Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Widnes and Halewood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent estimate she has made of the number of organised crime gangs operating in (a) Merseyside and Cheshire, (b) North West England and (c) England.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
The Home Office does not hold any publicly available data or information on the number of organised crime gangs.
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Widnes and Halewood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum seekers have been placed in each (a) constituency and (b) English local authority area in each month since 1 April 2022.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The latest published Immigration Statistics detail the number of asylum seekers accommodated in each local authority area. These statistics can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/asylum-and-resettlement-datasets#asylum-support(opens in a new tab) Data is published on a quarterly basis, with the latest information published 23 February 2023.
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Widnes and Halewood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum applications have been refused in each year since 2017; and how many asylum seekers who have had their applications refused have been removed from the UK in each year since 2017.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office publishes data on asylum and returns in the ‘Immigration Statistics Quarterly Release’. Data on initial decisions on asylum applications are published in table Asy_D02 of the ‘asylum and resettlement detailed datasets’. Data on numbers of asylum-related returns are published in table Ret_05 of the ‘Returns summary datasets’. Information on how to use the datasets can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbook. The latest data for initial decisions on asylum applications relates to the year ending September 2022. The latest data for returns statistics relates to the end of June 2022.
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Widnes and Halewood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 19 December 2022 on Asylum, how many decision makers were in post as of 13 December 2022.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
There were 1280 decision makers in post as of 13 December 2022. This equates to 1246.76 full time equivalent (FTE) decision makers. This is double the FTE decision makers in 2021/2022 and we are continuing to recruit more decision makers to help clear the asylum backlog by the end of 2023.
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Widnes and Halewood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to Prime Minister's Answer to the hon. Member for Halton during his oral statement on Illegal Immigration on 13 December 2022, Official Report, column 902, what the evidential basis was for saying that the initial asylum backlog is approximately 117,000.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Office records information relating to asylum applications on case working systems. Information derived from these systems – including data on the number of asylum cases awaiting an initial decision – are published in the quarterly Immigration Statistics. The latest data show that there were 117,400 applications awaiting an initial decision at the end of September 2022.
The underlying data can be found in table Asy_D03 of the ‘asylum and resettlement detailed datasets’. Information on how to use the datasets can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbooks. Please note, the data show a snapshot as at the last day of each quarter, rather than the number of asylum applications awaiting a decision over the entire quarter. Additional information can be found in the User Guide to: Immigration Statistics.
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Widnes and Halewood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the Prime Minister's Answer to the hon. Member for Halton during his oral statement of 13 December 2022 on Illegal Immigration, Official Report, column 902, for what reason she has not set a target for the removal from the UK of asylum seekers whose application have been rejected.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Government wants to maximise the number of people returned from the United Kingdom through both voluntary and enforced routes.
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Widnes and Halewood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the Prime Minister's oral statement of 13 December 2022 on Illegal Immigration, Official Report, column 885, what estimate she has made of when the number of asylum caseworkers will be doubled.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
We will recruit further staff and expect to have 2,500 decision makers in post by September 2023.
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Widnes and Halewood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of Association of Convenience Stores Crime Report 2019 findings that (a) the total cost of crime for the convenience sector was £246 million, (b) there were 9,782 incidents of violence against people working in local shops and (c) that convenience retailers had invested £4,080 per store in crime prevention equipment; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
All forms of retail crime are unacceptable, and everyone has the right to feel safe at work.
I chair the National Retail Crime Steering Group (NRCSG) which brings together partners including the police, trade bodies – including the Association of Convenience Stores - and retailers and is overseeing a range of work to tackle retail crime. This includes the collation and dissemination of good practice and developing guidance on the use of Impact Statements for Business, which give victims of business crime the opportunity to set out the impact the crime has had on the business, including, for example, financial loss. The NRCSG also continues to work with retailers to improve the management and response to shop theft using a partnership ap-proach according to local circumstances.
Government encourages businesses to continue their efforts to protect themselves from crime, and I commend the investment that the convenient sector has made.
On 21 January I announced that we will launch a call for evidence on violence and abuse towards shop workers to strengthen our understanding of this issue, including how existing legislation is being applied.
In addition, the Sentencing Council is reviewing its guidelines on assault and a consultation on a revised guideline is anticipated to commence this Summer.