Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking to help tackle modern slavery in (a) Enfield North constituency, (b) the London Borough of Enfield and (c) London.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
Tackling modern slavery remains a priority for this government. We are committed to stamping out this abhorrent crime, working closely with law enforcement, criminal justice partners, business, civil society and local government to do so.
The UK response is underpinned by the Modern Slavery Strategy 2014 and the Modern Slavery Act 2015, which has given law enforcement agencies the tools to tackle modern slavery, including maximum life sentences for perpetrators and enhanced protection for victims.
In addition to core police funding, since 2016 we have invested £17.8 million in the Modern Slavery and Organised Immigration Crime Unit - a specialist police unit which supports all police forces in England and Wales, including the Metropolitan Police Service, to improve their response to modern slavery by increasing forces’ capability to identify and prosecute modern slavery crimes.
The Metropolitan Police Service (MET) also operates a dedicated Modern Slavery and Child Exploitation Team staffed by specialist officers, which plays a vital role in tackling modern slavery across London.
The National Referral Mechanism (NRM) is the framework for identifying and referring potential victims of modern slavery and ensuring they receive the appropriate support. If a First Responder thinks that modern slavery has taken place, the case should be referred to the NRM so that the relevant competent authority can fully consider the case. This process operates across all of England and Wales.
The Home Office also funds the Modern Slavery Victim Care Contract (MSVCC) to provide specialist support to adult victims of modern slavery in England and Wales. A total of 10,704 adults in England and Wales received support through the MSVCC during the year ending June 2023, the largest number supported for any year since the contract began.
In addition to local child protection procedures and support, the Government has rolled out Independent Child Trafficking Guardians (ICTGs) to two thirds of local authorities in England and Wales. The ICTG service provides an additional source of advice and support for potentially trafficked children, irrespective of nationality or immigration status. ICTGs currently operate in London, including Enfield.
The Devolved Decision-Making Pilot, which aims to test whether determining if a child is a victim of modern slavery within existing safeguarding structures is a better model for making modern slavery decisions for children is being tested in 20 pilot sites across the UK. The pilot has 8 pilot sites in Greater London, covering 10 local authorities, including Enfield Council.
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many raids were carried out by Border Force in (a) Enfield North constituency, (b) the London Borough of Enfield and (c) London in 2023.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson - Minister of State (Minister for Illegal Migration)
Immigration have carried out the following intelligence led enforcement visits from 01/01/2023 to 30/09/2023 to:
Enfield North constituency – 60
London Borough of Enfield – 118
Greater London (Excluding Enfield) - 2488
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department is taking to help support the warehouse industry in (a) Enfield North constituency, (b) the London Borough of Enfield and (c) London.
Answered by Jacob Young - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
Warehousing is a key part of the country’s supply chains, ensuring vital goods are available to businesses and consumers. The National Planning Policy Framework is clear that planning policies and decisions should recognise and address the specific locational requirements of different sectors.
This includes making provision for storage and distribution operations at a variety of scales and in suitably accessible locations. Enfield’s strategic position provides an important role in delivering economic growth to the area, and delivering the right sort of warehousing and logistical infrastructure is a key part of this.
My department will continue to work with the sector to maximise productivity.
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking to tackle anti-social behaviour in (a) Enfield North Constituency, (b) the London Borough of Enfield and (c) London.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
Last year the Government launched the Anti-social Behaviour Action Plan (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/anti-social-behaviour-action-plan) ensuring the police, local authorities and other relevant agencies have the tools they need to tackle anti-social behaviour.
The plan is backed by £160m of funding. This includes funding an increased police and other uniformed presence to clamp down on anti-social behaviour, targeting hotspots. Initially we worked with 10 police force areas, but on 15 February we announced total funding of £66m will be allocated to every police force to support a hotspot approach across England and Wales from April onwards.
We are also strengthening police and local authority powers to tackle anti-social behaviour through a number of measures in the Criminal Justice Bill.
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking to help tackle violent assaults in (a) Enfield North Constituency, (b) the London Borough of Enfield and (c) London.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
Since 2019, the Home Office has provided over £43m of funding for a London Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) (including £9.5m this year) which is providing a multi-agency, preventative response designed to tackle the drivers of serious violence and knife crime. In addition, we have invested over £60m (including c.£8.9m this year) in ‘hotspot policing’ to boost the policing response to serious violence in London and provide high-visibility police patrols and problem-solving tactics in the streets and neighbourhoods most affected.
VRUs are tasked with investing in evidence-based approaches designed to steer vulnerable young people away from involvement in violence. As part of this approach, the London VRU is funding local interventions in Enfield including an outreach and detached youth team which delivers after school activities and creative sessions, 1-1 holistic support for young people, mentoring sessions and sports sessions for children and young people. Alongside this, the policing hot spot response programme is targeting key locations in Enfield Town and Fore Street. In addition to additional visible police patrols, policing interventions delivered through this programme in Enfield have included work to prevent robberies of school pupils and work to target males who were assaulting sex workers.
The government is also taking forward a programme of national activity to drive down knife crime. This includes recent consultation on new legislative proposals, including a ban of zombie-style knives and machetes. The government response was published on 30 August 2023. Following careful consideration of the responses to the consultation, a Statutory Instrument was laid in Parliament on 25 January 2024. Once the legislation has been approved by Parliament, a surrender scheme will be launched this summer to remove these items from our streets and once this has been completed, the manufacture, supply, sale and possession of zombie-style knives and machetes will be outlawed from 24 September 2024. This will cover face to face and online sales.
Additionally, through the Criminal Justice Bill 2023, which is currently progressing through parliament, we are providing more powers for police to seize knives held in private that they believe will be used for unlawful violence, increasing the maximum penalty for the offences of selling prohibited weapons and selling knives to under 18s and creating a new offence of possessing an article with blade or point or an offensive weapon with intent to commit unlawful violence.
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking to help tackle arson in (a) Enfield North Constituency, (b) the London Borough of Enfield and (c) London.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
Since 2019, the Home Office has provided over £43m of funding for a London Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) (including £9.5m this year) which is providing a multi-agency, preventative response designed to tackle the drivers of serious violence and knife crime. In addition, we have invested over £60m (including c.£8.9m this year) in ‘hotspot policing’ to boost the policing response to serious violence in London and provide high-visibility police patrols and problem-solving tactics in the streets and neighbourhoods most affected.
VRUs are tasked with investing in evidence-based approaches designed to steer vulnerable young people away from involvement in violence. As part of this approach, the London VRU is funding local interventions in Enfield including an outreach and detached youth team which delivers after school activities and creative sessions, 1-1 holistic support for young people, mentoring sessions and sports sessions for children and young people. Alongside this, the policing hot spot response programme is targeting key locations in Enfield Town and Fore Street. In addition to additional visible police patrols, policing interventions delivered through this programme in Enfield have included work to prevent robberies of school pupils and work to target males who were assaulting sex workers.
The government is also taking forward a programme of national activity to drive down knife crime. This includes recent consultation on new legislative proposals, including a ban of zombie-style knives and machetes. The government response was published on 30 August 2023. Following careful consideration of the responses to the consultation, a Statutory Instrument was laid in Parliament on 25 January 2024. Once the legislation has been approved by Parliament, a surrender scheme will be launched this summer to remove these items from our streets and once this has been completed, the manufacture, supply, sale and possession of zombie-style knives and machetes will be outlawed from 24 September 2024. This will cover face to face and online sales.
Additionally, through the Criminal Justice Bill 2023, which is currently progressing through parliament, we are providing more powers for police to seize knives held in private that they believe will be used for unlawful violence, increasing the maximum penalty for the offences of selling prohibited weapons and selling knives to under 18s and creating a new offence of possessing an article with blade or point or an offensive weapon with intent to commit unlawful violence.
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how much the Arts Council has spent in (a) Enfield North constituency, (b) the London Borough of Enfield and (c) London (i) in each year of this Parliament and (ii) since 2010.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
All successfully awarded Arts Council England investment in Enfield North, the London Borough of Enfield, and London ONS Region, April 2010-Present:
Funding Year Enfield North constituency Enfield Borough London ONS Region
2010/11 £34,050 £153,708 £39,366,238
2011/12 £9,515 £75,233 £47,166,392
2012/13 £50,000 £491,029 £348,729,487
2013/14 £195,329 £697,821 £225,578,345
2014/15 £157,991 £705,777 £280,984,241
2015/16 £8,100 £680,052 £225,004,504
2016/17 £137,056 £790,097 £223,873,225
2017/18 £90,084 £777,327 £205,562,587
2018/19 £133,235 £822,124 £224,609,953
2019/20 £250,035 £1,206,353 £265,311,863
2020/21 £906,799 £2,182,360 £478,167,469
2021/22 £923,795 £1,333,534 £302,678,586
2022/23 £864,278 £1,058,173 £285,984,508
2023/24 £746,093£1,281,282£212,007,332
Total £4,506,360 £12,254,870 £3,365,024,730
These figures are not mutually exclusive. All represented funding for Enfield North is included in the figures for the London Borough of Enfield; likewise, all Enfield Borough funding is included in the London ONS figure. Multiple-year funding agreements (such as National Portfolio Organisations) have their investment represented over the appropriate multiple funding years. A project's location data (such as local authority, constituency, or region) for all Grants for the Arts Fund (GFTA) and Development funds is determined by the applicant's postcode, and therefore does not always reflect where the actual activity took place.
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of families received funding from the Household Support Fund in (a) Enfield North Constituency, (b) the London Borough of Enfield and (c) London since October 2021.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The number of awards is reported by Local Authorities, so data at a constituency level is not available.
Over £2 billion has been allocated to date to Local Authorities in England via the Household Support Fund to help those most in need, including £14,239,973 in the London Borough of Enfield, and £339,357,037 in the Local Authorities that make up Greater London.
The most recent published management information for the Household Support Fund, including numbers of awards by Local Authority can be found at:
Household Support Fund management information: 6 October 2021 to 31 March 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of Household Support Fund awards were issued in (a) Enfield North Constituency, (b) the London Borough of Enfield and (c) London since October 2021.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The number of awards is reported by Local Authorities, so data at a constituency level is not available.
Over £2 billion has been allocated to date to Local Authorities in England via the Household Support Fund to help those most in need, including £14,239,973 in the London Borough of Enfield, and £339,357,037 in the Local Authorities that make up Greater London.
The most recent published management information for the Household Support Fund, including numbers of awards by Local Authority can be found at:
Household Support Fund management information: 6 October 2021 to 31 March 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much funding the Government allocated to establishing a National Crime Laboratory in (a) 2022 and (b) 2023.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
We are working with academia and policing to run a pilot for the National Crime & Justice Laboratory, and develop the roadmap for future years, which will bring together data held by the police and other government departments. This will aid Policing and the Home Office in answering critical questions to influence and inform better policy and help us improve Criminal Justice outcomes.
The National Crime and Justice Lab received £1.15m in 2022/23 and £2m in 2023/24.