Asked by: Dan Poulter (Conservative - Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many times Section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983 has been used (a) in total, (b) by region and (c) by ethnic group in each year since 2005.
Answered by Nick Hurd
The Home Office has collected and published information on the number of persons detained under section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983, including information on the ethnicity of those being detained, since April 2015.
Data for 2015/16 were requested on a voluntary basis only. Information was provided by 15 forces, and data on section 136 detentions were published as ‘experimental statistics’ in Annex B of the ‘Police powers, England and Wales’ statistical bulletin, in October 2016: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-powers-and-procedures-england-and-wales-year-ending-31-march-2016
The data covering the 2016/17 time period is due to be published in the next edition of the ‘Police powers and procedures, England and Wales’ statistical bulletin, which is scheduled for release on Thursday 26th October, and will be available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/police-powers-and-procedures-england-and-wales
Information on the number of detentions under section 135 of the Mental Health Act 1983 will be published as ‘experimental statistics’ in Annex A of the next edition of the ‘Police powers and procedures, England and Wales’ statistical bulletin.
Prior to data being collected by the Home Office, the National Police Chiefs’ Council collected information on the number of detentions under section 136 of the Mental Health Act. Data covering the 2015/16 time period, broken down by police force area, are available here: http://www.npcc.police.uk/documents/S136%20Data%202015%2016.pdf
Previous year’s data can be found here: http://www.npcc.police.uk/documents/edhr/2015/Section%20136%20MHA%20201415%20Data.pdf
Asked by: Dan Poulter (Conservative - Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many times Section 135 of the Mental Health Act 1983 has been used (a) in total, (b) by region and (c) by ethnic group in each year since 2005.
Answered by Nick Hurd
The Home Office has collected and published information on the number of persons detained under section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983, including information on the ethnicity of those being detained, since April 2015.
Data for 2015/16 were requested on a voluntary basis only. Information was provided by 15 forces, and data on section 136 detentions were published as ‘experimental statistics’ in Annex B of the ‘Police powers, England and Wales’ statistical bulletin, in October 2016: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-powers-and-procedures-england-and-wales-year-ending-31-march-2016
The data covering the 2016/17 time period is due to be published in the next edition of the ‘Police powers and procedures, England and Wales’ statistical bulletin, which is scheduled for release on Thursday 26th October, and will be available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/police-powers-and-procedures-england-and-wales
Information on the number of detentions under section 135 of the Mental Health Act 1983 will be published as ‘experimental statistics’ in Annex A of the next edition of the ‘Police powers and procedures, England and Wales’ statistical bulletin.
Prior to data being collected by the Home Office, the National Police Chiefs’ Council collected information on the number of detentions under section 136 of the Mental Health Act. Data covering the 2015/16 time period, broken down by police force area, are available here: http://www.npcc.police.uk/documents/S136%20Data%202015%2016.pdf
Previous year’s data can be found here: http://www.npcc.police.uk/documents/edhr/2015/Section%20136%20MHA%20201415%20Data.pdf
Asked by: Dan Poulter (Conservative - Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to tackle global cyber terrorism.
Answered by Ben Wallace
In November 2016 the Government published a new five year National Cyber Security Strategy, which is supported by £1.9billion of transformational investment which includes a programme of active cyber defence; the creation of the National Cyber Security Centre, and a dedicated ability to counter-attack in cyber space.
The Home Office works closely with both the National Cyber Security Programme and the National Cyber Security Centre to ensure that we have a consistent and joined up understanding of, and approach to the terrorist cyber threat. As set out in the Gracious speech, our counter-terrorism strategy will be reviewed. We will look at our whole counter-terrorism approach across Government, police, local authorities and the security services to ensure they have what they need to protect our country.
Asked by: Dan Poulter (Conservative - Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the oral contribution of the then Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice on 20 January 2016, Official Report, column 1479, what progress her Department has made on the use of cannabis for the purposes of medicinal research.
Answered by Sarah Newton
Access to controlled drugs for legitimate medicinal (or exceptionally for industrial purposes) is permitted through the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001.
There is a clear regime in place, administered by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), to enable medicines (including those containing controlled drugs such as cannabis) to be developed, licensed and made available for medicinal use to patients in the UK. For example, the cannabis-based medicine ‘sativex’ has been granted Marketing Authorisation in the UK by the MHRA for the treatment of spasticity due to multiple sclerosis. Sativex was rigorously tested for its safety and efficacy before receiving approval for this application.
The MHRA is open to considering marketing approval applications for other medicinal cannabis products should a product be developed. As happened in the case of sativex, the Home Office will consider issuing a licence to enable trials of any new medicine providing it complies with appropriate ethical approvals.
Asked by: Dan Poulter (Conservative - Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to ensure the police represent the communities they serve in (a) rural and (b) other areas.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
We need a modern diverse police force to police modern diverse communities. The police must understand communities to effectively police them.
The Government has reformed policing to ensure that there is a sector-led approach to making improvements, including in the area of recruitment and representation. The Government’s reforms will allow for faster progress on equality and Diversity. For example, new entry routes to policing are proving attractive and increasing the diversity of the police workforce. Police and Crime Commissioners and the College of Policing as the professional body for policing in England and Wales are playing a key role in ensuring improvements in forces, and for the first time we have published force by force diversity statistics which will allow the public to directly compare the diversity of their police force with the population it serves.
Asked by: Dan Poulter (Conservative - Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what average time was taken by the Independent Police Complaints Commission to complete its complaints process in each year since 2005.
Answered by Mike Penning
Home Office officials work closely with the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) to monitor how they are delivering their objectives. The IPCC provide regular performance information to the Home Office, including information on the timeliness of completed cases, which are scrutinised closely by my officials as part of the business and corporate planning process. The Home office is working with the IPCC to develop appropriate performance measures for 2016-17, including more streamlined public access to IPCC timeliness information.
On 7 March, the Home Secretary announced plans to reform the IPCC’s Governance, to make it more effective and more responsive to the public. These plans were published on the gov.uk website: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/reforming-the-independent-police-complaints-commission-structure-and-governance We continue to provide additional funding to support the IPCC to expand to deliver an increased volume of timely, high quality investigations. I will ask the IPCC to write to the Honourable Member in response to the request for average times to complete the complaints process, and will ask for this response to be made available in the House Library.
Asked by: Dan Poulter (Conservative - Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to reduce the time taken by the Independent Police Complaints Commission to resolve complaints.
Answered by Mike Penning
Home Office officials work closely with the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) to monitor how they are delivering their objectives. The IPCC provide regular performance information to the Home Office, including information on the timeliness of completed cases, which are scrutinised closely by my officials as part of the business and corporate planning process. The Home office is working with the IPCC to develop appropriate performance measures for 2016-17, including more streamlined public access to IPCC timeliness information.
On 7 March, the Home Secretary announced plans to reform the IPCC’s Governance, to make it more effective and more responsive to the public. These plans were published on the gov.uk website: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/reforming-the-independent-police-complaints-commission-structure-and-governance We continue to provide additional funding to support the IPCC to expand to deliver an increased volume of timely, high quality investigations. I will ask the IPCC to write to the Honourable Member in response to the request for average times to complete the complaints process, and will ask for this response to be made available in the House Library.