Asked by: Fiona Bruce (Conservative - Congleton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of level of risk of online harms for children including (a) child sexual abuse and (b) exposure to inappropriate sexual content on social media during the covid-19 pandemic.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
The Government recognises that the measures required to tackle COVID-19 mean it is likely that more people are spending more time online, including children and vulnerable users.
The Internet Watch Foundation reported an increase of almost 50% in indecent images of children online over an eleven-week period during lockdown and that there were 8.8 million attempts by UK internet users to access child sexual abuse imagery during a one-month period during lockdown.
We have worked with technology companies, civil society and academia on online harms and amplifying messages to ensure online child users are protected. We have also worked across government and agencies to ensure that teachers and parents and carers have access to the support they need to help keep children safe online. This includes the launch at the start of national lockdown in March, of the NCA-CEOP Education team’s #OnlineSafetyAtHome campaign, to reach those most at risk, as a result of which ThinkuKnow resources aimed at parents, carers and children have now been downloaded over half a million times.
Protecting children is at the heart of our Online Harms agenda, and wider government priorities. We expect companies to use a proportionate range of tools, including age assurance and age verification technologies, to prevent children accessing age-inappropriate content and to protect them from other harms.
Our proposals as part of the Online Harms framework sets out our plans to introduce world-leading legislation to tackle harmful content online and make the UK the safest place in the world to be online. This legislation will include a legal duty of care on online platforms, backed up by an independent regulator to hold them to account. This will make companies more responsible for their user’s safety online, especially children.
Asked by: Fiona Bruce (Conservative - Congleton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people her Department is housing in the Chimney House Hotel, Sandbach; and for how long those people have been so housed.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
The number of asylum seekers accommodated in each local authority can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/asylum-and-resettlement-datasets#asylum-support
This includes the numbers of those accommodated under Section 98, Section 95 and Section 4.The length of stay varies, with the average length of stay not available in a reportable format. To provide the information could only be done at disproportionate cost.
It is Home Office policy to move people into suitable Dispersed Accommodation (DA) once their claim for support has been assessed.The current global pandemic has presented significant challenges when it comes to the provision of asylum accommodation. This has included the need to source sufficient accommodation to meet demand.
A comprehensive cessation plan has been established with input from Local Authorities, Other Government Departments and Stakeholders to reduce the number of people in hotels.Work to explore further options to accommodate asylum seekers have included work with the Ministry of Defence to identify and to utilise MOD sites at short notice.
This accommodation is contingency accommodation, whilst pressures in the system are addressed and will be discontinued as soon as the Home Office is able to do so.Our accommodation providers are working to maximise their procurement plans throughout the UK, but they can only do so with Local Authority agreement. It is our intention to move all individuals in contingency accommodation into suitable DA as soon as reasonably practical.
Asked by: Fiona Bruce (Conservative - Congleton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many (a) people are eligible for compensation and (b) people have received compensation from the Windrush compensation scheme.
Answered by Priti Patel - Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs
An updated Impact Assessment was published in February 2020 which outlines the Home Office’s estimate that there could be 11,500 eligible claims to the Windrush Compensation Scheme.
This has reduced since the previous Impact Assessment was published in April 2019 (which predicted 15,000 eligible claims), due to lower than anticipated claims to date.
There inevitably is a high degree of uncertainty around estimated volumes of claims and the Department will continue to review estimates as more payments are made.
Information on the total number of applications, claims paid and the overall amount paid out by the scheme since April 2019 is available to view on GOV.UK at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/windrush-compensation-scheme-data-may-2020.
Asked by: Fiona Bruce (Conservative - Congleton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when she plans to publish the Government's alcohol strategy.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Government is working to reduce alcohol-related harms with the NHS long-term plan, the prevention Green Paper, support for children of alcohol-dependent parents and action to tackle alcohol-related violent crime. Together, this work constitutes an effective package to address alcohol abuse. We are not planning a stand-alone strategy.
Asked by: Fiona Bruce (Conservative - Congleton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the timeframe is for the publication of the Home Office funded research by the University of Bristol on prostitution policy.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
As part of the Government’s response to the 2016 Home Affairs Select Committee report into prostitution, the Home Office provided £150,000 to fund research specifically into the nature and prevalence of prostitution in England and Wales.
This independent research was led by the University of Bristol and was published on 30 October 2019. It is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nature-of-prostitution-and-sex-work-in-england-and-wales