Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to (a) tackle misogyny in society, and (b) implement measures to tackle domestic and intimate partner violence.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
Tackling violence against women and girls is a top priority for the Government. These crimes include rape, sexual violence, domestic abuse, stalking, ‘honour’-based abuse including female genital mutilation and forced marriage, ‘revenge port’ and ‘upskirting’. They have a profound and long-lasting impact on victims and have absolutely no place in our society.
On July 21 we published our new cross-Government Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Strategy to help ensure that women and girls are safe everywhere- at home, online and on the streets.
A key new commitment in the VAWG Strategy is a multimillion-pound national communications campaign with a focus on targeting perpetrators and harmful misogynistic attitudes, educating young people about healthy relationships and ensuring victims can access support. Work is underway to launch this campaign this year.
Our landmark Domestic Abuse Act, alongside a comprehensive action plan of non-legislative measures, will help tackle domestic abuse by ensuring that victims have the confidence to come forward and report their experience, safe in the knowledge that the justice system and other agencies will do everything they can both to protect and support them and pursue the abuser. We have already begun to implement the Act and will continue to do so across criminal justice systems and agencies later this year.
In the coming months we will also publish a strategy dedicated to tackling domestic abuse, going beyond the implementation of the Act. This Domestic Abuse Strategy complements the VAWG Strategy and will seek to transform the whole of society’s response to prevent offending, support victims, pursue perpetrators and strengthen the systems processes in place needed to deliver these goals.
The Law Commission’s review of hate crime laws was commissioned by the Government in 2018. This review examined the coverage and approach of existing hate crime legislation, including consideration of whether other protected characteristics, including sex/gender, should be included. The Law Commission published its final recommendations on 7 December.
We are grateful to the Law Commission for the detailed consideration it has given to its review. The Government will consider its proposals carefully and respond to the recommendations in due course.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of passports applied for under the 1 Week Fast Track scheme were delivered within one week in each of the 12 months to 31 October 2021.
Answered by Kevin Foster
There is no integration of the system used for passport application processing and the one used by third-party suppliers for delivery services. This means whilst Her Majesty’s Passport Office is able to monitor performance on a case-by-case basis for customer service purposes, there is no accurate measure of whole service performance to the point of delivery.
Under the terms of the Fast Track service, passports will be delivered on or before the seventh day following an appointment before 12.30pm, or the eighth day for appointments after this time. Passports printed under the Fast Track service are delivered to customers the following day through a 24-hour service level.
The data attached shows the volume of passports printed under the Fast Track service within 144 hours (six days) of the application being submitted. Due to COVID-19, the Fast Track service was suspended until April 2021, with exceptions primarily on compassionate grounds.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of restrictions in the Immigration Act 2016 that a tenancy cannot be offered to NHS staff without a minimum of a Band 5 qualification.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Anyone with lawful immigration status in the UK can access the private rented housing sector, regardless of their qualifications, employment or income.
The Right to Rent Scheme came into force under the Immigration Act 2014. It was launched to ensure only those lawfully present in the UK can access the private rented sector, and to tackle unscrupulous landlords who exploit vulnerable migrants, sometimes in very poor conditions.
The Immigration Act 2016 introduced criminal offences for landlords and letting agents who knowingly let property to individuals without lawful immigration status. It does not carry any restrictions on the right to rent for individuals who are lawfully present in the UK.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate her Department has made of the total cost of Operation Sheridan.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The Home Office does not hold this information. Management of operations is a matter for individual police forces.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to ensure the integrity of criminal investigations after police conduct has been referred to the Independent Office for Police Conduct; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
All police forces, as well as the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), operate independently from the Government.
The police and complaints and discipline systems, reformed by this Government in February 2020, set out the legislative framework that relevant bodies are required to follow in the event of adverse incidents resulting in a death or serious injury during or following contact with the police, complaints against the police, or should police conduct matters arise.
Where the IOPC determines that, following referral of a complaint, an investigation should be carried out locally by the force, the complainant has a right to apply for a review of the outcome by the IOPC. IOPC remains the review body. The IOPC can also decide to change its original investigation decision and investigate independently.
Decisions taken by the IOPC can be challenged by way of judicial review.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to help prevent illegal immigration into the United Kingdom.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
To prevent illegal entry into the UK, the Government has introduced the Nationality and Borders Bill, which will:
o Search unaccompanied containers located within ports for the presence of illegal migrants;
o Seize and dispose of any vessels intercepted and encountered;
o Stop and divert vessels suspected of carrying illegal migrants to the UK and, subject to agreement with the relevant country such as France, return them to where their sea journey to the UK began.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many applications to become a police officer were received by the police in (a) 2019 and (b) 2020; how many of those applications disclosed a previous or existing mental health condition; and how many of those who disclosed a previous or existing mental health condition in their application form received a job offer.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
Data on applications to become a police officer were not collected by the Home Office prior to October 2019. Since the launch of the Government’s drive to recruit an additional 20,000 police officers by March 2023 data on the number of applications to become a police officer have been published quarterly in the Police Officer Uplift statistics.
The latest release, covering the situation as at 31 March 2021, shows that 139,312 applications to become a police officer have been received by police forces since October 2019.
The next release, covering the situation to 30 June 2021, is scheduled for publication on 28th July, and will be available alongside previous releases here: Police Officer uplift statistics - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
The Home Office does not collect any information on the number of applications or job offers where a previous or existing mental health condition has been disclosed.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council has applied to the Safer Streets Fund.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
No application was received from Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council to the second round of the Safer Streets Fund.
On 3 June we announced that 50 projects have been awarded a total of £18.4 million from the second round of the SSF to invest in crime prevention projects to tackle neighbourhood crimes, such as burglary, vehicle theft and robbery.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of further submissions following the refusal of an asylum application are decided (a) within six months and (b) within one year of submission.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
Home Office records indicate that a) 68% of Further Submissions lodged following refusal of an asylum application are decided within 6 months and b) 79% of Further Submissions lodged following refusal of an asylum application are decided within 12 months.
Where people who have previously been refused asylum in the UK wish to make representations in support of a fresh asylum application these are recorded as Further Submissions.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what plans she has to extend the automatic visa renewal to people who are working on a dependent visa.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The automatic visa extension offer for key frontline health workers, applies to anyone subject to UK immigration control, who works in one of the defined eligible occupations, and whose visa expires between 31 March and 1 October. It also covers immediate family members of those who are eligible.