will launch a public consultation for the duty by the end of February.
This launch had been paused due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on many of the organisations we would hope to respond.
We know public venues and spaces vary; across sectors, size, geographies and nature of their operations. Whilst circumstances vary between different sectors and organisations, we know many have been dealing with an increased workload during COVID-19.
We will progress with an 18-week consultation period (instead of the usual 12) to take us into the summer, when we hope that the impacts of COVID-19 will lessen and businesses should be in a better position to engage with the consultation.
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 14 December 2020 to Question 126066, for what reason her Department does not collect information on the number of people re-arrested after being previously released on terrorism-related charges.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
National security is a Government priority and we take police activity to disrupt individuals suspected of terrorism-related activity seriously.
The Home Office publishes quarterly national statistics on the use of police powers under the Terrorism Act 2000 and subsequent relevant legislation in Great Britain. This includes information on arrests, charges and convictions for terrorism-related offences. The most recent publication up to the quarter ending September 2020 was published on 10 December on GOV.UK: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/operation-of-police-powers-under-the-terrorism-act-2000-quarterly-update-to-september-2020.
The quarterly publications establish transparency by ensuring that data is publicly available on the use of police powers in a consistently categorised way. As with all crime statistics published by the Home Office, data providers are not required to routinely provide further detail on an individual’s previous arrest and charge history, as to do so would place a disproportionate burden on the organisations responsible, particularly the National Counter-Terrorism Police Operations Centre. As with all Official Statistics, we continually review outputs taking account of user needs.
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on work permits for creative workers since 24 December 2020.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office and Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport hold regular bilateral discussions on a range of policy issues at official and Ministerial level.
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what her Department's policy is on the use of Mode IV exemptions for mobility.
Answered by Kevin Foster
It is common for free trade agreements to include Mode IV commitments on the temporary entry of businesspersons. These commitments do not exempt such persons from immigration control.
It is Home Office policy to ensure any such commitments are delivered through its domestic immigration requirements, in particular through the Intra-Company Transfer, Tier 5 International Agreement Worker and Visitor categories of the Immigration Rules.